Own your strengths

I’m grateful to people who are really good at cooking. (Image by Matej Madar)

When I saw my house for the first time, I didn’t notice the condition of the floors.

I was so enamored with the many windows and the cute little bedrooms and the ancient but charming kitchen that I didn’t realize that the hardwoods in the living room were a treacherous expanse likely to give you a splinter when you dared to traverse them. Even with socks on. In fact, this didn’t occur to me until months later when I got my first splinter (with socks on).

Now that I see that the floors need refinishing, I wonder how I could have missed that. I missed a lot of things that fall, like all the weed trees around the property, some growing right through the middle of shrubs. In fact, I tend to miss a lot of things related to house and garden. I also don’t have a very good eye for what a space could be: imagining a different configuration of furniture or color or texture. When it comes to interior design and landscaping, so much of reality is virtually invisible to me, and possibility is elusive as well.

On the other hand, when it comes to editing someone’s writing, I’m always surprised at what they are unable to see. This sentence should go after that one. This comma should be taken out, and that clunky phrase can be summed up with one precise word that means exactly what you were trying to say. What’s more, I’m always correcting grammar (PSA: 90% of the time, “myself” should just be “me” unless you are also the subject of the sentence). This stuff is so obvious to me that I struggle to understand how it isn’t just as obvious to everyone. Of course it isn’t. I know what I know, I see what I see, and the same is true for everyone else. We all have different strengths.

It’s interesting that we can be looking at the same thing, but I see something completely different from what you see. You might have far more empathy than I do, or a better sense of how colors fit together, or pick up on nuances of body language that I miss. I listen to my sailor husband and friends communicate in a language I don’t understand. I can tell which way the wind is blowing when it’s really obvious. However, they know exactly how to deploy the sails to take advantage of that wind. I know I could learn how to do it, but I would need a lot of patient coaching and repetition. It isn’t intuitive to me at all.

I have compassion for these blind spots of mine, even when I’m standing there needing to be shown how to make the same knot for the tenth time. I know from my time as a teacher that our weaknesses are just part of our profile, along with our strengths. These areas of weakness can be addressed if the learner is willing.

As a teacher, I also learned a lot in those years about spotting and developing people’s strengths, which is much more powerful and makes dealing with our weaknesses more bearable. This kid has remarkable verbal acuity. This one is utterly unstoppable when working toward a goal. This other one is good at gathering a group of collaborators. There was always something that stood out—a powerful asset that could be cultivated.

I now apply these insights to my coaching and consulting. Working with entrepreneurs adds a whole new dimension because these folks have experience and expertise, not just aptitude. In other words, they have more than mere potential—they are accomplished at what they do. Ironically, however, they are that much more likely to dismiss the value of it and assume that they’re not that special. A little humility is not a bad thing, but not to the point of distorting reality. To reach the next level of success, these leaders must recognize the power of their unique vision and insight and, ideally, share it more confidently with others. They’ve got to own their own strengths to the same degree that they appreciate those of the people they themselves admire.

When we are stepping forward into something new—perhaps launching a business, creating art, or applying for a job, many of us second-guess ourselves and our skills. We take for granted what we perceive about the world. It comes so easily to us that we undervalue it, wrongly believing that “everyone” gets it like we do. They don’t. We owe it to ourselves and to others to push even harder into our areas of strength and develop them fully. When we do, everyone benefits.