Susan Surtel, President, Strengths Canada [Interview]

Susan Surtel, President, Strengths Canada [Interview] 

Invisible Mentor: Susan Surtel, President
Company Name: Strengths Canada
Website: http://www.strengthscanada.com 

Part One: Introduction

Avil Beckford: In a couple of sentences, tell me a little bit about yourself.

Susan Surtel: I am a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach and Trainer. Gallup is a company that a lot of people know about through its polling. Gallup has been studying what is success – how do people become successful for over 40 years and I’m working with Gallup with its concept. And I’m certified to provide coaching and training on their concept. Which is, how is it that people become successful? And what they have found is that people are successful if they’ve focused on their strengths rather than their weaknesses. I help people to discover their strengths and to understand how they can harness those strengths.

Avil Beckford: What’s a typical day like for you?

Susan Surtel: Oh, it depends on the day. Sometimes, I’m delivering strength training sessions. Sometimes I’m doing individual coaching. I also write content for my Facebook site. And of course, I visit new clients or talk to people who are interested in coaching.

Avil Beckford: Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

Susan Surtel: With regard to training, I’ve been doing training for over 20 years. But as far as the strengths work that I do, I was working with a client, where one of the directors had known about this whole strength methodology from a previous company that she had come from, and I learned about the concept from her. I thought that it would be a great project for the learning and development at that company. I introduced it to the group and said that I thought that it would be a great opportunity to embark on something a little bit different from what they were doing and the council agreed. They asked me to spearhead the project, then I was able to create strengths training courses and deliver them for that company, and then I just continued to do it.

Part Two: Career

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Susan Surtel: Well, I had a very significant mentor who taught me about training, business, and how to treat and work with people.

Avil Beckford: What’s one core message you received from your mentors?

Susan Surtel: Have confidence in your abilities. Don’t worry about the things that you can’t control. Work on the things that you bring to the person that you are working with and with the group you are working with. And focus on the things that are most important, what you can control, and what you can bring to whatever project you’re working on.

Avil Beckford: An invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn from by observing them from a distance. In that capacity, what is one piece of advice that you would give to others?

Susan Surtel: The most important thing is to know what your natural talents are. Find out what your natural talents are, and that’s of course, what I do through my strengths coaching and training. But know what your natural talents are. Don’t worry about the things that you are not, because you are so much more with your natural talents. Learn what they are, find out how you can focus on them and bring them to whatever you’re doing. Don’t worry about the other things, because there are other people out there who can do those things and together you can be a really powerful team.

Avil Beckford: What big steps did you take to succeed in your field? What is one step or action you have consistently taken that has contributed the most to your success?

Susan Surtel: The first thing is I attained certification in my area. There’s a big difference between the people who say that they work in my area of strengths, the strength-based methodology and getting the certification from Gallup. Gallup only started to certify people last year and I decided to take that step.

And attaining that certification really helped my confidence in what I do. But also making sure that I know exactly how to coach or how to train people on this methodology, deliver quality work is another one. I’ve always wanted to make sure that the work that I do is of a high quality. And that was something that I learned from the very beginning, probably from a mentor, and that was something that I’ve always remembered and I’ve always continued to think about. Always make sure you develop quality work or deliver quality work.

Be authentic with your clients. Be true to yourself, be who you are. Do not try to be what somebody else does and think, it works for them. Unless if you’re exactly like they are, it’s not necessarily going to work for you, so be who you are. I am who I am, and I always bring that to my clients. And I think that because I’m authentic, people feel that they can trust me. They know that I’m not going to try to pull the wool over their eyes or guide them with something that isn’t true to what I believe. And also the other thing is don’t have an ego.

One of the things that this strength methodology has taught me is, that we all have special qualities to us. I have special qualities, you have special qualities, and there’s no need for ego at all. Because we are all special in our own unique way and it needs to be embraced, not only in yourself but also in others. And treat people well, because everybody has their unique qualities. All of us need to be treated well. It doesn’t matter if you’re highly educated or if you are just starting out, everybody deserves to be treated well. That’s the most important thing.

The step I’ve consistently taken – I have to follow those things and I would say is being authentic. Being true to myself and just being me and knowing that by doing that, people can trust me because I’m not going to try to tell them something different from who I am.

Part Three: Life

Avil Beckford: Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?

Susan Surtel: Well, I wasn’t authentic with a client. So nobody is perfect, but I wasn’t authentic with the client. It’s something that you know when I wasn’t, I learned a very big lesson. You need to keep within your known limits and be true to yourself. If you’re not, then it usually kind of comes back to sting you and I wasn’t authentic.

Avil Beckford: What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?

