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Personal Development and Productivity

Forget Your Weaknesses. Develop Your Strengths.

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Note: This article appeared on my old website full-time-writer.com. As it most definitely applies to the theme of this blog, I’ve re-published it. Enjoy.

The idea that we should turn our weaknesses into our strengths is a common theme in the self-help community. There are countless books and blogs that tell us to focus on the areas in our life where we could do better and work to systematically improve upon these weaknesses so that they become our strengths.

This is a good idea, but it’s a good idea that has sadly been taken to its logical extreme. Because we have limited our focus to our weaknesses, we forget to recognize our natural abilities and talents. We adopt a kind of tunnel vision, seeing our lives a as checklist of things we need to fix.

If this philosophy could be summed up in one sentence, it would be this:

Determine what you’re bad at, and become less bad at it.

This isn’t the worst philosophy in the world, and it can help you get results to a point. I know that it has certainly worked for me. One of the weaknesses that I had worked to overcome was my shyness and introversion. When I was a kid, I used to be so shy that picking up the phone to call a store about whether they had or didn’t have a particular item in stock made me nervous. Eventually, through some effort, I overcame this weakness. Not only did I not have trouble picking up the phone, but I had grown to love cold-calling. In fact, when I became a corporate recruiter, I was making an average of 80 to 100 calls a day to complete strangers. I wasn’t calling them about store inventories either, but trying to persuade them to meet me at my office to discuss an opportunity in a different company. These calls were often done in Japanese, which is my second language.

Not only did I overcome shyness, but I became a better salesman (recruiting is basically sales). In my first year my ranking out of 100 recruiters in the company was near the bottom. By reading many books on sales and the art of persuasion and applying the techniques from these books in my daily work, I grew from being a terrible recruiter to an above average recruiter. My numbers proved it. I went from near the bottom rung to number 20 or so in the rankings.

As the above two examples show, focusing on overcoming weaknesses does help, but it has its limitations. Nothing made this more clear to me when a 27-year-old rookie, who had joined a year before I did, became the top recruiter in our whole company. He had astounding numbers and less experience than the veterans who had been there for years.

That consultant had a gift. He was a born salesman. He was naturally good at what he did and the more he did it, the better he got. Because I had subscribed to the “weaknesses into strengths” paradigm, I tried to convince myself if I worked hard enough, I would be able to reach his level. Over time, the fact that I had trouble getting even close to his level was a source of real frustration for me.

Because I was hung up on the fact that this rookie had more natural talent than me, I failed to acknowledge my own unique talents, which, although they may not help me become the top recruiter at a headhunting firm, could definitely help me become a leader in other arenas.

It wasn’t until I quit my job to work for myself that my perspective started to change. As I embarked on a new career path and devoted myself to doing what I love, I suddenly realized that, despite my lack of experience, things came much easier to me. My job was no longer a daily struggle with my weaknesses. Rather, I involved myself in work that made the best use of my strengths. Gradually, I moved away from the weaknesses-to-strengths paradigm and began to follow an entirely different philosophy:

Determine what you’re good at, and get better at it.

If you focus on turning your weaknesses into strengths, you’ll achieve a level of competency, maybe even become above average, but odds are you’ll never be the best.  Being the best requires both talent and hard work. If you’re missing one of those ingredients, above average is as far as you’re going to get. If you know you don’t have talent in a certain area, stop pushing yourself in the hopes that you can manufacture it through sheer effort. Instead, focus on the areas where you do have talent, and work to develop them.  If you develop your strengths first, your weaknesses will have a tendency to take care of themselves.

One book that helped crystallize the idea of “strengths first” for me was StrengthsFinder 2.0, by Tom Rath. The book is essentially an index of the 34 strengths that you can work to develop over the course of your life. Not only are the strengths well-described, but the book also provides action steps that you can take to develop them. In order to determine which of the 34 strengths are your top five strengths, you take an online test that requires a special access code that comes with every book.

