I asked people in my network of various different connection types to share what they thought my top 2 strengths were, and then to share personal stories that exemplify those strengths. What you see below are their responses.

Strength: Empathy and compassion
Story: As a leader, I knew you always had my best interest at heart from catering a job offering to my needs and skill sets to providing positive coverage from negative forces within the company. You took the time to listen and provide constructive feedback.

Strength: Professionally opinionated
Story: To be a “professional,” you need an opinion. Of course, that opinion can change with new findings, but if you don’t have an opinion, why are you in the room? There are many stories I could reference here but I like the one from Anglepoint when you stood up for Jamie, a former subordinate, in a senior management meeting. Too many times in our current information consumption habits, we take what we read, hear, believe, etc. to be fact without doing enough cross-evaluation. You defended the defenseless in a case where their integrity was publicly being degraded even though it came at a potential loss for you.

Strength: Intuition
Story: Data is a great and necessary part of making intelligent decisions, however, it rarely gives a complete picture and rarely delivers clear solutions to nuanced problems. With Anglepoint, by putting the brand first, you were able to take an invisible service to the top of the industry. Your intuition with team building and strategic direction were also key to help elevate your efforts throughout your career time and time again.

Strength: Building great teams and culture
Story: Pete is great at identifying the strengths of each team member, I can think of many times when he encouraged me to try something new because he felt it was something that I could succeed at. Over the 4 years I was at Anglepoint with him, Pete brought in some amazing and talented team members which helped us achieve greater success. Pete is incredible at building meaningful relationships – this always allowed me to feel comfortable that I could be open and honest in my feedback and how I was feeling. This created an amazing work culture of trust.

Strength: Coordinating large efforts and motivating people to work together
Story: In March 2019, we held our first ever company-wide conference, AIM. Pete was one of the driving forces behind making the event seamless and impactful to all who attended. The marketing team stayed very busy, but we had a great time working together and helping put on a very successful event.

Strength: High EQ and is great at resolving conflicts
Story: Over the years, we had to work with a few challenging personalities. More than once, the marketing team would be judged or criticized – sometimes fairly, most often not. Pete was really good at slowing down and taking time to reflect on the feedback, then responding respectfully and honestly. He would always try to see the perspective of others and did his best to not respond out of anger, but really try to learn and understand from the experience.

Strength: Ability to focus first on what matters most.
Story: From the first day I was hired, Pete made it known to me that it was his goal to make sure Tiffany (my wife) and my family were comfortable in my employment. He did this by inviting us to his home for dinner to meet him and his family. This was a great opportunity for us to get to know his family and for Tiffany to feel his concern for us. On another occasion, he told me to buy an extra dessert to take home for my wife after a business lunch. He would also ask, on a regular basis, how Tiffany and the kids were doing. My family was always more important than work.

Strength: Training the next generation of leaders
Story: Pete was great at involving his direct reports in critical matters. He would meet regularly with us to discuss team matters and to address key issues that involved senior leadership. He knew when to involve us in the “messy stuff” and when to shield us from it so that we could concentrate on what we needed to accomplish.

Strength: Strong focus on culture
Story: This is where Pete really shines. Not only did we have regular team meetings, team activities and retreats, all of which strengthened the team as a whole, but the foundation of our culture was built on TRUST. We knew Pete always had our best interest in mind. His loyalty to his team came before his loyalty to senior leadership (at least that’s how it felt to me). And that kind of attribute gets infused into the team and how we treat each other. Not that there is a disregard for senior leadership but rather that we have a special bond to one another that drives us to deliver for each other to get stuff done and to win as a team.

Strength: Ability to inspire (servant leadership)
Story: There was never a time when you were not knee-deep in the trenches with us leading and guiding. The first magic quadrant campaign we ever did comes to mind when thinking of a big project. We had no clue what we were doing and it was a huge undertaking. But you took on a huge load of the work and continued to help guide us as we did our part of the project. And we kicked butt!

Strength: Empathy/compassion
Story: This experience is actually a big memory that stands out to me but I remember when I came to work the day after I miscarried and I was trying to push through but I was a mess! You gave me a hug, helped me pack up my things and walked me out, and told me to take time off. It was an extremely difficult time in my life and you helped me to remember that we work to live, not live to work, and that our personal lives and family are much more important than the occupation we have no matter how awesome the job is.

Strength: Ability to add fun into the workplace
Story: I absolutely loved coming to work every single day because of my coworkers. You always created the most amazing work environment. We were allowed to fail, we were given permission to not know everything but to go and learn how, and we always had so much fun. It wasn’t just all the fun activities but it was genuinely a fun work environment!