Susan Surtel: Very big one. To move away from people who weren’t supportive even though they are close to me. And that was a very difficult decision and the way that it affected my life is I had to grow up fast. So sometimes you have to make these big decisions. It creates a shift in your life, but ultimately, when you make those decisions, I believe that it really does help you. And it forms who you are going forward.

Avil Beckford: What are three events that helped to shape your life?

Susan Surtel:

1. I would say the decision to be self-employed. I learned early that, I was somebody who liked the idea of being in the driver’s seat for my career. And I decided that I wanted to pursue the things that I was interested in and guide my career that way. So, for me, that was very important to be on my own.
2. The second thing is choosing to pursue training. From a very early job that I had, I realized that I was a people person. And that I wanted to help people to be the best that they can be, to help them so that they can be more effective in their jobs, but also, so that they could learn how to make their life more effective and more pleasurable. So that was very important just to make that realization. To understand and to view that self-analysis and to know who you are and to know that I wanted to work with people, that was so important.
3. And then the third thing is, just personally for me to make the decision to devote my life to learning. I love to learn and I love to investigate things and I want to know more about people and about things and about places. So to make that decision that I wasn’t going to be happy, just not to stick with the status quo, that has made my life more fulfilling. So there you go three things.

Avil Beckford: What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

Susan Surtel: I would say becoming a Gallup Certified Strength Coach. It has made such a difference in my life. It’s something that has really made me feel fulfilled knowing that I have my certification, but also knowing that I can work with people coaching them or training them. And there are a lot of people out there who have a hard time with their jobs. I can’t really figure out why it is that they’re not happy doing what they’re doing. They may have the education or the experience and still something isn’t really quite working right for them. And the fact that I know, that I can work with people and help them so that they can find their way through understanding where their strengths are. That for me has been my greatest accomplishment – I’m so happy that I’m in the place where I’m at. So today, to me that’s the biggest accomplishment.

Avil Beckford: What are five life lessons that you have learned so far?

Susan Surtel:

1. Be true to yourself. Don’t try to be someone else. Someone else’s journey is not your own. And I try to tell my daughter that – she’s a teenager. I think that certainly when you’re a teenager that is a really hard lesson. But, it’s also something that as an adult I think that we’ve got to be constantly reminded of. Be true to yourself. Know who you are, do that self-analysis and it really will pay off.
2. Focus on your strengths rather than your weaknesses as my second one. If you continue to think about the things that you are not good at, we’re all not good at things. I can’t run fast or I can’t draw. I’m talking about characteristics, talents, natural talents. It’s much more important to focus on those things that you’re good at rather than the things that you aren’t so good at and if you can figure that out that’s going to make you so much more fulfilled.
3. Keep your ego out of it is my third. It’s really very important to get rid of ego early on, to understand that everybody else out there is unique and good too, not just you. And I think that if a person really learned how to focus on what they are good at and their strengths, I think that the ego will fall away because they realize that “Hey, everybody’s got their strengths.” But we all have those things that don’t come naturally to us. So I think that’s really important.
4. Appreciate that we all have different talents. And that they all need to be coveted would be my fourth. I know that it sounds similar to the other ones. But I think that it is really important to say that we all are very different. And that we should really embrace the differences between people. We all need people. We need different types of people. I’ve been in work situation where I’ve seen people who have certain abilities and they think that that’s the be all and end all. Those people need to do strengths training. But it’s so important to know that, it’s good to have differences between people. It’s a good thing we all don’t need to be the same.
5. And the fifth thing is work hard. You got to work hard. If there’s something that you want, go for it. I’ve always don that — I guess I was brought up by parents who always instilled in my brother, my sister and I to work hard. You do have to work hard and sometimes you have to do it through different parts of your life. It’s not just about when you’re going to school and university or college, it’s throughout your whole life. To me as I said, life it’s a lifelong learning process. So work hard it’s going to pay off for sure.

Avil Beckford: If trusted friends could introduce you to five people (living or dead) that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose? And what would you say to them?

Susan Surtel:

