Benedictine College 2005 alumna Brea Roper, a Gallup-certified global strengths consultant, presented a career planning talk Wednesday, April 8, at 6:30 p.m., in the McAllister Boardroom of Ferrell Academic Center.
The event was part of the “Life After Benedictine College Speaker Series”, sponsored by the Office of Alumni Relations and hosted by the Student Alumni Board.
Roper began by addressing how often society ties a person’s career to their personal value. When people fail, she said, they start believing they’re not good enough because their value feels connected to their work.
“From when we’re really little, your value is in what you want to be when you grow up, what you want to study and what you’re going to do when you graduate,” she said. “That’s the value that’s placed on us, and we begin to believe it.”
She then introduced three guiding words she uses in her work: WHAT, HOW and WHO.
The “what” represents actions or career paths, the “how” represents strengths, talents and personality and the “who” represents identity and values.
To help students understand their “how”, Roper pointed to the CliftonStrengths Assessment, a Gallup tool that identifies patterns of thought, feeling and behavior.
“If I have a report, an assessment that shows me how my mind is designed to work at its best, that’s a clue,” she said. A clue to discovering one’s “how”.
The CliftonStrengths Assessment takes about 30 minutes to complete, and Roper encouraged attendees to try it out.
“Instead of starting with “what” you do, start with “who” you are,” she said. “When the “what” changes, we stay confident in our identity if we understand “who” we are. If we start with “how” we are designed by God, if we can understand how we are uniquely designed, we can do anything.”
She closed with a reflection on the familiar saying: “If you tell God your plans, he laughs.”
“I think that he doesn’t laugh. I think he cries,” Roper said. “He knows there’s so much more possible for you than you could ever dream of for yourself. He has given you the talent to do so much more, and be so much more, than you could ever imagine.”
