Stay In Your Strength

If you want to raise your influential value you have to operate from your strengths. Every moment you spend outside of your strength zone is a moment you miss an opportunity to impact. High capacity achievers do their best to only stay in the lane of what they’re great at.

At the 1984 Olympic Games the Chinese team won the ping-pong gold medal yet again. Curious about their strategy, a reporter asked the team’s coach, “Tell me about your team’s daily training regimen.” He replied, “We practice eight hours a day perfecting our strengths. Here is our philosophy: If you develop your strengths to the maximum, the strength becomes so great it overwhelms the weakness. Our winning player, you see, plays only his forehand. Even though he cannot play backhand – and his competition knows he cannot play backhand – his forehand is so invincible that it cannot be beaten.”

The leadership myth says:  a great leader knows everything, is good at everything, and does everything. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, I would argue that it is the complete opposite. A great leader can’t possibly know everything, is only good at a few things, and doesn’t do all the work by themselves. The longer people buy into this myth the longer they will chase infinity. This type of thinking is set up for a leadership disaster. If you want to become a valuable player, you have to exploit your greatest strengths. Nobody remembers average, nobody is wowed by average, nobody ever became successful be being average.

George Herman Ruth, known as Babe Ruth, played major league baseball from 1914-1935. He started his career as a pitcher for the Red Sox but later became know as the famous “Bambino Slugger” for the New York Yankees. During the season of 1923, he broke the record for most home-runs. He slammed 60 of them right over the fence. He also broke the record for highest batting average during that same year. But what most people do not know is that during this same season, he also struck out more than any other player in Major League Baseball. Yet, he is not remembered for his strikeouts; he is remembered for being the record-breaking home run hitter. He was so good when he hit the ball that no one focused on his strikeouts.

People will be more impacted by your strengths than your weaknesses. If you want to stand out, you have to find out what you do well and do it as often as you can. When you bring your unique strengths to the table, you’ll have a voice in the crowd. Most people are so bogged down in doing tasks their not good at they never get a chance to do what they are great at. According to a recent Gallup report on employee engagement, 50.8% felt as though they were not being utilized to their fullest potential. You can’t wait for someone to hand you an opportunity to work in your strengths, you have to initiate it. You must find ways to utilize your strengths in every occasion. Put your unique touch on what you do. Work on tipping the scale to your strengths, rather than allowing the scale to tip to your weaknesses.

In 1906, an Italian economist by the name of Vilfredo Pareto discovered a revolutionary pattern. Pareto observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population; And that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas. This became known as The Law of the Vital Few. We see this law at work in almost every area of life…

• 80 percent of traffic jams occur on 20 percent of the roads.
• 80 percent of classroom participation comes from 20 percent of students.
• 80 percent of the time you wear 20 percent of your clothes.
• 80 percent of the profits come from only 20 percent of the customers.
• 80 percent of problems are generated by 20 percent of the employees.
• 80 percent of sales are generated by 20 percent of the salespeople.
• 80 percent of all decisions can be made on 20 percent of the information.

The same law applies to your strengths. 80% of your impact probably comes from 20% of your effort. It’s in that 20% that your strengths lie. So, what if you could flip the scale? What if you could spend 80% of your time working in your strength zone? This would dramatically effect your success. The most successful people spend at least 80% of their time only doing what only they should be doing.

What do you need to do in order to spend 80% of your time in your strength zone?