1. Okay, well my five people – they are all probably pretty different from your typical person but anyway, my first person would be Mary Wollstonecraft. She wrote a book called the A Vindication of the Rights of Woman which was back in the 1700s. She was married to Shelley the poet. She was the first woman who spoke out and wrote about women’s rights. I think that she would be fascinating to talk to, because to think that a woman back in the 1700s had the nerve to speak out. To talk about the rights of women would have been just extraordinary. So I would love to meet her.
2. And my second person is Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was an abolitionist and she was also a feminist and worked in the women’s movement in the late 1800s to the early 1900s and in United States and Pennsylvania and New York State. She was a fascinating woman again, just along the same lines. Even though Mary Wollstonecraft did so much in the 1700s, things hadn’t changed that much for women and women still didn’t have the right to vote. Of course there was a slave trade and so on and so Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a really powerful, strong woman, and I admire her and I would to talk to her.
3. My third person is Mozart. Mozart was a genius. I have a background in music, not a big one, but my family were very much into music. And Mozart is amazing and he was incredible. To think that he died in his mid-30s and he had produced all the music that he had.
4.  Georges Danton – I’ve been reading books about the French Revolution recently, and he was one of the leaders of the French Revolution. He was a victim of the guillotine but he was an incredible person and even in his late 20s, and then he died at 33. They sent him to the guillotine at 33. But an incredible moral man, moral in a sense that I would say is full of life, but in a sense that he stood up for people and considering the events of the French Revolution and he was quite extraordinary.
5. The last person would be probably Jesus. Because I would – I don’t think I need to explain that one, but a quite an extraordinary person of course to me to talk to. What would I say to them?

I think that for all of them I would want to find out where they got the power to do what they did? What were their influences in life that allow them to be able to stand up and do what they did? You might say well Mozart he didn’t really stand up. He did actually. He was a bit of an anti-establishment type of fellow too. All of these people were incredibly strong and powerful, and I want to know where they got that resourcefulness in the face of so many barriers to be able to stand up and do what they did. I would love to be able to talk to them about that.

Avil Beckford: Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply?

Susan Surtel: Well, not to harp on strength too much, but it has to be StrengthsFinder 2.0. So this is the book – it was actually the number one bestselling book on Amazon in 2013. That was the book that really changed me and my life. It really taught me to live life differently. So this is the book that the Gallup StrengthsFinder methodology is based on – they had a few books before that. But this is the new one that had the most impact and certainly it did on me. It taught me to look at life differently.

It taught me to focus on my strength and not emphasize or worry about my weaknesses. Before I had come to this book, those were things that I did think about, I did worry about. And it just made such an impact on me, and it makes an impact on other people too, but quite extraordinary, if people are interested in looking at that book. In the book, it explains the strength methodology, and then it also gives you a code where you can go and view the StrengthsFinder assessment. So what that assessment will do, is it will tell you what your top five strengths. Now, the problem is that, for a lot of people, they do the test and they’ll go, “Oh okay.” That’s where the coaching and the training and all those things come in handy. But for me, it changed me and changed my life.

Avil Beckford: You are one of the 10 finalists on the reality show, So, How Would You Spend Your Time? Each finalist is placed on different deserted islands for two years. What are five books you would take with you, and besides reading, how would you spend the time?

Susan Surtel: I have a very wonderful daughter. A very thoughtful daughter and she created a book about our family and gave it to us for Christmas last year. And it has pictures in it, it also has reflections in it, and it’s so wonderful. I would have to have that book with me. Everything else I’m going to say is all about – I love to learn. So, I want to learn Spanish and I’ve been wanting to do this for about 3, 4, 5 years, now. So because I’d have more time, I would take a book on learning Spanish and that way I would learn. Finally, I have two years so hopefully I would do it.

The second book I would probably take with me would be a book that would have some of the world’s greatest art. I’d love to be able to look at art. So a huge book on the Hermitage (The Hermitage Collections: Volume I: Treasures of World Art; Volume II: From the Age of Enlightenment to the Present Day) or the Uffizi (The Uffizi: The Official Guide All of the Works) or something that would have whole bunch of different art in it. It would have to be a really big volume. I want to take that so that I could look at it and dream probably.

I’d take an encyclopedia with me maybe the Encyclopedia Britannica because I love to learn and I was curious about the things. So, I would be sitting on that desert island, I would probably be saying to myself — I always wondered about that. So the least I’d have my encyclopedia and I could look it up.

And then last book would be a book about world history. Because again I have time I want to spend some time learning some things about world history. Because I think that you can really learn a lot about the future by learning about the past. So I’m not sure exactly which book it would be, but I think there’s a book called A World History and that’s what I would take.

When I was there I would look at my books, but it can only be so much. So I would explore the wild life there. I love the outdoors. I would want to learn about the animals and the plants and the birds. And I love to do that kind of thing. I would probably take notes and try to learn about the environment. When I went to a university, actually for environmental studies, so I am very interested in environmental things. I would swim and I would learn about my environments. That would be fun.

Avil Beckford: Complete the following, I am happy when….. 

Susan Surtel: I’m happy when I’m with my family or when I’m working with people to help them discover and harness their natural talents. So I guess that’s good, I have two answers but, either one. My family, I love my family but also professionally working with people to help them, so that they can really do that self-analysis and understand who they are. Then take who they are and help them so that they can heighten their success. There’s nothing better.

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