Latest / Becoming Irresistible / Season 2, Episode 15. Strengths vs. Weaknesses: Which one do you focus on?

Transcript

Season 2, Episode 15. Strengths vs. Weaknesses: Which one do you focus on? · Becoming Irresistible

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Becoming Irresistible.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jay, a high achievement lifestyle strategist and irresistibility expert.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Today I wanted to talk about one of the biggest debates that I've ever had in personal development.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sure if you've heard these two ideas, but they both sound extremely wise, but they also really contradict each other.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that debate is: should you spend your life fixing your weaknesses or should you spend your life developing your strengths?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Recently, I've been listening to experts talk about this very topic.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: The argument is compelling.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that you simply can't ignore your weaknesses because eventually they will catch up to you.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, for years, I believed and even taught the opposite idea.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've taught that extraordinary people become extraordinary by leaning into their strengths, by spending more time becoming exceptional at what they naturally do well instead of becoming average at everything.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So who's right?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the more I think about it, the more I realize something.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think either side is wrong, but I think they're answering different questions.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to give you a framework that I think will help resolve this debate.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I call it the weakness decision filter.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't believe that every weakness deserves your attention.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I also don't believe that every weakness can safely be ignored.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Skill is learning to classify the weakness first.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the thing that I don't think anybody does.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I think it's easy for some people to say you should just work on your strengths, while other people will say you really need to spend time and energy on your weaknesses.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if you listened to this podcast before, you know I love stepwise frameworks to help simplify difficult decisions.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole podcast on decision making.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: But let's start with the simple truth here.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Every hour you spend improving one thing is an hour that you don't spend improving something else.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Time isn't just limited, it's expensive.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: We know that it's one of the most valuable resources that we have.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now imagine two students.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: The first student spends 500 hours trying to become a little better at public speaking.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: The second one spends those same 500 hours mastering cardiology.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Both have improved.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: But one improvement is likely to have a much greater impact on that person's career.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the same thing happens in sports.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine Michael Jordan deciding to spend years becoming an okay golfer during the peak of his basketball career.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Would that have made him more successful?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: His greatest opportunity came from becoming the best basketball player he could become.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Every hour invested in his greatest strength produced enormous returns.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: The opportunity cost matters.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Every yes is also a no to something else.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why this debate really matters.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just about self-improvement, it's about how to invest your life wisely.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: We really need to resolve this question.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm going to give credit to both sides.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: People who tell you to build your strengths have history on their side, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the world's greatest performers.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Mozart didn't become Mozart because he became average at accounting, right?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Tiger Woods didn't become Tiger Woods because he learned 10 different hobbies equally well.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Steve Jobs, he wasn't famous because he became competent at everything, right?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Extraordinary people usually become extraordinary because they become exceptional in a few areas.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Their strengths compound in one area.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the better they become, the more opportunities they receive in those areas.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the more opportunities they receive, the more they improve.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the success builds upon itself.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the strengths camp is absolutely right about one thing.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Greatness usually comes from depth, not breath.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's the other side, right?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine an incredible surgeon who's technically brilliant.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's got the best hands, excellent judgment, and patients travel across the country to see them.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: But they're arrogant.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: They belittle nurses or they have terrible bedside manner, they refuse feedback.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually the referrals go down.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Staff avoid working with them.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Did the strength go anywhere?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the weaknesses can become even stronger than the strength, or can stop a person from carrying out their strength.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the point that the weakness camp is trying to make.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Some weaknesses eventually dominate or block the strength that you possess.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And they're right too.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that means both sides, both philosophies contain part of the truth.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the real mistake, though, is to pretend that every weakness deserves the same amount of attention.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: They don't.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to what I think is the better question, the real question here.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of asking, should I improve my weaknesses, ask this instead.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of weakness is this?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because once you classify it, then the answer becomes obvious.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I call this the weakness decision filter.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now we have a decision framework, right?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: But here is a weakness decision filter.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So when you are encountering a weakness and you're thinking, should I actually spend any time on this?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Should I improve this?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Should I work on this at all?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let's ask ourselves some questions.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this framework, this filter has a few different questions.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is, is this a fatal weakness?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: A fatal weakness is something that eventually is going to prevent opportunity.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And these are not small things.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: These are weaknesses that repeatedly destroy our performance, our trust, our relationships.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Things like dishonesty, a poor work ethic, right?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Being chronically late, losing your temper over something that most of the time people wouldn't get upset about.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Refusing feedback and ignoring your health.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: If someone says they're naturally disorganized you don't necessarily tell them to just go out and fix it.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if they come up to me and say they're unreliable, that's a whole different story.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: I probably wouldn't work with that person because reliability creates trust, right?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Trust creates opportunity.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so if your weakness destroys trust, it isn't an option anymore.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: It needs attention.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to the second question.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is your weakness preventing your greatest strength from being seen?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: This one's really interesting because sometimes your weakness doesn't have to become a strength.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: It only has to stop blocking you from using your greatest gift.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you only have to work on it to the point that it does not prevent you from using your other strengths and gifts, that it gets out of the way.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: For example, public speaking is a big one for many people.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or say that you're a basketball player and you can make shots, but you don't know how to run, or you can't run enough to keep up with the other players.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you had the best ratio of making baskets, right?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't run across the court and keep up with the other team or your own team, then you're not going to be able to make those shots.