Do you think you have a weakness?
What is that? Your gender, age, childhood, nationality, the language you speak, a pregnancy, your health? Do you think you can turn your weakness into your strongest point?
“Well rounded” is a term I first heard in Business School. This was meant as the ideal for our careers. To grow into the C suite, we were supposed to have experiences everywhere and be “good” at everything, not specially good at something specifically. In other words, to stick out, to have sticky points, was a bad idea. “Well rounded” is the ideal gray clone who will assure the continuity of the OLD economy, while feeling tremendously frustrated by not showing his/her colors.
Have you actually noticed that real successful people are not “well rounded”? Have you actually noticed that real successful people are unconformable? Here you have a short list of rebels who refused to be well rounded (common symptom? all of the left school): Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, Richard Branson, Charles Dickens, Elton John, Ringo Starr, Princess Diana, Steve Jobs….
So, what’s the opposite of well rounded? Original! Unconformable! Optimist!
The ultimate way to be an original is to take THAT which we call weakness and make it your strongest point. Bill Gates was a nerd, well he kept expanding on his `nerdness´ and see what he came up with. Albert Einstein thought consistently different from the crowd, even if he was a high school dropout. Thomas Edison took his laziness as his strongest point, do you know that´s the reason why he invented remote controls? Yes, he just didn’t want to stand up.
Heart Centered Examples?
- Daniella Rubinovitz transformed her boredom into expansive creativity as a visual artist
- Annamaria Poluha took her experience with anorexia and transformed it into an awesome service to reach your healthiest weight and life style
- Elisabeth van den Berkmortel took her frustration with the lack of pregnancy education and transformed it into a transformational service for pregnant families
- Brian McFaddin took his frustration with poor intimate relationships and created a service to transform you life through your most intimate relationships
I can continue ad infinitum!
BUT it won´t be of any use, if I don´t invite you to the party!
Ditch the realism and the practicality of the well rounded naysayers. Embrace your biggest frustration. Embrace your deepest pain. Embrace your darkest weakness. Embrace it, accept it, love it, learn from it and take inspired and imperfect action. In two words:
Flip it!
Flip your weakness into your best asset, into your master piece. As simple as that: Flip it!
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Hi Bianca,
Lovely to see such good examples lined up. Love that “flip it!” Incidentally I wrote a post Writer’s Health and Fitness for Health Activist Writers Month Challenge (#HAWMC) about switching from my right hand to my left, and next from painting to typing. That is re: the mechanical function, but also changing from being an artist who wrote, to being a writing artist).
Thanks!
Thank you so much, Judith! In deed, to create some level of discomfort, to do things in a different way has a great power for creativity and ultimately to become who we are. So blessed to welcome you to this community! Warmest, B