Strength: Servant Leadership
Story: One of your greatest strengths is your ability to care for your people. The best part about Pete is all people are “your people.” I felt like you wanted everyone to succeed, and that extended beyond our team and even our office. You want people to be happy and you lead in a way that helps them find that happiness. By doing this, you inspire those you work with to want to work with you, stay at the company, and go the extra mile. It reminds me of the saying, “People don’t care what you know until they know how much you care.” There are countless examples of you doing this, but the one that comes to mind was something you did for me during a stressful time in my life. Tess had just been told she needed to have surgery, and there were a bunch of things in the air to figure out. I was in the office working when I got a call from you on Teams. You were at my doorstep with some flowers and a gift card for Tess, wishing her luck. That meant everything. You could have asked me to pull too consecutive all-nighters for a project and I’d be willing to do it because I knew you cared about me and my family.

Strength: Innovative in the face of doubt and adversity
Story: One thing I’ve always admired about you is your ability to innovate. I feel like this stems from your desire to continue learning and growing in everything you do. You were always reading a new book or listening to a new podcast that would provide you fuel to bring back to the team for things we could try. So many of the things you did at Anglepoint (podcasts, webinars, SAM Circles, LinkedIn Legends, etc.) were not only new to Anglepoint but new to the industry as well. It’s left a lot of competitors chasing our shadow, which is an awesome place to be. Of the many things I could select to speak about as an example, I’m going to use the podcast because it was met with so much friction internally when you pushed to do it. The rest of the org was not able to see the big picture, but because you knew how impactful it could be, you pushed Anglepoint to do it. Fast forward a year and the podcast has +12,000 streams, includes experts across the industry, has been mentioned by both competitors and Gartner as forward-thinking, and has executive support to continue it. Now, all we need to do is to get sales to realize how helpful this could be for them to sell to new accounts, but that’s a different discussion. 😉

Strength: Passion
Story: The last strength I want to highlight is your passion and desire to get better at stuff. It doesn’t matter if it’s disc golf, regular golf, marketing, flow riding, snowboarding, guitar, pickleball, relationships, home DIY, or whatever else, when you pick something you want to be successful at, your fire and passion for that thing drive your success. Part of this is your competitive nature, which is fun to be around because it’s clear you’re competing against yourself and pushing yourself to be better. There are many examples I could choose from work, but I’ll choose a more fun example here—Axe Throwing! Over our past year and a half of friendship, we’ve thrown some axes a few times. Each time, I admire the effort and passion you into critiquing your technique and getting better. You do it through gamification. You create competitions for yourself and others. My personal favorite was seeing who could get the highest points and best time while going through each of the stations that had different projectiles (regular axes, playing cards, throwing knives, Chinese stars, etc.). Even though it was a game that didn’t really matter, you approached it with passion and looked for ways to improve for the next round.

Strength: You build communities.
Story: Maybe the easiest way to define this is in a story. When you began at Anglepoint, the environment was a little every man for himself. There weren’t any really close-knit teams or really anywhere in the company as a whole. You decided that when you created your own team, you really wanted to make it a group of people that really enjoyed being together, so you planned outings outside of work with the employees’ spouses to build team relationships. You planned off-site planning meetings, remembered birthdays, send packages when one of your employees had a baby, sent Door Dash gift cards when employees went through challenges, and overall were interested and aware of what was happening in each of your employees’ lives. I know at the end so many other teams were a little jealous of how close-knit of an environment you created with your team. I have seen this in so many other aspects from starting soccer leagues to creating Facebook groups. I have even seen this in our family from the earliest days of our dating, I was so impressed with how you have a skill for being aware of people and their needs both as a whole and individually.

Strength: You are a go-getter.
Story: You never really wait for someone else to do something. You just do it! When we realized we needed to remodel the exterior of our house before the metal roofers came, I was 100% overwhelmed, and thinking surely this is something we would hire out. But in true Pete Larkin fashion, you thought, “I think we could do this ourselves.” So after watching YouTube videos, asking the opinions of other contractors, and lots of trial and error, we began the process of switching out our siding. There were times when we thought surely a team of construction workers would have had this long done by now. But we stayed the course, and finished the Hardie Board all on our own!

