How to Use Your Strengths and Your Weaknesses

By John Assaraf and Murray Smith 

When we were young, we were taught, “Identify your weaknesses, then go to work to strengthen them so you’ll become a well-rounded person.” We think that’s a colossal waste of time, and that the myth of the “well-rounded person” is one of the most destructive educational fallacies there is. Please, don’t give up a moment of your precious life struggling to strengthen yourself in those areas where you are weak!

Be clear on this: a weakness is not a negative, it’s just an indication of strengths you’ll need to look for in other people. Your strengths, passions, and unique abilities are your most precious asset, and the second most precious asset you have will be your associations and working relationships with people who embody all those complementary strengths, passions, interests and abilities you do not have.

Each one of us has to do it alone, but we can’t do it by ourselves. We need each other. Being the Lone Ranger is a tough way to go, and even he had Tonto to lean on. One of the secrets to achieving your goals is knowing how to ask for help from people who have those skills you don’t possess. In return, you offer them the skills you have, which will often turn out to be just what they need to achieve their goals. Complementary skills serve everyone involved.

Do you have a passion for numbers? Could you spend contented hours playing with columns of numbers and exploring the accounting dimensions of your business? If you say, “Ha! Are you kidding?” we have a message for you: No, we’re not! There are people who love numbers, and you’re going to want to get to know some of them.

There are people who love standing up in front of a crowd and speaking, and people who would rather have a root canal without novocaine than speak to a group. There are people who absolutely hate to sell—and people who absolutely love the thrill of getting to a “yes.” There are people who love to work with words, but have absolutely no feeling for numbers, and people who are the complete reverse. There are “people people” who seem to be able to hit it off with anyone—and there are people who love their solitude and for whom having to provide hours of customer service every day would be a punishment more cruel than public flogging.

One of the biggest secrets there is to being successful in business, and one of the most commonly ignored, is this: find people who play at those things that for you are work.

The two of us are a good example. One reason we work so well together is that we are very different. John is a voracious student and reader, and has been learning about the Law of Attraction, visualization and affirmations, and the fine art of achieving goals, for years. Murray is the complete opposite. He was initially very skeptical about the personal development industry, and focused instead on honing his keen analytical skills. We were so different, yet we complemented each other like a left hand and a right hand.

“Work on your weaknesses” makes absolutely no sense to us. Here’s what does: discover those areas where you are strong, those areas where you have keen intelligence, and focus on those.

Discover what it is you are uniquely gifted to be and to do, then build your business and your life in ways that take maximum advantage of those aspects of yourself. That’s when life flows. That’s when goals come easily.

Take the gifts you have and make those your pillars. Then, find other people who have other intelligences, other gifts, and help them become your allies. Make it your goal to share your gifts with the world. Your journey will be so much more enjoyable when you focus on what you love to do, when you focus on how spectacular you are rather than on what you’re not good at and what you’re not here to do.

Know this: you have within you, right now, everything you need to achieve your goals. To unleash those resources, you may need to effect some changes in your beliefs and habits of thought, and you may need to collaborate with people who are strong in areas where you are weak, people who play at what to you seems like work. But just as an acorn pulls in the sunlight, water, nitrogen and minerals it needs from its environment, you have within you the capacity to attract and secure every one of the traits, people, resources and elements you need to create your fully realized dream business and a happy, purposeful, fulfilling life.

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This article is adapted from The Answer, by John Assaraf and Murray Smith (Atria Books).