Joel Boggess is a friend, life coach and the host for Finding Your Voice Radio. His new book is titled “Finding Your Voice” – sort through the clutter and discover clarity, confidence and direction. As Tom wrote in the endorsement: if your life is in transition, this book will prepare you to make smart steps toward a bright future. Please enjoy the blog he wrote.

Rochelle received a review from her boss one day – “My boss called me into his office and told me that I was too nurturing; that I needed to ‘crack the whip’ more’”. Heartbroken, she looked for ways to change her personality. She actually came to coaching wanted to become the person her boss told her she needed to be: assertive, outgoing, and dominant.

We started her program with the DISC Personality Profile. The DISC reveals a person’s strengths, weaknesses, and other personality traits. It’s an incredibly helpful and insightful tool, designed to help you better understand yourself and what makes you tick.

I always remind clients that no one personality style is better than another, but that isn’t what Rochelle believed. Her boss wasn’t the first person in her life to tell her she needed to change her personality. Years of feedback led her to believe that successful people were aggressive and dominant. “I signed up for coaching thinking I would magically be transformed into a ‘successful’ personality type.”

Throughout her coaching sessions and in the months that followed, Rochelle learned a lot about herself and overcame a number of self-limiting beliefs. She left her position at the chiropractic school where her gifts weren’t appreciated, and focused her efforts on building her own practice.

“I realized that power is not tied to a personality type,” she says. “Power comes from using the gifts God has given you to the fullest. I am an advocate; I’m good at listening. As a chiropractor, I am able to be quiet while my patients talk. I hear not just their words, but their hearts. I also realized I’d been guilty of not fully embracing who I am.”

With that rush of insight, Rochelle immediately stopped trying to be someone other than herself. She evaluated the business methods she had been using—methods that were designed with more dominant personality and communication styles in mind—and started interacting with patients in a way that felt natural and comfortable for her. She listened even more attentively and allowed her patients to share their concerns rather than trying to immediately steer them into a treatment plan. Her nurturing personality and gift of listening blessed her patients. And, as we all know, happy patients are good for business and referrals, so I wasn’t at all surprised to hear how her success immediately increased when she started operating in her strengths.

The most satisfying part of our coaching for me was hearing her say, “Now I can be who I truly am, not who I thought someone else wanted me to be.”

Yes ma’am. That’s what finding your voice is all about.

Rochelle said it so well: power is not a personality type. Power is functioning fully in whom you are created to be. Lean into what feels natural. Embrace your best features. Harness your enduring qualities. Be who you are and let your uniqueness shine. Honor the gifts God has given you by using them to serve others. When you do that, I believe you’ll take your success to a whole new level – a level that will surprise and thrill you.

You can buy Joel’s book through Amazon.com or visit his website at www.fyvbook.com.

© 2013 Susan M. Sims

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