My top five strengths in order are maximizer, belief, achiever, arranger, and responsibility. According to my strengths insight, as a maximizer I have belief in my abilities and have gotten through life knowing what I am good at and using that to my advantage to succeed. With this constant use of my talents, I shy away from things that I am not good at and do best when people give me praise for my talents. As a maximizer, I like to be praised for my skills, talents, and knowledge and like to surround myself who appreciate these things about myself. My belief strength means I want to provide for those that I care about which motivates my every day words and actions. I want to do good in the world which in turn gives meaning to my life. I strive to live a life of meaning which is why I tend to devote my time and self-awareness of my talents to causes that are relevant to my never changing values and beliefs. As an achiever, I won’t stop until I produce a positive result. As an avid user of my talents, I work hard during long durations. I try my best to boost people’s spirits possibly to gain “followers” possibly in order to achieve a future leadership position. Often, I see the good in individuals and circumstances. This relates to how I make the most out of every situation as a maximizer. As an arranger, I won’t stop until a task is completely finished. As a person who is motivated by my special skill set, I don’t try to do something that I am not good at because I expect excellence from myself and others. I will not settle for average so I like to do things the same way every time if I knew that it had previously worked. In this way, I am a strict rule and exact method follower which makes it easier to avoid arguments and mistakes. As someone with responsibility as a strength, I find it hard to stop my work grind. I am determined to accomplish things that I say I will do. I am very open with others about myself including sharing life stories where I often highlight my setbacks and talents which causes others to want to follow me by example. I tell people who I am, what I do, and what I cannot do by being a straightforward, no-nonsense, and upfront person. What sets me apart from most people is that I am honest with others and myself about my flaws and faults. Overall, I know the things that are great about me and the things that are wrong with me which I share with others. I use this knowledge about myself to my advantage in order to create a positive result in which I work hard and don’t stop so that I gain meaning in my life and appreciation from others. Just like Block, I am driven to make a difference in the world. I also have a “sense of ownership and accountability” regarding my responsibility strength. As a maximizer and someone who has strong beliefs, I also share in his second definition of belonging or “our capacity to find our deeper purpose in all that we do” because I want to find meaning in my life by making a change in the world. Knowing that I like to deliver exceptional results and deliver on promises until I succeed, I probably would choose to partake in Kretzmann & McKnight’s alternative path using my maximizer strength to use the resources within these communities to turn something strong into something even greater. According to my strengths, I have a knack for getting people to follow and listen to me and I can emphasize how important it is for these communities to figure out how to use what they can provide to help themselves from the inside. Knowing my own talents, I can easily identify talents within others to help them build their community to solve their own problems. These community organizations and individuals may not see their talents and skills but I have an instinct for bringing out to the light what exactly they can achieve. Within the Virginia Tech community and the surrounding areas, I can use my known skills to solve problems that I strongly believe in. I can use the alternative path model to not just help out a “needy” community and leave after I use resources that they may not possess but I can show these communities to use what they have within each and every one of them. I can be brutally honest with these people so that they can achieve a more permanent solution. A possible way that I can better help using my strengths regards something I strongly care about (belief) which is the community health issue of the New River Valley. According to www.vdh.virginia.gov, the NRV doesn’t have the best statistics with health issues compared to the national and state averages. In 2012, the New River Valley has a three times higher rate of prescription drug abuse than the state average. One area named Pulsaki is six times the state average in terms of prescription drug abuse. To help this situation, I could look within the community’s health education system or hospitals so that they could use the individuals that they already have to maybe not prescribe as many drugs and to raise awareness about the dangers and signs of drug abuse. The most relevant problem to all of the health issues that they experience such as smoking, teen pregnancy rates, and obesity is the NRV’s problem of poverty. I believe that if we fix the economy from the inside by highlighting the New River Valley’s assets to increase productivity then these health issues may decrease. People will have more resources as a wealthier community to participate in things such as gym memberships and will be able to afford better nutrition and may look for less stress outlets such as smoking or drug abuse.