Let’s Play Celebrity StrengthsFinder

I had the fortune(?) to take a “professional assessment” test earlier this week. You probably know the drill with these things – you answer a boatload of hypothetical questions and then magically receive valuable insight into your most important qualities as a worker and a human being. The one I took is called StrengthsFinder, and it claimed to reveal my 5 most apparent strengths out of 34 possible categories, based on how I chose between 175+ pairs of sentences and phrases about myself. You’ll be 100% not interested to know that, according to this thing that just met me but wants to define my future professional life, my strengths are Connectedness, Adaptability, Strategic, Learner, and Developer. For a variety of reasons that I won’t dive too deeply into, I’m skeptical about those results. I also have to say that as a writer, I’m repulsed by the gross lack of parallelism among their category names – abstract nouns (Connectedness, Adaptability), an adjective (Strategic), and concrete nouns (Learner, Developer) among my strengths? C’mon people, hire an editor! Despite its flaws, I do think that many famous, newsworthy people should take the StrengthsFinder test and make their results public. Come to think of it, I’m happy to do a favor for a few celebrities and assign their Top 5 strengths for them, with completely imaginary categories and grammar that’s “worthy” of StrengthsFinder. Here goes: Sandra Bullock – Acting, Speed, Heat, Questionable Accents, Pretend-pooping in Space George Clooney – Suave, Smirking, Keep it Cool, Stubble, Your Relationship Partner Probably Loves Him More Than You Cee Lo Green – Rhymer, Goodie, Voice Judging, Shady Chemist, Embodiment of Jackass Behavior You Hear About in Cliched Rap Lyrics (the last two “strengths” are alleged) Kim Kardashian – Makeup, Hiring Nannies, Kanye Tolerance, Ham Smuggler, Stretching Dresses Steve Perry – Lovin,’ Touchin,’ Squeezin,’ Knowing What Way You Need It, Not Stopping with the Whole Believing Thing Steve Miller – Picker, Grinner, Joker, Smoker (note: no other strengths – he’s just lying about being those other things) Miley Cyrus – Twerking, Tongue, Pole Dancing, Hump a Giant Bear, Partying in the USA (note: Music and Singing literally the lowest items on Miley’s overall list) Lebron James – Taking His Talents to Places, Counts Higher Than Seven, Hairline Hiding, Being the Y, Domination

Robert Downey Jr. – Even If His Next Movie Makes a Squillion Dollars, His Best Role is Always Going to be as One of the Two “Cool Guys” from Weird Science and That’s Enough to Make Him Awesome Forever (this is his only strength that matters) Jay Z – Beyonce (this is his only strength that matters) John Calipari – Coaching, Likes His Team, Frozen Yogurt, Public Speaking, Doesn’t Just Take the StrengthsFinder IS the StrengthsFinder