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when it becomes a weakness that's blocking your strengths.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then you would have to work on that.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine somebody who's incredible with ideas, really creative, innovative, and brilliant.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: But when they present those ideas, nobody can understand them, or they're too scared to get up and present them.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was talking about with public speaking.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: The problem isn't their intelligence, it's communication.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: The goal there isn't to become the best public speaker in the world, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's simply that they are able to communicate well enough to let their ideas finally get the attention that they really deserve.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the physician we were talking about earlier that doesn't have a good bedside manner, whose attitude has issues, well, just because of their attitude, they might get sued.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: So improving communication suddenly multiplies the value of everything that they already know and do well.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a bottleneck.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes one weakness acts like that kink in the garden hose that blocks everything, that slows everything down.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: The water's in there, right?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: The pressure is there, the potential is there, right?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: But one narrow point can prevent everything else from flowing.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the weaknesses that deserve your attention because removing those or improving on those unlocks everything else.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the third question, the third question in this filter, it might be my favorite.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Can someone else solve this better than I can?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is where many high achievers waste enormous amounts of time.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: They assume that every weakness is a personal project, but that's not always true.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can actually hire, you can partner, you can build systems, you can delegate, you can automate, you can use AI.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of successful entrepreneurs that do a lot of these things.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Very few of those people are masters at all of accounting, marketing, sales, product development, law, human resources, graphic design, and technology.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: But most startup business owners do all these things, but they usually do them by building teams.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: The goal isn't to become amazing at everything, the goal is making sure that everything gets done well.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's a huge difference between doing everything yourself, even things you're not good at, and making sure that everything gets done well using people who are already good at those things.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people, especially high achievers, confuse self-improvement with self-sufficiency.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they are not the same thing.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to do everything well on your own.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't require that skill yourself to produce your best work, to display your greatest gifts, to unleash your strengths, then you can allow someone else to do that for you if they know how to do it better than you.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you yourself don't have to do that thing, if you're a basketball player running down a court, you have to do that thing because you are the one there.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: But say you're on a business team and say you are running a business and maybe you don't have the time or you don't have the knowledge on how to make a logo or a graphic design, that doesn't need to stop you from hiring someone who does know.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be you, right?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So then you could delegate that task, that weakness to someone else.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to prevent you from using your natural gifts or displaying your greatest strengths.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Being successful doesn't mean doing everything yourself.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: It means creating a life where your strengths are creating the most value.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this fourth question, this fourth question, the last question, is where I think most people are going to finally see the answer.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself this.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: If I spent the next 500 hours improving the sweetness, what would I actually gain?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now compare that to this question.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: What if I spent those same 500 hours becoming exceptional at my greatest strength?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Which investment produces the biggest return?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the opportunity cost.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned that it's one of the most important concepts in economics, but it can equally be powerful in personal development.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Every decision has a hidden cost, not because of what you choose to spend your time on, but because of what you're not choosing to spend your time on.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing the difference between those two, knowing when to spend 500 hours on your weakness or to spend 500 hours mastering your greatest skill and strength.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing that difference is everything.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes becoming slightly better at your weakness may actually be worth it in those circumstances we talked about.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, there's one bonus question you can ask.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Will ignoring this weakness hurt other people?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where I think a lot of successful people get themselves into trouble.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your impatience doesn't bother you, but it can hurt your partner, for example.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your poor listening skills doesn't really hurt your career, but it hurts your children.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your inability to apologize is not going to cost you money, but it can cost your relationship.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because some weaknesses aren't just professional limitations, right?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: They're relationship limitations.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And those really deserve attention because influence is built on trust.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And trust is built through the way that we treat people.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes, even professionally, your weaknesses can hurt people, right?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because maybe if you're not able to communicate with people, you're blocking them from getting the help that they need.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: So ask the question of will ignoring this weakness hurt other people?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if it does, then it deserves attention.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And before I close, I want to say something specifically to my parents, my parents' corner, right?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think many parents spend years trying to create a well-rounded child.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And every weakness becomes another lecture, tutoring session, another lesson, or another activity to try to eliminate imperfections in their child.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: But when you study exceptional people, you'll notice something surprising as a pattern.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Very few of them are well-rounded.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're actually pretty wonderfully uneven.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, their strengths are extraordinary, right?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it's easy to point out weaknesses in them as well.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Their weaknesses are simply managed well enough that they don't interfere with where their strengths are leading them.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so as parents, I don't think our job is to create children who are good at everything.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think our job is to help them discover what makes them uniquely valuable, while making sure there's no fatal weaknesses that's going to prevent that gift from reaching the world.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: That goal will help set your kids up for life.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: So let's return to the original question we started with.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Should you work on your strengths or your weaknesses?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And my answer is yes and yes, but not equally.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Develop your strengths because that's where your excellence lives and where you're going to experience the fruits of your labor.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: But fix the weaknesses that are fatal, the ones that destroy trust or that block your strengths, or that hurt other people.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if a weakness doesn't meet those tests, don't feel guilty if you choose to invest in your strength over that.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because the goal is not to become a person with no weaknesses.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: That person doesn't exist no matter what you do.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to become someone whose strengths create so much value that their weaknesses no longer define them.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the real thought I want to leave you with this week.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Improve the weaknesses that are holding your strengths hostage.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank you again for listening to Becoming Irresistible.
• 16:53
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• 17:04
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• 17:10
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• 17:13
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• 17:19
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• 17:23
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• 17:27
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• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: So until next time, friends, stay irresistible.