Being the personality test addict that I am, I paid my $13.47 plus shipping and handling for the book, tore open the envelope with my super-secret access code and went online to take the test. My top 5 strengths were as follows:

  • Intellection – Having a need for mental activity, whether it be solving a problem, developing ideas, or philosophical reflection.
  • Ideation – Being fascinated by ideas and new perspectives. Viewing phenomena from new and different angles.
  • Futuristic – The ability to have a clear, detailed vision of what the future might hold.
  • Connectedness – Understanding that we, all of us, are a part of something bigger. Being aware of the subtle forces and patterns which govern all things.
  • Learner – Having a love of learning.

I wasn’t particularly surprised by my results, other very good personality tests I had taken had basically informed me of my strengths (and weaknesses) in a similar way. What was different was how the StrengthsFinder book encouraged me to develop my strengths.  The book stressed that although these were my natural talents, I had to work to develop them or they would deteriorate.

Thinking back to my career as a recruiter, I realized how true that was. In the effort to eliminate my weaknesses, I had neglected many of my natural strengths, almost to the point of making them weaknesses. Because I was too busy making calls and answering emails, I gave myself little time to think things through, thus neglecting my abilities of intellection. Because I was so busy gobbling up other people’s ideas about how things should be done, I had spent little time developing my own ideas, thus neglecting my abilities of ideation. Because I didn’t allow myself see past my sales figures for the next fiscal quarter, I failed to think about the future–the long term consequences of my actions and inactions. I was so preoccupied by narrow concerns that I failed to tap into my ability to see the connections between things. Finally, because I let myself work 50 to 60 hour weeks and partied all night on the weekends to blow off steam, I spent very little time learning anything new.

I realize now that I could have worked to develop my strengths even as a recruiter, but because the job was such a mismatch for me, it made me more aware of the weaknesses I had to improve upon than the strengths I could capitalize upon. Now, because I’ve decided to work for myself I find myself gravitating toward business opportunities that take advantage of my strengths rather than making me aware of my weaknesses. It’s amazing what change in perspective can do.

The Rise of the Generalist, Part I: The Fall of the Specialist

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When it comes to your marketable job skills are you a koala or are you a crow?

Koalas are super-specialists. Over the past few million years they’ve managed to evolve the capability to eat and metabolize poisonous eucalyptus leaves. This is great for the koalas because it ensures a stable food supply. When it comes to finding lunch, koalas have very little competition. There aren’t many other animals out there who’d be able to steal from the koala’s dinner plate. They’d die if they even tried. Because there’s little competition, the koala can afford to sleep, be lazy, and eat leaves all day long. Not a bad life.

The crow, on the other hand. Is an example of the super-generalist. Crows will eat anything: fruit, meat, vegetables, worms, garbage–even small animals. Anything they can get their beak around, they’ll eat it.

Crows, generalists as they are, don’t have it as easy as the Koalas do. After all, they have to compete with all the other birds, rodents, and scavengers for a day’s sustenance. For them, day to day life is a never-ending ordeal of hunting and foraging for scraps.

Crows vs. Koalas in the Job Market

In the job market, koalas have long been favored over crows, but that’s soon to change.

Up until now, those who have invested the time to develop a highly-specialized skill set, like koalas, have managed to make pretty easy livings for themselves. Because these specialists have spent so much of their life devoted to becoming a master of a narrow niche, few can compete with their skill level in that niche. They’re the best at what they do, and can often charge very high rates for their services. Because they’ve invested so much time training themselves to become specialists, they’re able to enjoy the luxury of making more money and doing less work.

Those with a more generalized set of skills don’t seem have it so easy. Because they haven’t devoted themselves to the development of a specialized skill set, they’re forced to “forage for scraps” and fight off the competition to land one of those rare job openings that require a lower level of skill.

For the longest time, being a specialist has always seemed to be the safest career decision, but actually, it’s not as safe as you might think. As a specialist, it’s very easy to get a job when your skills are in demand, but it’s much easier to lose your job when your skills aren’t.  Just because you feel you’ve tucked yourself securely into a niche doesn’t mean you’re protected against the very real possibility that your niche will be gone tomorrow.

