Throughout school we are taught to work on our weaknesses. We’re told that the weakest link in the chain is as strong as the chain is. Phooey!
As Dave Rendall says, if you work really hard on your weaknesses, you can only hope that they become average. For me, it’s my handwriting. My mother, an English teacher at one point in her career, with lovely penmanship, by the way, was still sending me handwriting workbooks when I was in college. It really is that bad. And try as I might, I barely achieved legibility. I will never achieve excellence in handwriting.
Now Dave also says, “Excellence is a form of deviance”. By its very nature, excellence is not normal. So, if you take time working on your weaknesses, you may achieve normalcy. But if you double down on your strengths, you might just achieve excellence.
And to make it even more interesting, Dave suggests that your weaknesses are actually your strengths in a different context. So, like my handwriting being nearly illegible in English, when I lived in China I was told that my Chinese characters were very good. Go figure. You’ll have to listen to his talks or read the book for more on that.
For more on this topic, try out the following:
Don’t Waste Time Fixing Your Weaknesses, Forbes
The Freak Factor, David Rendall
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