You'd never believe what my strengths were --

Curiosity; love of learning; appreciation of beauty and excellence; critical thinking, judgement, and open-mindedness; and vitality (out of 24 possible strengths)

I've always wanted to do a Ben Franklin on my life...you know, self-consciously develop virtues and see what happens. The project always seemed daunting because there were so many places I could start. When I made a list of all the virtues I thought were important, I'd end up with two dozen really challenging character traits that all seemed equally worthy of developing. Seligman's approach is nice because it gave you a rock steady place to begin by identifying your characteristic strenghts. He encourages people to NOT spend too much time trying to bolster character strengths that aren't already strong. Good stuff!