Guest Blog: Building Strength, Building Confidence

Today, we have an awesome guest blog from IFAST client, John Ranalletta.  John is the husband of the one and only Ruth Ranalletta, whom you met a few weeks ago in our client spotlight.  Make sure and read the entire article below because John provides an very cool bonus at the end.

So here’s John:

As a management consultant, I work with hundreds of business clients. Our company provides and supports a personality assessment called The Predictive Index® (PI®).  My job is to train management teams to use the PI® data in every part of the employee life cycle, from candidate assessment and selection to daily supervision.

Ok, that’s what I do, but what does that have to do with building self-confidence?  Well, in a nutshell, PI® measures what people need and how they are likely to behave when trying to meet those needs in the workplace.  It reveals what motivates us; and, more important, it helps us know where people get their self-confidence.

Each of us gets our self-confidence from a different source or combination of sources.  Some of us are naturally self-confident, i.e. we get our self-confidence internally.  Some get it when others we value make us feel special.   For some, self-confidence is enhanced when they are part of group like a family and where the work is process oriented.  Others are the most self-confident when they know they can perform their assigned work perfectly.

High self-confidence is a critical contributor to performance excellence.  When our self-confidence is high, we engage more actively and enthusiastically; generally have higher morale; and look forward to the activity, whether it’s work or play – or strength building at IFAST.

There’s a connection between self-confidence and building strength and fitness at IFAST.  We’re all here for different reasons, but our individual sources of self-confidence likely dictate why we’re here, what we hope to achieve, how we interact (or don’t interact) with others; and how we perform our programs.

In our practice, we teach managers to use this information about themselves and their employees to build individual and team self-confidence.  At IFAST, if your coach knows where you get your self-confidence, your workouts can be more productive as well.

Here are non-scientific scales.  Where do get your self-confidence?

I have a definite goal in mind that drives my workouts at IFAST.  I like to be challenged. I attack my program aggressively and have high expectations for my performance.

Working out at IFAST lets me improve and/or maintain the physical image I want to project to others.  I like it when people notice that I’ve gotten lean and more fit.

I enjoy being a member of the IFAST family & the step-by-step nature of my workouts.  It’s important for me to get to know the others in the gym and my coaches.

Building strength & fitness is the “right” thing for me to do now.  It’s very important to meet my coach’s expectations and work through my program as perfectly as possible.

The first ten IFAST members who want to learn more about their sources of self-confidence, motivators and overall personality characteristics should provide Kirsten with their names and email addresses.  They will receive an invitation to complete an online Predictive Index® Survey which takes about 10 minutes.  I will provide free, private feedback and a written narrative of the results.

Alright this is Zach again.  First, I just want to say that I have taken the assessment test explained above and it is very accurate – it explains me perfectly.  I have also been able to see the results of a couple of my IFAST clients and it has greatly helped me to coach them more effectively.  So I would love to see my clients jump at this opportunity, and I am sure Jae would as well.

Lastly, I just wanted to say that if any of our IFAST clients would like to submit a guest blog we would be happy to post it on the site.

Have a great week everyone and thanks again, John!