Book information: The Great Discovery of Me: Strengths Revolution (2021 revised edition), the Korean edition of the CliftonStrengths book known in English as Now, Discover Your Strengths, credited to Gallup Press, published by Chungrim Publishing, 2021.07.19.
📖 Opening the book: this one was a little different
I have read a lot of self-help books. But most of them were similar.
"Fix your weaknesses," "Fill in what you lack" — the same predictable advice.
But The Great Discovery of Me: Strengths Revolution tells a different story from the very start.
"Don't waste time fixing your weaknesses; build on your strengths."
Created by Gallup founder Donald Clifton and Marcus Buckingham after analyzing 2 million people over 30 years, this book is not a simple self-help book. Based on scientific data, it shows a new way to draw out human potential.
📌 A summary of the book's key ideas
🎯 Strength = talent × learning × experience
The book says each of us carries different seeds of talent. Only when these seeds are grown with the fertilizer of learning and experience do they finally bear the fruit called strength.
🧬 34 talent themes
Gallup explains these talents by dividing them into four domains:
- Executing: the ability to turn plans into action and see them through
- Influencing: the ability to have an influence on other people
- Relationship Building: the ability to build relationships
- Strategic Thinking: the ability to structure thinking and prepare for the future
📊 My CliftonStrengths results
I took the actual assessment using the code included in the book. The results were surprising. My top 10 strengths are as follows:
| Rank | Strength theme | Domain |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Positivity | Relationship Building |
| 2 | Empathy | Relationship Building |
| 3 | Maximizer | Influencing |
| 4 | Futuristic | Strategic Thinking |
| 5 | Individualization | Relationship Building |
| 6 | Communication | Influencing |
| 7 | Activator | Influencing |
| 8 | Focus | Executing |
| 9 | Strategic | Strategic Thinking |
| 10 | Command | Influencing |
🤯 Understanding myself anew
What surprised me most was how accurate this assessment was.
✅ Positivity
"You are someone who gives people energy."
People around me have always said I am "always cheerful," and I learned that this is not just my personality but a talent.
✅ Futuristic
"A talent for imagining the future and presenting a vision."
I realized that my habit of always wondering "What will happen next?" also comes from this talent.
✅ Individualization
"The ability to discover each person's different strengths."
It explains how, when I look at team members, colleagues and clients, I have tried not to see everyone the same way but to respect each person's individuality and differences.
💼 Putting my strengths to work in practice
① Growing as an SAP FI developer
Over five years of SAP FI development, my strengths showed up like this:
- Communication: acting as a bridge between non-IT departments and the technical team
- Individualization: delivering tailored solutions that fit each business unit's characteristics
- Strategic: coming up with improvements that fix recurring issues at the root
As a result, rework decreased and project success rates went up.
② Strengths that shine in personal projects too
My strengths also played a big role when I developed an app as a side project:
- Futuristic: designing an architecture that looks ahead to the future rather than short-term trends
- Positivity + Activator: the drive to keep pushing the project forward even when my day job is busy
- Focus: implementing the essential core features first
In the end, I built an MVP in six months, and maintaining it was easy as well.
🤔 A new view of weaknesses
In the past, I struggled to fix what I lacked.
For example, I tried to overcome my lack of Discipline.
But now I:
- acknowledge it,
- ask for help,
- use tools,
- and focus on my strengths.
This approach has been far less stressful, and the results have been better.
🤝 Our teamwork changed
After everyone on the team took the CliftonStrengths assessment:
- we came to understand each other's talents,
- work naturally came to be divided by role,
- and collaboration became much smoother.
Thanks to this, I mainly take on communication with the business team and requirements analysis, while my colleagues each use their strengths in analysis, optimization, schedule management and so on.
🌱 Confidence in growth
The biggest thing I gained after the assessment is self-acceptance.
Now, instead of worrying about questions like:
- "Why am I more interested in business logic than in new technology?"
- "Why have I been doing SAP for so long?"
I have gained the conviction that
"I am growing deeply within my SAP FI expertise."
🧐 What I found lacking in the book
- Retaking the assessment costs extra
- It is centered on Western culture, so it may not quite fit the Korean context
- The basic test only provides your top 5 (you have to pay extra to see all 34)
🎯 Who I would recommend this book to
| Recommended for | Not recommended for |
|---|---|
| People exploring their career path and talents | People who only want a concrete manual |
| Developers thinking about how to grow in the ERP/SAP field | People who are skeptical of personality-type assessments in general |
| Developers running side projects alongside their job | |
| People tired of predictable self-help books |
📌 A one-line wrap-up
"From a life of struggling to fill in weaknesses to a life of growing what you already have."
For me, this book was one that changed the direction of my life.
If you are also asking yourself "What kind of person am I?", this book will be a pretty good compass.
⭐ Rating: 4.5 / 5
📚 Would reread: very likely
💡 In one line: a life-changing book that helped me find the gems inside me
Thank you for reading. If you have CliftonStrengths results, please share them in the comments! Let's share our strengths and grow together 💪