In his best-selling book “Go Put Your Strengths to Work,” Marcus Buckingham outlines three damaging myths that hamper our growth and ability to achieve excellence.
Why are these myths so prevalent?
More importantly, how do we confront these myths, embrace the truth and start improving ourselves today?
MYTH #1 – “As you grow, your personality changes.”
TRUTH #1 – As you grow, you become more of who you already are.
Certainly, as we grow older, we develop more skills, our life circumstances change and our goals evolve.
However, if you were a highly competitive ten-year-old, you most likely still have a very strong competitive streak as an adult.
Did you endlessly pepper Mom and Dad with “Why?” questions? If so, chances are your curious nature has continued to manifest itself in your work, hobbies and relationships.
On one level, it’s comforting to think we can change our personalities. However, how we naturally think, feel and behave just doesn’t change that much. It’s part of who we are, part of our “personality DNA.”
Therefore, it’s all the more important to embrace that fact and channel it to our benefit.
MYTH #2 – “You will grow most in your areas of greatest weakness.”
TRUTH #2 – You will grow the most in your areas of greatest strength.
Judith Rich Harris studies this truth in her book, “No Two Alike.“
Personality is comprised of roughly 50% biology. The other half of one’s personality is a combination of chance and the complex feedback and molding system of our peers.
Interactions with our peers, from birth through adolescence, reveal to us where our strengths reside. It provides daily feedback that, in turn, causes changes in our brain development.
For example, our peers show us:
• if and when our ideas are interesting
• if and when we are good allies
• if and when we are trustworthy
Through this feedback, our brains mold, form and reinforce our personal development towards our strengths.
If our brains are naturally wired to help us lean on our strengths, how much more should we, as adults, intentionally strive to do the same!
A day spent understanding, developing and focusing your strengths is a gift to yourself–and, the world.
(Please note that this is not to say we can’t or don’t work on areas of weakness. We can make mild improvements in some areas. However, the benefit you gain developing your natural strengths far exceeds fighting and straining to address an area of weakness.)
MYTH #3 – “A good team member does whatever it takes to help the team.”
TRUTH #3 – A good team member deliberately volunteers his strengths to the team most of the time.
Break free of the indoctrination of “doing whatever it takes to help the team.”
Smart, self-aware team members know that a team’s best results are achieved when each member is playing to their strengths most of the time.
Consider the current NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat.
On paper, the Heat have all of the stars, the glitz, the hype. However, the Spurs are winning the series 3 – 1.
How are the Spurs beating the supposedly unstoppable Heat?
The Spurs play together with a keen understanding of each other’s individual strengths. They’ve leveraged this insight and created a team that is much greater than the sum of its individual parts. They are…”deliberately volunteering their strengths to the team most of the time.”
So, down with the myth that “everyone do what it takes to help the team.”
Of the three myths, the conventional wisdom of this last one is so pervasive that it may take time to fully absorb the actual truth.
It may even seem irresponsible or self-absorbed to appreciate this fact and put it into practice. In fact, it’s irresponsible and self-absorbed to not appreciate this truth.
Deliberately volunteering your strengths to your team helps you give your best to the team and helps the team achieve more success.
Just as we no longer believe that lightening bolts are hurled to the ground by an angry Zeus, we now know how much energy, creativity and growth are attainable by focusing on our unique areas of personal and professional strength.
Now that you have taken five minutes to bust through these myths, put the truths into practice and experience it for yourself.
It may take a few days to break away from the old conventional wisdom, but the pay-off to your work and success is life-changing.
If you enjoyed this post, please send us a note at hello@strengthslauncher.com and let us know how you’re using your innate talents to ignite your work, life and relationships.
We’d love to hear from you!
Cheers,
DW
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