Will I Become Too Narrow if I Focus on My Signature Themes?

This is a common question and a legitimate concern. By concentrating on your Signature Themes you fear you may become so self-involved that you will soon be unable or unwilling to respond to the changing, diverse world around you. You imagine yourself becoming narrow, self-absorbed, a brittle specialist.

If you probe this concern more deeply, however, you will see that your fears are groundless. By focusing on your top five themes you will actually become stronger, more robust, more open to new discoveries and, importantly, more appreciative of people who possess themes very different from your own.

In the course of our research we interviewed many religious leaders. One of them, the prioress of a Benedictine convent, described her philosophy of life this way: “I try to live my life in such a way that when I die and my Maker asks, ‘Did you live the life I gave you?’ I can honestly answer yes.”

No matter what your religious beliefs, the question “Did you live your life?” can be quite intimidating. It implies you have a particular life that you are supposed to be living and that any other life is false, inauthentic. Since many of us wander through life plagued by the nagging suspicion that we are making up our life as we go along, we are fearful of even considering this question. And this fear confines us. Unsure of who we really are, we define ourselves by the knowledge we have acquired or the achievements we have racked up along the way. By defining ourselves in this way we become reluctant to change careers or learn new ways of doing things because then, in the new career, we would be forced to jettison our precious haul of expertise and achievement. We would have to jettison our identity.

Furthermore, unsure of who we really are, we become reluctant to investigate who others really are. Instead, we resort to defining others by their education, their sex, their race, or similarly superficial markers. We take shelter in these generalizations.

Whether in reference to new experiences or new people, our uncertainty about ourselves limits our inquisitiveness about other things. You can avoid this uncertainty. By focusing on your top five themes you can learn who you really are. You can learn that you are not making up your life as you go along. You can learn that your successes and achievements are not accidental. Your Signature Themes are influencing every single choice you make. Your top five themes explain your successes and achievements. This kind of self-awareness leads to self-confidence. You can face up to that intimidating question “Are you living your life?” by answering that no matter what your choice of profession, no matter what the trajectory of your career, if you are applying and refining and polishing your top five themes, then you are indeed living your life. You are indeed living the life you were supposed to live. This kind of self-awareness will open you up to be truly inquisitive.

For example, this self-awareness will give you the self-confidence to inquire about a new career. The wonderful quality about themes of talent is that they are transferable from one situation to another. Danielle, the journalist/hospice therapist mentioned in the previous question, could make her dramatic career leap, at least in part, because she knew that her Empathy and Command talents would prove just as powerful in her new role. The same applies to Brian, the dancer/lawyer, and Gillian, the teacher/product specialist. Each of them had to leave behind all the successes and achievements they had acquired in their previous profession, but they brought their top five themes with them. By refining your understanding of your own Signature Themes you can consider similarly dramatic career shifts or perhaps lateral moves within your organization, sure in the knowledge that you will be bringing your best along with you.

Similarly, this self-awareness will give you the self-confidence to break free from the tyranny of the “shoulds”: You “should” become a lawyer or a doctor or a banker because your family expects you to. You “should” accept that next promotion into management because your organization and society at large expects you to. These “shoulds” can assume many forms, but whatever their form, they can create irresistible pressure, and, unfortunately, they are often deaf to the call of your natural talents. The best way to withstand that pressure and strike out in a new, authentic direction is to identify your Signature Themes of talent. If you want to live a strong life, these themes and the strengths they forge are the only “shoulds” worth listening to.

Finally, by focusing on your distinct themes, you will gain the self-confidence to appreciate the themes of other people. Why? Because the more expert you become in recognizing how your Signature Themes combine, the more secure you will be in your own uniqueness. Regardless of your race, sex, age, or profession, you will be certain that no one looks at the world in quite the same way you do. And it follows that if you are permanently and wonderfully unique, everyone else must be unique as well. Superficial similarities aside, each person must bring to the world a slightly but meaningfully different perspective. You may relish the challenge of the next mountain to climb (the theme Achiever), but someone else craves to be of service to others (the theme Belief). You may excel at finding patterns in data (the theme Analytical), but another has the vision to see the implications of your discoveries (the theme Futuristic). You may instinctively be able to create a constituency of people who know you and are prepared to go out of their way to help you (the theme Woo), but someone else manages to carve more intimate relationships with these people (the theme Relator).

Counterintuitively, the greater your expertise in the intricacies of your own themes, the more you will be able to identify and then value the intricacies of other people. Conversely, the less respectful you are of your own combination of themes, the less respectful you will be of other people’s.