Stretch Your Super Strengths
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- —
Tupper's revision of the strengths idea is that a strength is not what you are good at — it is what gives you energy, even if you are not great at it yet. The mirror image matters more: a weakness is anything that drains you even when you are excellent at it, which is exactly how people get trapped doing work others praise them for and they quietly hate. The method is to audit your week for energy rather than ability, cap draining work at 20% of your time and be merely 'good enough' at it, then make one deliberate choice about what you want to be known for. That single strength is then stretched across more people and more places — inside the organisation first, then through volunteering or side projects — because frequency builds competency and visibility creates opportunity.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Redefine strengths as energisers, not abilities
Drop the assumption that a strength is something you're already good at. Start from energy: strengths are the things that give you energy when you do them, even if you're not great at them yet. Weaknesses are the things that take your energy away, even if you are good at them.
Pro tip If the word 'strengths' feels like a fixed label, use 'energisers' and 'drainers' instead — the language shouldn't get in the way.
Watch out The good-at-it definition makes people dismiss real strengths because someone else is better at them.
- 2
Audit your diary for energy
Look back through your calendar — meetings, moments, days — and pick out the highest energy moments of your week. For each one, ask what you were actually doing: researching, building relationships, teaching, problem-solving. Write those words down. Do the same for the moments that drained you.
Pro tip Do the 'oh yes' pass as deliberately as the 'oh crap' pass — most people only notice the draining half.
- 3
Cap the drainers at 20% and aim for good enough
You can't stop doing the draining parts of a job overnight without wrecking the relationships you need. But target no more than 20% of your time on that kind of work, and be explicitly good enough rather than excellent at it, so it doesn't get in your way or come to define you.
Watch out Deleting the spreadsheet and announcing you'll never do one again just frustrates your manager and costs you support.
- 4
Choose ONE thing you want to be known for
From your list of energising strengths, pick no more than three — ideally start with one. The test is what you'd want people to say about you when you're not in the room. Most people never make this choice, which leaves their reputation inconsistent and decided by chance.
Pro tip You are allowed to change your mind later — just know that building the new reputation takes time.
- 5
Stretch that strength inside the organisation first
Get intentional about where the strength shows up: what you do differently in your one-to-ones, in meetings, which departments you could offer it to, running a lunch and learn. The more people inside your organisation who see the strength, the more of them will spot opportunities on your behalf.
Pro tip Frequency builds competency, and openness leads to opportunity — use it in more places to get better at it faster.
- 6
Extend it beyond the day job
Then stretch the same strength in different people and places outside the organisation — volunteering, charities, communities, a side project. Different contexts build the skill faster and widen the pool of people who associate you with it.
Pro tip A side project isn't competition for the day job — used this way it makes you better at both.
- 7
Convert awareness into action, repeatedly
Reports, profiles and courses are only an input. If the awareness doesn't change what you do in your week, nothing changes in your development. Keep re-stretching until the strength is simply part of your brand and people bring you more of that work.
Pro tip Connect it to a personal why — more energy in the work you do, and more impact from doing what you're good at.
Watch out Having a strengths profile you can recite but can't point to in your actual job is the failure mode.
In the wild
With a full-time job at Virgin, a new baby, an MBA and a side project, Helen would arrive to run a Squiggly skills session at seven in the evening already tired. By half past eight she'd finish and travel home energised, because the strength she wanted to be known for — helping people learn, develop and grow in their careers — was being used. That energy carried into the next day at Virgin and changed how she led her team. She is explicit that the workload was a lot, but that the side project never competed with the career: it made her a better manager in both places.
→ The same strength compounded across two contexts, improving performance in the day job rather than draining it.
Asked what talent he'd want to be known for, Ali offered songwriting — something he wanted to develop rather than something he was already good at. Helen worked through the stretch immediately: inside the day job, write the intro music for the podcast; more broadly, look for music charities to contribute to or get involved with schools. The point wasn't the specific idea but the pattern — more people and more places using the same strength, starting where you already are, so that colleagues begin spotting relevant opportunities for you.
→ A concrete list of in-work and out-of-work reps for a strength that didn't yet exist as an ability.
Common mistakes
Assuming a strength must be something you're great at
Starting from ability makes people dismiss the things that actually energise them — 'I'm not as good as they are, so it can't be my strength.' Starting from energy is an easier, more accurate entry point and is what predicts whether you'll invest enough to get great.
Letting a draining skill define you
If you're good at something that drains you, other people will keep giving it to you and you can get stuck. That is a real trap for a career. Cap it, stay good enough, and make sure the energising work is what stands out.
Stopping at awareness
Filling in forms, taking surveys and going on strengths courses does nothing for your development if the output never changes your week. Awareness plus action is the whole point — otherwise it's a blood test that won't change the management plan.
From the transcript
“strengths the things that give you energy and the work that you do um even if you're not great at them yet”
“what we are aiming for is no more than 20 of our time on that kind of work”
“frequency builds competency more you use it better you're going to get an openness leads to opportunity”
From the episode
5 Skills To Succeed in ANY Career - Helen Tupper (Squiggly Careers)
Helen Tupper (Squiggly Careers)