Market trends could make your job vanish overnight. This has already happened in the memory chip industry. Many electrical engineers whose sole specialty was the manufacturing and design of memory chips enjoyed high demand for their skills for many decades. Then, when Taiwan and Korea developed the capability to produce the same chips at a greatly reduced price, they flooded the market with their cheap chips. The memory chip companies in the States couldn’t compete and many engineers found themselves out of a job.

Unpredictable market trends are not the only job killers out there. Actually, your high-skilled job is much more likely to fall victim to another, much more powerful predator: Technology.

The number one tenet of technological progress is this: make it easier for less people to do more things. As technology progresses, it takes less and less expertise and manpower to achieve the same tasks. Seemingly secure niches that require a high level of expertise today could easily be rendered obsolete by the next big technological advance tomorrow.

Skills are getting cheaper by the minute. A task that may require a team of experts now may only require an unskilled person at a computer ten years from now. This trend is destined to continue until the advantage experts have over generalists in nearly every conceivable field will become negligible. This has already happened in the past, and now it’s happening faster than ever.

Whether you like it or not, the crows are beginning to learn how to eat eucalyptus. If you’re a koala, it might be time to adopt a more balanced diet.

…

Stay tuned for Part II of this series: The Specialist’s Survival Guide.  Click here for Part II.

Special thanks to Allan Ecker of the Thingiverse Blog for his thoughts on the cheapening of skills.

Koala Picture by: Brian Giesen

Crow Picture by: Linda Tanner

How Finding Your Genius can Open up Career Opportunities

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How can you find your genius? How can you find the one thing that you do better than other people and exploit it?

This is a common theme in the personal development world. It’s the concept that everyone has innate talents that lie at the core of their being. Once you determine those talents it’s your obligation to let them grow to their fullest potential.

The first time I was confronted with this idea was when I was listening to the Power of Clarity tapes by Brian Tracy. He instructed me to make a list of core strengths and find situations where I could develop them to their fullest extent. Dutifully, I got out a notepad and came up with the following list:

  • Writing
  • Public Speaking
  • Music
  • Learning Languages
  • Memorization
  • Research

Although I believe Brian Tracy is one of the best voices in the field of personal development, especially when it comes to developing skills as a salesperson, I felt there was something lacking when listening to his tapes. These were all things that I felt pretty confident I was good at, but writing them down didn’t provide me with any clarity. They did nothing to excite me or spark my imagination. Nothing incited me to take any real action.

Several months later, I stumbled upon the remarkable book “Is your Genius at Work?” by Dick Richards. In his book, Richards argues that everyone not only has unique talents, but there’s a core talent, a “Genius” that’s unique to every individual. According to Richards, Our “Genius” is the one thing that we do better than anyone else on the planet. It was a bold statement, but in reading the many testimonials about how people had found their Genius and how it had helped them, I felt that I should give this book a try.

The book led me through a series of exercises which forced me to reflect deeply upon those moments in my life where I excelled. It also made me take a hard look at the areas in my life where I had failed. About halfway through the book I got a very real sense that there was an underlying “theme” that pervaded my life. There was a reason I was attracted to some things, and not attracted to others. There was a reason I got into writing, and not gardening. There was a reason why I left my job in Tokyo and decided to return back to the States.

The reason for leaving was simple: there was a deep seated feeling somewhere inside me that told me my Genius was not being exploited to its full potential, and every exercise I finished, every page I turned in this remarkable book, I got closer to understanding that feeling, to understanding my Genius.

Richards helps us focus our thinking about Genius by defining it as a gerund followed by a noun. Examples of other people’s Geniuses used in the book include “Engaging the Heart,” “Charting the Course,” and “Maximizing Opportunities.” These Geniuses weren’t predefined. They weren’t determined by choosing the best Genius among a list of options but rather they were to be named by the person doing the searching. In this way, the name for each Genius is as unique as each individual. Among the hundreds of people whom he had personally helped find the names for their Geniuses, Richards says that no two were exactly alike.

