Most managers assume that professional development means investing in an employee’s weaknesses. This management strategy is flawed. The more effective investment is developing an employee’s strengths, not his or her weaknesses. Worse yet, this erroneous focus on enhancing weaknesses is not confined to corporations and organizations. It is almost universally accepted as a great way to succeed in business and life.
Most of us think we have to do it all and be good at everything.
It’s part of our independent spirit. We live in a time where you can actually afford not to do it all. Welcome to the twenty-first century. Yet for some reason, we still think we should. We think we have to go to work, come home, cook the gourmet meal. After that, we clean the house spotlessly, take care of the children. Maybe we also have an extraordinary social life and take classes to improve ourselves. And we do all this in the same day or week. What if you just strengthened your strengths? What if you really take a look at what you are good at, focused on that, mastered that, and delegated the rest?
People who really master a strength tend to easily attract the good life.
Warren Buffett is a master investor. Barbra Streisand is a masterful singer. Doing a lot of things fairly well is not nearly as valuable as doing one thing extremely well. Mastery is an art. Even if you have the natural gift for something, it usually takes time and dedication to make that gift pay off. Tiger Woods may be naturally athletic and have a gift for golf. But he has honed the sport to an art form with practice, work, concentration and plenty of coaching. Do we care if he can balance his checkbook? Of course not. Give up trying to be good at everything and focus on developing your natural strengths and abilities instead.
Let me share an example from one of my clients.
I’ve been working with this business coaching client for several months now—he is a very successful entrepreneur and business owner in his mid-fifties. He could easily retire, but found that he couldn’t stand doing nothing. At the same time, he didn’t want the stresses of his regular work. We quickly eliminated one of the lines of business that caused the most stress and already he is much happier. This one change enabled him to cut his work week by about 20 hours so he has more time to enjoy his family. Then, he began to wonder if life coaching might be a good new career that would keep him mentally challenged without the headaches.
Whenever a client is considering a different career path I always recommend taking the online career test in the Career Change Coaching Kit™. The kit contains a very comprehensive, objective and scientifically tested abilities and career assessment test. And, what is amazing about this particular career aptitude test is that it reveals your hard-wired strengths, not your learned skills or your IQ. Then, it handily ranks your natural strengths and abilities so you can clearly see what you are naturally good at and what you aren’t.
The truly fabulous thing about this career test is that it can spot hidden strengths—things you might be able to do naturally and effortlessly, but never had a chance to do or weren’t aware of.
As it turns out, the business coaching client above had a hidden strength—it turns out that he has all three of the abilities needed to be a very talented musician (rhythm memory, tonal memory and pitch discrimination) and he has these in spades. Somehow, he never tried playing an instrument even though he enjoys listening to music and has a very good ear. My guess is that he will quickly learn to play just about any instrument he chooses given his natural talent in this area. Most people who have such a strong untapped ability or hidden talent find that this discovery and then the expression of that talent gives them great joy and a deep satisfaction that may have previously eluded them.
And, the reports also confirmed that life coaching would also be a good possible career for him. Nice to know up front before investing thousands of dollars and a couple of years in life coach training or any other education or training course.
What does this have to do with the law of attraction?
Mastery of anything is very attractive for a number of reasons. You tend to make more money if you are truly masterful at something. Being a master tends to result in more recognition and kudos. You attract better people and opportunities effortlessly. Mastery often leads us to feel more confident, having mastered something. Of course, it is much easier to become a master of something if it is one of your hard-wired natural strengths or innate abilities. Waste no more time developing your weaknesses. Instead, invest in your strengths and watch the world come to you.
If you are changing careers, considering a new path in life or simply don’t want to waste your educational dollars pursuing the wrong degree, it would be worth your time to take a look the Career Change Coaching Kit™.
