Futuristic – StrengthsFinder Coach Hee Guan’s Number 5 Theme

Blog ▸ Strengths Description / Strengths Discovery

A Futuristic Person Dreams

Between the age of 11-18, I only had 5 ‘dream jobs’. No, they were not the typical ‘lawyer, doctor, pilot…’ dream jobs. My dream jobs were to be a teacher, principal, pastor, missionary and entrepreneur. Incredibly, at that age, my Futuristic talent theme was creating a big challenge because these 5 jobs are in 3 very different spheres: education, religion and business. The good news is that I fulfilled all 5 dream jobs by the age of 40.

futuristic strengths talent

These are the 4 elements that help my Futuristic talent theme perform at Balcony level (at its very best):

  1. Envision the Destiny – A Basement level (subpar performance) of Futuristic is ‘dreamy’ – it sees everything as possible, wants to have everything but eventually achieves nothing. In stark contrast, the Balcony of Futuristic talent sees THE destiny.
  2. Elimination of Distraction – There are a lot of ‘good’ opportunities that are destructive mines that will destroy one’s ultimate dream. Resist the temptations.
  3. Engagement with options to match the Direction – There is no one way to reach the destiny. For me, I often asked, “Which one of the 5 dream jobs comes first?” There was no clear answer. I chose to trust my Futuristic talent, and more so the One who gave me this talent, as I entered into one dream job at a time.
  4. Excitement to last the Distance – Negative words from others and negative thoughts from myself pop up from time to time. Passion for the dream overcame (and still overcomes) them all.

As a leader, I utilise my Futuristic talent to describe a very vivid imagination of a better future – it gives people hope of seeing that dream become reality.

There are 2 key concepts for the Futuristic talent. The first is about dreams and visions; it occurs over a longer time period, as described above. The second is about anticipation; an immediate thing that is to follow.

A Futuristic Person Anticipates
Whenever I hear a mother (of a toddler XX) telling her child “XX, go and hug YY” (YY being another toddler), I find myself running towards the 2 toddlers because I can already anticipate both toddlers hugging, wobbling and falling. And crying.

Another instance is when I walk towards the MRT near my office. I naturally look ahead 100-200m at the traffic light. This determines my response to these thoughts in my head, “At what speed should I walk? When is the next green man signal?” My anticipation for the next step drives me to walk at the best, optimal speed so that when I reach the traffic light, it precisely turns green. 

This anticipation trait from the Futuristic talent is useful for a sportsman. It allows the midfielder to hit a through ball for the striker to beat the off-side trap as the midfielder anticipates the direction and speed of the striker. Vice versa, the striker also anticipates the likelihood of the midfielder passing to or crossing the ball for him.

Conclusion

I would love to hear from people with Futuristic talents out there:

  • Do you have many ‘bigger dreams’ or only a few?
  • Have you fulfilled all, most, a few or none of them?
  • How do you anticipate things in your daily life?
  • What are you going to do in order to be a better dreamer and anticipator?

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