Strengths and Weaknesses

“Do I need to be good at everything?” (short answer: no.)”

Sometimes, social media, and the pervasive hustle culture we live in makes it feel like we need to be good at everything. We only show the world heavily curated versions of ourselves, and when we only see the slices of other people’s lives that embody ‘hustling’ and ‘crushing it’, it’s common to feel totally inadequate if we are not excellent at everything. I see it (and live it) especially for women. In every part of our lives, not just work. There are optimized ideals of so many versions of #goals out there (#fitnessgoals, #couplegoals, #mommygoals, #bossgoals). There’s so much focus on achievement, that it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed and even ashamed by our ‘weaknesses’, or areas that we’re not measuring up.

But I really think there’s an authenticity and vulnerability that comes with highlighting our weaknesses. There’s something powerful about casting light on what you are not great at .

It takes away the power for someone else to call it out. It removes the shame from it. And acknowledging where we aren’t fully developed is a starting point in an action plan to develop it.

I once worked with a very well-respected Chief Investment Officer, who made investment decisions on behalf of billions of dollars and millions of pensioners. I helped him raise his first independent fund and the first thing he admitted to me was

“I’m not a salesperson at all. I’ll do my job and make great investment decisions, but I’m bad at selling and I don’t want to do it. Your job will be to do most of the storytelling and relationship building.”

It struck me how someone with his fantastic reputation was so open about a known weakness. It certainly takes a bit of confidence (and yes, privilege), to open with what you’re not good at, but in some ways, his unabashed admission was deeply impressive.

There’s a simple framework to think about your strengths and weaknesses.

On the axes:

• Skill: how good or experienced are you at this thing?

• Will: how much do you want to do this, is it a good use of your time? Do you want to acquire this skill? Will you enjoy doing so? Is it valuable?

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