People who are Includers® love to stretch the circle wider and are adept at being inclusive. Includers dislike thinking of people being left out and often cannot concentrate until everyone is included. Not surprisingly, Includers are incredibly accepting, non-judgmental people. Individuals with the Includer strength are able to see past a person’s flaws and accept them unconditionally.
Includers have a tendency to pick up strays. I know an Includer with six adopted pets. It’s part of his strength—he doesn’t want an animal to be left out in the cold. This applies to people, too. Includers pick up the underdog or the person who may not have a group or cause. Thus, Includers must learn to temper their compassion; there is a limit to how many pets we can have in our home and how many people we can have in our lives.
The Gallup website tells us “People exceptionally talented in the Includer theme accept others. They show awareness of those who feel left out and make an effort to include them.
Your accepting nature does not necessarily rest on a belief that each of us is different and that one should respect these differences. Rather, it rests on your conviction that fundamentally we are all the same. We are all equally important. Thus, no one should be ignored. Each of us should be included. It is the least we all deserve.”
For the past two decades, Dr. Brene Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, has done research regarding those who feel left out. Not whom we usually think of as left out, not the oblivious but the hidden things that make us feel left out. She dug below the surface, studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy to get to the root core of what makes us feel this way and help us find our way back. Brené Brown studies human connection.
Her path forward in doing this work was not exactly what she thought it would be. Funny how it is that way with so many things in our lives. We think it is going one way, and then it takes an entirely different route. Sometimes our strengths are so strong in us that we use them without conscious thought.
For Dr. Brown, it was not such a conscious choice. She had been studying shame and vulnerability for several years when, in 2010, she was asked to do a TEDxHouston talk on The Power of Vulnerability. It was in this talk that she showed up with her vulnerability. When she was willing to reach out with her imperfections and show other people that she was there with them, the inclusion people felt was overwhelming. “The Power of Vulnerability” is one of the top five most viewed TED talks, with over 48 million views.
After the unexpected popularity of her TEDx talk, she began to move her career forward. She is the author of five #1 New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, and her latest book, Dare to Lead, which is the culmination of a seven-year study on courage and leadership. She is a leadership consultant to the likes of Pixar, IBM, the Seattle Seahawks, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She has been featured on Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday.
Dr. Brown’s company now includes 27 employees. Her company provides training for therapists and coaches who want to be certified in Brown’s methods and licensed to use her intellectual property. In 2015, the online education portion of her business was launched. Her “Courage Works” course was immediately successful. This course alone generated $6 million in revenue and 100,000 customers in its first year. If Brene Brown can move her career forward, inspire human transformation, and monetize her strengths – how about you!
One of the ladies that works with me was part of the first Courage Works class.
She had been reading and studying Brene Brown’s work for years. She says that by studying the work of Brene Brown, her life did a 180-degree turn. Though broken in many places, she hopes to honor those places and heal.
She also told me that no discussion of Brene Brown would be complete without the Theodore Roosevelt quote that inspired her and inspires millions more today because of Brene Brown, making them know they are included. So here it is:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt
There is great power in being an Includer. By bringing someone in who does not feel like they are worthy of belonging you help them find their power and purpose.
How are you using your Includer strength in marketing, sales, team building, and customer engagement? What ways do you see that you include the disenfranchised in your life, business, and monetize your gift like Brene Brown? How could someone with that strength assist you to build your business?
Let me know in the comments below. Want to talk with me about how you could monetize your strengths or other business-building questions you have? Please schedule you free Ask Brent Anything call, and Let’s Talk Strengths.
