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We live in an age of unprecedented(空前的) opportunity: If you’ve got ambition, drive, and smarts, you can rise to the top of your chosen profession—regardless of where you started out from. But nowadays companies aren’t managing their knowledge workers’ careers. Rather, we must each be our own chief executive officer. Only when you operate from a combination of your strengths and self-knowledge can you achieve true and lasting excellence.

To build a life of excellence, begin by asking yourself these questions:

“What Are My Strengths?”

To accurately identify your strengths, use feedback analysis. Every time you make a key decision, write down the outcome you expect. Several months later, compare the actual results with your expected results. Look for patterns in what you are seeing: What results are you skilled at generating? What unproductive habits are preventing you from creating the outcomes you desire? In identifying opportunities for improvement, don’t waste time developing skill areas where you have little competence. Instead, concentrate on and build on your strengths.

“What Are My Values?”

What are your ethics(道德标准)? What do you see as your most important responsibilities for living a worthy, ethical life? Do your organization’s ethics resonate(共鸣) with your own values? If not, your career will be likely to be marked by frustration and poor performance.

“Where Do I Belong?”

Consider your strengths, preferred work style, and values. Based on these qualities, what kind of work environment would you fit it best? Find the perfect fit, and you’ll transform yourself from a merely acceptable employee into a star performer.

“What Can I Contribute?”

In earlier eras, companies told businesspeople what their contribution should be. Today, you have choices. To decide how you can best improve your organization’s performance, first ask what the situation requires. Based on your strengths, work style, and values, how might you make the greatest contribution to your organization’s efforts?

1. The following steps are all the ways to find and improve your strengths EXCEPT_________.

A. writing down your expectations B. comparing the actual results

C. finding out your advantages D. developing your disadvantages

2. Which of the following comments is NOT true?

A. People should find results they are skilled at generating.

B. Processing information by hearing others discuss is the most effective way of working.

C. People who work in one team should have similar ethics.

D. The fit working environment can help the workers work more efficiently.

3. What can lead to a life of excellence?

A. Self-pity and powers. B. Ambition and smarts.

C. Self-awareness and strengths. D. Motives and self-knowledge.

4. How might you make the greatest contribution to your organization’s efforts?

A. Do what is needed. B. Identify your own strengths.

C. Work in your own way. D. Obey the companies’ rules.