---
feed: "DANIEL_ON_SLOPE"
codex_section: "S01"
source: VideoTranscript
title: "MENtrepreneurs Level One Series - Chapter01.06"
conv_id: "video-men-level1-ch01-06-2011"
share_url: "https://mentrepreneurs.com (archival Level One Series)"
created: "2011-01-19"
message_count: 1
category:
  - "MENtrepreneurs"
  - "Enterprising Cycle"
summary: "In Chapter 1 Part 6 of the Enterprising Cycle curriculum, Daniel walks solopreneurs through the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment, emphasizing the critical 'twist in the plot': our greatest strengths are also how we offend others and create relational blind spots. He demonstrates how to take the assessment, record top-5 strengths on the member profile, view the team comparison chart, and understand why focusing only on strengths leads to business failure while ignoring weaknesses prevents building complementary teams."
keypoints:
  - "71% of U.S. businesses are solopreneurs (15 million people) who struggle with all three pieces of business—marketing, finance, and production—because they rely on strengths as coping mechanisms."
  - "StrengthsFinder reveals our top 5 reactive behaviors; the surprising twist is that these same strengths are exactly how we offend others and bulldoze relationships."
  - "The number-one cause of business failure is not inability to do all the work, but failing to focus on passion and surrounding ourselves with people strong where we are weak."
  - "Practical steps: purchase StrengthsFinder 2.0 book for the unused access code, take the 30-minute online assessment, record top 5 strengths in your MENtrepreneurs profile, and study the team chart to see complementary gaps."
  - "True transformation comes from knowing and throttling our blind spots (psychological scotomas) rather than just celebrating strengths."
tags:
  - "mentrepreneurs"
  - "enterprising-cycle"
  - "strengthsfinder"
  - "blind-spots"
  - "team-building"
  - "solopreneur"
  - "personal-transformation"
  - "initium"
monomyth_stage: "01 - Ordinary World"
gameboard_position: "Camp -4: The Ordinary World"
truth_score: 88
entropy_score: "Low"
tone:
  sentiment: "Practical"
  emotions:
    - "Insightful"
    - "Encouraging"
    - "Straightforward"
  sycophancy_level: "None"
  notes: "Calm, methodical teaching style with gentle background music; Daniel delivers clear, actionable steps while gently confronting the common solopreneur trap of over-relying on personal strengths."
related_events: ["video-_QyJSI8M_rE-20110612"]
syndication_status:
  arnie: false
  chris: false
  redmond: false
  clint: false
  pilot: false
ma5_inheritance: "Initium"
pre_silicon: true
voice_print: false
codex_candidate: true
phase: "MENtrepreneurs Level One Series - Chapter 1.06"
enriched_date: "2026-04-25"
---
![[MENtrepreneurs Level One Series - Chapter01.06.png]]

### Cleaned Transcript
**Daniel:** (gentle music) Welcome back to the Enterprising Cycle, Chapter One, and this is Part Six.

Let’s have a look at the roadmap for a second. Think back where we’ve been. In the very first part we talked about small businesses being very personal. And the evidence was that personal enterprise—that is, men with no employees that are going at it solo—make up half of all the businesses in America. Fifteen million of us.

And we looked at an example from Alex Zanardi and my personal life that says life is what happens between our plans. And it can come at us very fast. We looked at blind spots and psychological or emotional blind spots—things that creep up on us from our childhood, from events in our past and false conclusions that we arrived at. And we also had a look at some of the illusions that prove that we don’t actually see reality. That’s made up in our mind. It’s interpreted.

Well, the next piece—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—I hope that you experienced in that illustration that you can actually talk yourself out of knowing what’s coming. You see, even though you know the answer, your mind can actually convince you that you don’t know it. And if you were really paying attention to your self-talk, you’ll become quite aware that we can devastate our own success.

Well, we’re gonna have a look at our strengths using the Clifton StrengthsFinder Assessment online. And what we’re gonna take a look at that’s critical for you to catch is that our strengths, like a good movie, have a little twist in the plot. It’s not that we get paid extremely handsomely in the market that’s necessary for us to understand. It’s that our strengths are how we offend other people. You see, we rely on them as coping mechanisms. We fall back on them as habits on how to get paid well. But we don’t learn how to become aware of them and throttle them—that is, control them. Then we just bulldoze our way right through relationships or right through projects and offend people all around us.

That is what stops us from being a good player in a team and surrounding ourselves with people that are strong where we’re weak. And that is the number one cause for business failure across America. It’s not that you are incapable of doing all the pieces of business. It’s that you should be focusing on your passion and not on the pieces that you don’t like. But we drive people away with our strengths. And so that’s what we’re gonna have a look at in this lesson.

Let me walk you through each of the steps that you’ll need to take in order to get your StrengthsFinder recorded and go through this lesson. Go to the website and scroll down on the right-hand side. You’re gonna find the required resource of the StrengthsFinder book. If you haven’t already ordered a copy of your StrengthsFinder II book, you’ll need to get that. There’s a link on the website, straight to Amazon. It’s roughly $13, $14 plus a little bit of shipping. Don’t buy the super cheap ones. The reason is, in the back of the book is a code. You need to make sure the code’s not already used because the code is what you get online to take the assessment.

