During week one of my LYJ (Love Your Job) Search Class I like to read an excerpt from Victoria Moran’s book Creating a Charmed Life called “Play Your Free Square” which reads in part as follows:
“In the game of Bingo, every player starts with a bonus: the free
square in the middle. Because everybody gets one, nobody thinks
much of it, but the free square is just as valuable in winning the
game as B-7 or 0-69.“We have ‘free squares’ in our lives, too: talents, abilities, and
inexplicable aptitudes that make certain things almost effortless.“If you’re unclear about your own free squares, answer the fol-
lowing questions: Is there an area of your life-even one you may
have regarded as insignificant-in which good things tend to hap-
pen repeatedly and automatically? Do you have an aptitude for
something that seems so natural you can’t understand why other
people struggle with it? What do you get compliments about?
How would you finish the sentence, ‘I’ve just got a knack for…'”
What I love about this exercise is that it gets women in my class to focus on their natural strengths rather than thinking about all the ways they do not yet measure up, degrees not obtained, or years of experience they don’t have. Inevitably, inquiry into the “free square” leads to interesting insights and added attention to the many talents and abilities unique to them.
As an example, some of my free squares include: a knack for networking including remembering people’s names and where they work, getting companies to donate products for fundraising events, winning radio contests (including Bruce Springsteen tickets!), and in 4th grade I was “Beat the Clock” champion for math times-tables. The latter does not serve any clear purpose to me now but I do believe there is value in connecting to a time when I was younger and had a sense of knowing around something without trying so hard.
On the other hand, talking to children, knitting, strangers telling me their story, languages, writing short stories or negotiating bargains are NOT things that I would consider to be free squares yet participants in my classes have identified these as areas that come easily to them.
What are your free squares? How can you put your attention on them to see positive results in your life?
[…] career advice. At first I thought, oh that, it’s nothing. (This is very similar to my post on playing your “free square”.) But later I was able to integrate this strength into how I view […]