As I went through the exercises, the first name for my Genius that I felt good about was “Finding Significance.” I could see the thread of Finding Significance throughout my life. Finding Significance was the main reason I felt compelled to write certain stories and not others. It explained why I was sometimes not motivated to finish a writing a story even though on the surface it seemed funny, witty or engaging. If there was no meaning, no significance, then what was the point?

Finding Significance also explained why I was probably the best researcher at our headhunting firm. I loved coming up with new methods to find business professionals and their contact information. To me, finding people who had never met a headhunter before and exposing them to the opportunities of the job market was more meaningful to me than convincing candidates to take a job which I wasn’t sure was right for them.

Finding Significance stuck with me for about five days. It felt pretty good, but there was a nagging feeling that it wasn’t quite right. Eventually, I realized that it wasn’t enough to just find significance, I had to convey significance to other people. After some reflection, I was able to revise the name for my genius as “Delivering Significance.”

Finding my Genius: Four Months Later

The name stuck, and ever since then I’ve made sure that whatever opportunity I pursued, Delivering Significance was a core part of it.  Because my Genius was “delivering” and not “creating” significance, I realized that I didn’t have to come up with the mind shattering insights by myself. All I had to do was find that which was significant, and deliver that same significance to those who most needed it. If, for example, I came across an interesting idea from a science or business blog, I could see how the significant ideas in those fields could be applied to other fields (like personal development and career creation, for example). Furthermore, I’d be able to find the best way to communicate those ideas in a way that they could be understood clearly.

No More Labels

After a while, I realized that I didn’t even have to be a writer to deliver significance. Even though I had always thought of myself as a writer and was a creative writing major in university, I didn’t necessarily need to write in order to deliver significance. The medium was not as important as the message. I could be a psychiatrist, salesman, teacher, public speaker, career coach, computer programmer–I could even teach zumba classes. I could do all these things and still deliver significance.

When got an idea for a web application, I decided to learn how to create it because it seemed an effective way to deliver significance. Because I no longer imposed a label upon myself as a writer or a blogger, but as a “deliverer of significance,” I felt more open to opportunities I might have never considered before, web application development being one of them. In university, I had no interest in programming because it seemed to be the the polar opposite of writing short stories and novels. Now, because I no longer think of myself as just a writer, I decided to start learning programming to see if I liked it or not. To my surprise, I found programming to be a very rewarding experience.

Finding my genius was partly the reason why I shut down my old website full-time-writer.com. To market myself as a knowledgeable freelance writer, I wrote articles on the nuts and bolts of writing like: “How to write an outline” and, “Examples of tone in writing.” These were articles that I wrote simply to increase traffic to my website and were hardly focused on delivering significance. As a result, I didn’t enjoy writing them very much. Now, because the articles I write are 100% focused on delivering significance, I find myself enjoying writing more. Not only that, but I find myself in the flow of writing much more often.

My work these days have been a balance between writing the articles for this blog and working on the web application. Because the web application has the highest potential to make money, I’ve been spending more time programming than writing. In a way, since both of these pursuits are linked to “delivering significance,” you could say that they’re but different aspects of the same job. I’m confident that my effort in both areas will complement each other down the line.

I’ve read many personal development books that had exciting ideas that I eventually forgot about or failed to implement. As you can see, “Is Your Genius at Work?” is a rare exception. I highly recommend Dick Richard’s book for anyone who feels a need for direction in their life. It certainly has helped me. Richard’s own Genius, by the way, is “Creating Clarity,” and considering how good of a job he did to create clarity for me, I firmly believe that to be the case.