Strength: You are a problem solver.
Story: The very first night we brought Jaxon home from the hospital, we were both 100% exhausted. Instead of allowing the nurses to keep him in the nursery, as first-time parents, we wanted to keep him close to us at all times, which certainly played in the amount of sleep we had in the hospital. So when we finally had tucked ourselves in bed and fallen asleep, cute Jaxon decided it was time to be up again. But you being the sweet husband that you are wanted to give me a little more time to sleep, so you tried putting Jaxon’s pacifier back in his mouth, which worked for a time. However, his mouth was so tiny, he had a hard time keeping it in his mouth, and it kept waking him back up. So of course the best way to solve the problem was to sleep parallel to his bed and hold his pacifier in his mouth with your hand, so we all could get a little more sleep. And it worked! for a few hours at least. 😉

Strength: An ability to Look outward and uplift others during the most personally
stressful times
Story: You were working for Anglepoint and there were some stressful conditions in the workplace. Some of those conditions which caused anyone to focus inward for survival. There were many conversations where you were looking deep inside yourself to try to find ways that you could learn to be a better leader/follower and communicator. I was completely amazed by your ability to have patience and compassion with those that you didn’t always agree with. You were always quick to look inward to observe yourself and Look for ways to improve the situation. At the same time, I noticed how much you were still reaching out to people around you
not just at work, but family and friends, and seeing how you could lift those around you. You are gifted at being able to put your personal struggles and frustrations aside, to help lighten the load of those around you. You completely amaze me.

Strength: Ethics/Integrity

Story: It’s hard to call out just one or two specific times in which Pete has exhibited strong ethical behavior. It literally shows in all he does – from something as trivial as returning excess change received in a retail transaction to avoiding talking about people behind their back to ensuring all have a chance to provide input, to making sure the right people are credited when a particular work effort goes well. This trait is a foundational underpinning of all that he does – whether in his personal & social life, his work life, or his volunteering.

Strength: Collaborator/Peacemaker
Story: Before our family left the nest, we’d frequently travel on long road trips together. In our travels our large family would frequently descend on a restaurant to get a bite to eat, usually occupying 2 or 3 tables. Sometimes these meals could get expensive and often not all the food would be consumed. Pete would frequently “listen to the table” finding out what each person wanted to eat, then calculate and suggest ways that each person could share parts of their meal with others to ensure everyone got what they wanted at the best overall cost. “Your meal comes with veggies that you won’t eat but you want fries so are going to add a side of fries. Mars doesn’t eat fries so will just order the sandwich. But if she orders the meal to include fries, you could have her fries and she could eat your broccoli. Also, if I order the large milkshake, Dan and I can share it instead of buying 2 small milkshakes. I’m willing to go with Chocolate this time…” While this seems like a small thing, it fostered an environment where all at the table worked together to get what each wanted while helping keep the total meal cost under control. In a separate example, I’ve observed circumstances in Pete’s workplace where peer managers from other departments have, without Pete’s direct input or approval, attempted to control or influence his team’s work to achieve their own goals. I’ve noted that instead of getting mad or getting even, Pete has approached the other manager to find out what they’re trying to accomplish, and has then worked on identifying ways that Pete’s team could adjust work flows or processes to work towards the other manager’s goals without sacrificing the existing processes and efficiencies of his own team.

Strength: Follow Through/Reliability
Story: For several years between 2010 and 2022 my wife Monique and I lived in China, only getting back to the US once or twice a year. During that time, it was helpful to maintain a vehicle in the US for use when we made a home visit. Pete suggested that we could park our car on the side pad of his driveway, and he would “take care of it”. While in China I would routinely get a message that he had taken the car for a drive, gotten an oil/lube job, or had the car washed just to keep it in good condition for our eventual visit. Each time we returned, we found the vehicle to be in top running condition, clean with a tank full of gas – all without my ever asking or reminding him about it. In a separate notable example, Pete was helping a woman better organize her budding Life Coach business, offering various marketing-related suggestions – one of which was to develop a professional-looking website. Instead of simply telling her what to do, he went out of his way to provide her hands-on guidance related to the website building tools and actually took the proactive steps to research and line up several web tool plugins (i.e. appointment scheduling tools, etc.) to include on the website. He did not necessarily do the work for her, but helped set up a skeleton and then taught her how to do the work herself.

Those who lead by Influencing help their team reach a much broader audience. People with strength in this domain are always selling the team’s ideas inside and outside the organization. When you need someone to take charge, speak up, and make sure your group is heard, look to someone with the strength to influence.

Strength #1: Competition
People who are especially talented in the Competition theme measure their progress against the performance of others. They strive to win first place and revel in contests.

Strength #2: Positivity
People who are especially talented in the Positivity theme have an enthusiasm that is
contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do.

Strength #3: Learner
People who are especially talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.

Strength #4: Achiever
People who are especially talented in the Achiever theme have a great deal of stamina and work hard. They take great satisfaction from being busy and productive.

Strength #5: Futuristic
People who are especially talented in the Futuristic theme are inspired by the future and what could be. They inspire others with their visions of the future.