I would like to encourage you to think about what you are doing to improve your game and more importantly, who’s teaching you. There so many people out there that would have you believe that you could do something amazing like build a car with your own two hands. They’ll say all you need is to “have the right tools,” but I just don’t feel that’s the case for the average person no matter how serious their work ethic.
I did a brief talk yesterday at a local business about team work and communication. I’ve been working on this to get information and feedback for a project I will be coming out with soon.
NE hoo, one of the employees asks me the question that was apparently on everyone’s mind. He was concerned about pulling his weight at the office and he wasn’t sure if he should continue trying to improve on his weaknesses like he had been doing or if he should try to focus more on his strengths.
Well, I’d like to say this is an easy one, but it’s not. There IS a correct answer, however. Should you work on improving your strengths or weaknesses? Quite simply put, you should work on your strengths.
Why?
Here’s the thing brozilla. Your weakness is a weakness for a reason. And if you try to improve on it, it just leads to mediocrity. Think about it this way. Let’s talk about Superman for a second.
Superman had awesome superpowers, but he also had a super weakness, kryptonite. When Superman had any of that stuff around, he was useless. He had superpowers, but couldn’t use them because he was so weakened by that stuff.
The same goes for you. You can’t use your superpowers if you are focused on the weaknesses that you have. First of all, it probably doesn’t interest you, so you’re gonna spend a lot more time trying to get better than if you were working on your superpower.
Secondly, If and when you get to a point where you’re REALLY GOOD at what you do, well then you should be able to command more (money) for whatever you’re doing and eventually those things that you suck at can be done by someone else.
So go hard on your strengths and do what you can to get someone to help you cover up your weaknesses. Most importantly, stay away from kryptonite!
Jerry “strength work” Washington
P.S. I don’t want to give the impression that you should completely disregard your weaknesses, but I would say for every 4-5 hours you spend on your strengths, you should spend an hour improving your weaknesses one way to do that is to read a book or listen to one that will help you understand where your vulnerabilities are. Talk soon…