Two Conversations with Self-doubt

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Just the other day…

Self-doubt: You gotta stop working on this web application and get a real job. You have absolutely no training whatsoever in computer science. How can you possibly create a fully functioning web app?
Me: Well, I know I’m new to programming, but everyone has to start learning somewhere. I think I’ve learned a lot in the past couple of months.
Self-doubt: And your idea, it’s so…out there.  You must be mad to think it’ll actually work.
Me: I have no idea that it will, but I’ve got to try.
Self-doubt: With all the smart people out there in the world, why hasn’t anyone come up with this idea before you? They must have at some time. Because no one has succeeded in implementing an idea like yours it must mean it’s not possible.
Me: Well…it COULD be possible. Maybe those other people didn’t try hard enough.
Self-doubt: And what’s more, someone might actually succeed in creating this very same web app just before you launch it. What are you going to do then huh? You just wasted months when you could have been hunting for a job.
Me: Uh…
Self-doubt: So start sending out your damn resume!

*Short pause*

Me: Okay, I admit. You’ve done a pretty good job scaring me to death, but I can’t give up now. I have to see this through. I’ve sacrificed too much time and effort not to. Goodbye.
Self-doubt: Hey, what happened to you? I always used to win these arguments.
Me: I used to have a job then.
Self-doubt: Oh, right.

The same conversation when I had a job

Me: I’ve got a great business idea! All I need to do is to put forth a little effort, and I can get it rolling!
Self-doubt: Are you kidding? Your revenue is low this quarter. You have to be 100% focused on closing some deals or you’ll lose your job! Quit daydreaming and get back to work!
Me: Apologies sir, right away sir!

…

Everyone has conversations with self-doubt. The question is, which one are you having?

What the Inventor of Velcro Can Teach You About Success

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The first time I read about the invention of Velcro was in the third grade. The book said that in 1941 engineer George de Mestral went on a hunting trip and when he came back was fascinated by the burrs that were stuck to his jacket and his dog’s fur. He checked out the burrs in a microscope, and noticed they had little hooks at the end of each spike to help them attach to the fibers in his jacket. In a flash of genius, Mestral thought that it’d be a great idea to create an adhesive based on the same principle. Shortly thereafter, he created a prototype and soon Velcro was so popular that Mestral became filthy rich overnight.

For the longest time that’s all I thought there was to the invention of Velcro. It was only until recently that I found there was much more to the story.

George de Mestral didn’t just have the idea, slap together a prototype in his shed, sell it, and suddenly become rich. In reality, the invention of Velcro was not an overnight success, but rather a 20 year struggle. Although I found the story to be far removed from the fairy tale I read long ago, I found the true story of Velcro to be far more inspirational.

The (true) story of Velcro

After he had been blessed (some might say “cursed”) with his brilliant idea, Mestral visited one weaver after another to try to convince one of them to make a prototype.  At first, no one took him seriously or even bothered to listen to him. Eventually, through sheer stubbornness and persistence, he managed to persuade one weaver to help him out.

Although he managed to acquire the means of making a prototype, Mestral couldn’t find the right material to achieve the adhesive quality he was looking for. The idea was simple enough: Hooks on one end, loops on the other, but try as he might, he couldn’t find a material strong enough for the hooks.

After years of trial and error, Mestral settled on nylon (a recent invention) as his material of choice. Although nylon, as strong as it was, seemed like the perfect material for the hooks, there was no known manufacturing process that could automate their production.

After all those years of struggle, his invention seemed doomed.

Mestral spent years obsessing on how to make these hooks.

But Mestral couldn’t let his idea go. He sacrificed everything he had, quit his job and borrowed money from friends to make Velcro come to life. He devoted himself to inventing a machine that could cut the uniform nylon hooks he had envisioned. During this difficult time Mestral was fond of repeating a quote from one of his friends: “There are two paths of ruin for men: women and inventions, inventions being the more certain path.”

After nearly a decade of obsessing over these hooks, he almost gave up. In a final move of desperation he retreated to a hut deep in the Alps where he’d be free from distractions. After days of fruitless meditation he went to a nearby town for a change of scene. While waiting in the local barbershop, Mestral had a flash of inspiration: he could create a machine that simulated the cutting motion of the barber’s shears, and thus cut the uniform nylon hooks that he was looking for.

