Stop Fighting Your Flaws: Strengths Coach Savannah Frierson on Discovering Your Natural Talents

So Savannah, thanks for joining me here.

Introduce yourself to Boundless Authenticity and tell us how you got started on your path to get where you are now.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Savannah Frierson, and I am a lot of things [laughs], but, um, primarily I am an author, I am a coach, and I am a freelance editor.

Um, I got started on this journey in earnest in 2022 when I was facing a crisis of just, do I wanna be doing, you know, things anymore? Do I wanna be an author anymore? Do I wanna be editing anymore? And I took a coaching program that introduced me, or reintroduced me, to CliftonStrengths.

And the thing that appealed to me about that was the whole concept of strengths development, or basically saying you have everything that you need to accomplish what you wanna accomplish.

You just need to identify it, you know, train it up, and then go off and be great.

And considering that I think a lot of us hear the, "This is what's wrong with you, fix it," it's very nice to hear it from a different place of, "This is how you can do it.

You don't have to do it like everybody else.

This is how you can do it, and this is probably the best way for you to do it.

Or should you even be doing it?" All of those things, just questioning the coach practice that I was in, they called it questioning the premise.

So I've always been doing that, but now to have a name to it [laughs] is, is really nice.

Yeah, that actually is a much more helpful, intelligent, and empowering reframe to the whole narrative because you actually can't do anything with weaknesses except complain about it.

And I've noticed that a lot of the self-development stuff is about framing yourself as a project that needs to be fixed, when in reality-

Right

... you can actually use your strengths to get yourself a lot further.

So that makes sense to me.

Yeah.

You know, people tell you that something that you do well or do naturally, that's not-- that's a wasted talent or it's not a strength, but actually it is.

Just because they don't have it or they can't recognize it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

So it's, it's a whole lot of just opening up a new way of seeing the world and your place in it.

How can someone tell whether they're building from a true strength versus a survival strategy?

They can feel the same way, but for me, I think the difference is how quickly are you exhausted? Because when you're operating from a place of strength that is naturally aligned with you, it can be very easy to just keep going because it feels it's, it's a seamless-- or I'll say this, it, there's less friction in doing this thing than something else.

And there is a difference between less friction and habit [laughs].

Habit can still be exhausting, but it's still something that you're inclined to go to, whereas a strength is, if nothing else were affecting me or determining how I should approach something, this is how I would do it, you know? So the-- so for me, the primary way that I have been able to identify it is, A, do I even wanna be doing this [laughs]? And B, if I didn't have to do it, would I still be doing it?

So Savannah, thanks for joining me here.

Introduce yourself to Boundless Authenticity and tell us how you got started on your path to get where you are now.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Savannah Frierson, and I am a lot of things [laughs], but, um, primarily I am an author, I am a coach, and I am a freelance editor.

Um, I got started on this journey in earnest in 2022 when I was facing a crisis of just, do I wanna be doing, you know, things anymore? Do I wanna be an author anymore? Do I wanna be editing anymore? And I took a coaching program that introduced me, or reintroduced me, to CliftonStrengths.

And the thing that appealed to me about that was the whole concept of strengths development, or basically saying you have everything that you need to accomplish what you wanna accomplish.

You just need to identify it, you know, train it up, and then go off and be great.

And considering that I think a lot of us hear the, "This is what's wrong with you, fix it," it's very nice to hear it from a different place of, "This is how you can do it.

You don't have to do it like everybody else.

This is how you can do it, and this is probably the best way for you to do it.

Or should you even be doing it?" All of those things, just questioning the coach practice that I was in, they called it questioning the premise.

So I've always been doing that, but now to have a name to it [laughs] is, is really nice.

Yeah, that actually is a much more helpful, intelligent, and empowering reframe to the whole narrative because you actually can't do anything with weaknesses except complain about it.

And I've noticed that a lot of the self-development stuff is about framing yourself as a project that needs to be fixed, when in reality-

Right

... you can actually use your strengths to get yourself a lot further.

So that makes sense to me.

Yeah.

You know, people tell you that something that you do well or do naturally, that's not-- that's a wasted talent or it's not a strength, but actually it is.

Just because they don't have it or they can't recognize it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

So it's, it's a whole lot of just opening up a new way of seeing the world and your place in it.

How can someone tell whether they're building from a true strength versus a survival strategy?

They can feel the same way, but for me, I think the difference is how quickly are you exhausted? Because when you're operating from a place of strength that is naturally aligned with you, it can be very easy to just keep going because it feels it's, it's a seamless-- or I'll say this, it, there's less friction in doing this thing than something else.

And there is a difference between less friction and habit [laughs].

Habit can still be exhausting, but it's still something that you're inclined to go to, whereas a strength is, if nothing else were affecting me or determining how I should approach something, this is how I would do it, you know? So the-- so for me, the primary way that I have been able to identify it is, A, do I even wanna be doing this [laughs]? And B, if I didn't have to do it, would I still be doing it?