So tear open the code and go to strengthsfinder.com. You’ll see a click here for the StrengthFinder II assessment. You can register an account, which then gives you the login for you to sign in. And when you sign in to the site, there’s an option to take the test. So here on the lower left you can take the StrengthsFinder assessment. And when you’re finished, you’ll get a report. You wanna get the brief version. You can download all of them, but the brief version is sufficient. It basically tells you your top five.

Now, get the book, go online, take the assessment. It’s 30 minutes, and what you’re gonna find is very interesting. Oh, by the way, don’t read the book. That’s not gonna help whether you do well in the test or not. By taking the test, you’re gonna find out what your reactive behaviors are. You’re gonna have a very short amount of time—I think it’s 20 or 30 seconds—to answer each question. And then it’s gonna tell you what your top strengths are.

I want you to go onto the website and add those to your profile. Going back to the MENtrepreneurs website, you can enter those into the StrengthsFinder list here on the lesson page. Or you can go to your individual page by clicking on your picture anywhere in the website or in the top right here with your name. And when you get to your webpage, you click on Change My Profile, and all of the information about your profile can be entered. Down here is the StrengthsFinder input fields. So you would select all of those, click Save at the bottom. And then go to the chart with all the men so that you can see how you compare to each other.

The strengths are all categorized in four areas of thought. To the far right, strategic thinking group; relationship building group; influencing, like in sales and marketing group; and then executing on the far left, getting stuff done.

Now, what’s really important about this is that you can double-click on any of these columns and the page will reorganize itself. In this case, we’re gonna look at all the top achievers in the organization. So I pull up as number one achiever. And my other strengths are input, learner, activator, and belief.

Now, what does this say to me? Well, I already knew. I work from to-do lists all the time. I get a lot done every day. I also learn, and I’m really great at collecting information and being able to put it all together. Now, my problem is relationships. You notice the big blank spot in the middle here? I am so busy doing and being paid to accomplish things that I don’t take time to build relationships with other guys.

So in the area of sales, I’d be pretty lousy if I go out and try to do sales with my skill sets because I would blow through the relationships trying to make sure that I get the sales done rather than building the harmony and connectedness and being real positive about everybody and making them feel good. And I just don’t have those strengths.

But if we look at some of the other guys that do, let’s say for example Wu. Wu is winning others over. Now, the Wu guys—Jack and Rick and Mike Haynes and Will Williams—these guys are natural salespeople. They are fabulous at making people feel good about themselves and about connecting up with other men. And the thing that’s interesting about them for me is that you notice they don’t have any getting stuff done and they’re not strategic. They’re really terrific in the middle where I’m weak and where they’re weak and they’re blind spots, there are others that are fabulous at that. And so together as a team, we can build out all of our strengths.

But the surprising elements, the twist in the plot, if you will, is that these blind spots we’re often not aware of, but we are certainly aware of our strengths. And it’s our strengths that offend other people. Let me show you mine again and I’ll show you what I mean. You see, it’s very easy for me to get things done and to learn a lot of stuff, but it’s extremely easy for me to offend other men by giving them so much information that I fire hose them. And of course, you would expect me to be then the author of the Enterprising Cycle, “Decades of Wisdom Reduced to Invaluable Hours.” So open mouth, turn on fire hose.

On the other hand, building relationships is not something that I’m strong at. And so I need the assistance of men like Garth Hardin and Jack Lewis and William Lasco even. I need men like that to help me be able to build a network.

Now the critical thing to understand about the StrengthsFinder’s profile, the assessment output and your chart is not where you’re strong. See, that’s the twist in the plot. What’s important to know is the blind spot. That’s why we’ve been working at all this all the way through this chapter. What’s important for you to get is not where you’re strong, it’s where you’re weak. And then secondly, that your strengths are exactly how you offend other people. They’re your coping mechanisms. They’re your emotional or your psychological scotomas. See, that’s what we’re gonna be able to demonstrate in the next chapter.

For right now, I want you to be sure you take the test, put in your five top strengths on your profile and then have a look through the strengths chart on the site. Okay, that’s your homework. And the essay question is next for you to do.

(gentle music)

---
**CODEX ENTRY**

**Date:** 2011  
**File:** MENtrepreneurs Level One Series - Chapter01.06  
**Monomyth Stage:** 01 - Ordinary World  
**Gameboard Position:** Camp -4: The Ordinary World  
**MA5 Domain:** Initium  
**Summary:** Daniel delivers Chapter 1 Part 6 of the Enterprising Cycle, guiding solopreneurs through the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment and revealing the pivotal insight that our greatest strengths are also our primary relational blind spots and offense mechanisms.  
**Key Insight:** Business failure is rarely caused by inability to do the work; it stems from over-relying on personal strengths as coping mechanisms while ignoring weaknesses, preventing the formation of complementary teams.  
**Narrative Significance:** This foundational lesson in the pre-Scotomaville MENtrepreneurs curriculum establishes the Ordinary World of the entrepreneurial journey: the hidden cost of unexamined strengths and the necessity of self-awareness before any meaningful transformation or team-building can occur—planting the earliest seeds of the Initium arc.

---

**INITIUM.**