What matters most
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I stole this short essay on Strengths from a wonderful PDF of sayings from amazing people compiled by Seth Godin. You can download the entire online book here. I highly recommend it—it's a great way to get yourself in the mood to envision 2010. Ask yourself which of these stories resonates most strongly with you. And then imagine having a lot more of that in your life.
STRENGTHS
Forget about working on your weaknesses —> Focus on supporting your strengths.
I worked on my weaknesses for 40 years to little avail. Still “needs improvement,” as they say. Why? Easy. We hate doing things we’re not good at, so we avoid them. No practice makes perfect hard to attain.
But my strengths – ah, I love my strengths. I’ll work on them till the purple cows come home. When we love what we do, we do more and more, and pretty soon we’re pretty good at it.
The beautiful thing about being on a team is that, believe it or not, lots of people love doing the things you hate. And hate doing the things you love. So quit diligently developing your weaknesses. Instead, partner with someone very UNlike you, share the work and share the wealth and everyone’s happy.
Relatedly, women are rather UNlike men and often approach problems and opportunities with a different outlook. Yet books and coaches oen encourage us to adopt male strengths and, lacking understanding, to relinquish our own. The irony is, studies show that more women in leadership translates unequivocally into better business results.
Wouldn’t it make more sense for both men and women to appreciate each other’s strengths so we all work on what comes naturally?
Marti Barletta, speaker, consultant and author of Marketing to Women and PrimeTime Women; is currently working on her next book, Attracting Women: Marketing Your Company to the
21st Century’s Best Candidates.
Forget about working on your weaknesses —> Focus on supporting your strengths.
I worked on my weaknesses for 40 years to little avail. Still “needs improvement,” as they say. Why? Easy. We hate doing things we’re not good at, so we avoid them. No practice makes perfect hard to attain.
But my strengths – ah, I love my strengths. I’ll work on them till the purple cows come home. When we love what we do, we do more and more, and pretty soon we’re pretty good at it.
The beautiful thing about being on a team is that, believe it or not, lots of people love doing the things you hate. And hate doing the things you love. So quit diligently developing your weaknesses. Instead, partner with someone very UNlike you, share the work and share the wealth and everyone’s happy.
Relatedly, women are rather UNlike men and often approach problems and opportunities with a different outlook. Yet books and coaches oen encourage us to adopt male strengths and, lacking understanding, to relinquish our own. The irony is, studies show that more women in leadership translates unequivocally into better business results.
Wouldn’t it make more sense for both men and women to appreciate each other’s strengths so we all work on what comes naturally?
Marti Barletta, speaker, consultant and author of Marketing to Women and PrimeTime Women is currently working on her next book, Attracting Women: Marketing Your Company to the 21st Century’s Best Candidates.
This post was written by Virginia Reuter of Ardentio for the Biz Diva.