So finally, nearly 14 years after getting his initial idea, Mestral had a patent and a manufacturing process. The product was complete. All he had to do now was present it to the world and deal with the overwhelming demand, right?

Well…not exactly.

Velcro Fails to Stick

Mestral was an Engineer, and engineers aren’t particularly known for their fashion savvy. To Mestral, all that mattered was the function of the product, not the form. Here was a product that didn’t break like zippers did or fall off like buttons did. Obviously the function was far superior. How could there NOT be demand?

Mestral failed to recognize that fashion was a strange world where form rules over function. Velcro, unfortunately, was high on function and low on form. It looked like ragged pieces of cloth and certainly couldn’t capture the flair that fancy buttons and laces had.

Although it was a brilliant idea, it seemed that the fashion world wouldn’t have anything to do with it. And since the only apparent application of this adhesive was clothing at the time, Velcro seemed to be doomed to a death of obscurity.

A Customer from Outer Space

It wasn’t until NASA decided to use Velcro as fasteners for spacesuits that the orders started coming in. Shortly thereafter some smart sporting goods designer saw how the same idea could be applied to ski apparel and from there the invention took off. Once people started to see applications for the adhesive other than in high-fashion, it wasn’t too soon before Velcro made its way into child wallets and Spider Man sneakers. Now it’s used in everything from child-safe dart boards to the cuffs in blood pressure meters.

After more than 20 years of hard work and battling with uncertainty (some might say unreadiness ;)), Velcro became the “overnight success” that the book I had read so long ago had led me to believe. Eventually Mestral made a lot of money from his invention, but I’m sure that doesn’t compare to the satisfaction he got from bringing his idea to life.

The Lessons I Learned from this Story:

Don’t Throw Away a Good Idea

The book I read in grade school about successful inventors was really nothing more than a collection of entrepreneurial folk tales. The message of the book was poisonous:  All you had to do was come up with a great original idea, sell it, and *poof* you’re a millionaire!

Obviously, nothing could be further from the truth.

Many good ideas die because, after putting forth a little effort, nothing fruitful comes of it. Because we don’t get instant results from our good ideas we tend to believe that the idea would have never worked. One thing I learned from Mestral is that this isn’t true. Even a seemingly stupid idea like Velcro can be wildly successful if you put enough effort behind it.

Velcro was a very good idea that required a lot of hard work and dedication to make a reality. I believe that most of us have several ideas over the course of our lives that can not only make us rich, but also help a lot of people. Don’t throw your good ideas away. Realize their value.

Know what your customers want

Although Mestral undoubtedly had genius, passion and drive, he failed to understand the motivations of the fashion industry. He naturally assumed that his superior adhesive would be favored over buttons and zippers without thinking about how ugly Velcro was. If he had tried to adopt the mindset of a fashion designer he probably would have realized very quickly that his invention wouldn’t be well received. If he made this realization sooner, he might have spent more time thinking of other markets that might have wanted his product than making overtures to an industry that clearly didn’t want anything to do with it.

Ideas don’t make money, their applications do.

Products, no matter how ingenious they might be, are worthless unless you can find applications for them that people are willing to pay for. Velcro was considered useless until NASA found a use for it. If NASA spacesuit designers had decided to use zippers instead, we may have never even heard of Velcro.

It’s very possible that even today you could come up with an application for Velcro that could make you a million dollars. All you have to do is think of a unique way to use Velcro to make people’s lives easier. You don’t have to be 100% original either. After all, it doesn’t take an inventor genius to make the logical jump from space suits to ski suits.

Furthermore, that ski suit designer probably didn’t have to work as hard to make his fortune as Mestral did.

There are many unsuccessful ideas out there that have died for want of a good application. I imagine some of those ideas are your own. Maybe it’s time to take a look at them again. If you can come up with some good applications, you may just turn an unsuccessful idea into a very successful one.

Why not give it a try?

Photo Credits:

First photo by:  Beatrice Murch

Second photo by:  Kim Laughton

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