The Weight of Both
I’ve heard people say plenty of times, “Just focus on your strengths.” Sounds nice. Motivational even. To me, this is often just a cover-up for ignoring weaknesses.
If you know you are off and you just disregard it with, “that’s just who I am,” you’re doing yourself and those around you a disservice. It's a fixed mindset.
At the same time, you’ve got to be careful not to tattoo a trait on yourself like it’s permanent. I’ve got a good friend who’s always been naturally introverted. At social gatherings, he’d hang in the corner and barely say two words. Networking events were his nightmare.
The thing is, he didn’t let this tendency become a title. He pushed himself. First it was short conversations, then group discussions, then bigger stages. Slowly, methodically, he trained the muscle. Today? He’s one of the most compelling speakers I’ve ever heard. Not loud and brash....but clear, authentic, magnetic even. I’ve watched him hold the attention of thousands and if you never met him you would never guess he was the “quiet” one.
I’ve seen the cost of the other side, too. People who lock onto an identity...“I’m just shy” or “I’m just bad at sales”and they let this become their ceiling. That’s the tragedy. Not the weakness itself, but the decision to live inside of it.
This is the challenge we all face: acknowledging weakness without letting it define the ceiling of your life. When opportunity hits, you’ve got to know whether it's centered around your strengths or your weaknesses. If it's around your weaknesses it’s just not a muscle you’ve built yet, lean on others. Partner up, learn, or wait until you’ve trained for that weight.
Do You Know Your Weaknesses?
One of mine? If I put in a ton of effort and don’t get the results I expected, I throw a little fit. I’ll go from giving 100% to going through the motions for a couple of weeks. It’s quick, it passes, but it kills the momentum.
It’s immaturity, an automated response I didn’t even notice until someone called me out on it. Now I see it, I fight it. When the results don’t come, I double down instead of pulling back.
So I’ve learned to catch myself. Now, every time I launch something, I build in a check. If the results don’t show up? I force myself to keep swinging. I remind myself: this is the moment where I usually quit pressing. Don’t. Keep the hammer down, even when it’s quiet.
This awareness, catching the tantrum early and refusing to let it steer me, is what separates stall from charge.
Do You Know Your Strengths?
I believe one of my strengths is discipline. Not the kind that’s loud or impressive, just the steady kind. The kind that shows up when motivation is gone. The kind that doesn’t ask if you feel like it today, it just reminds you to do it anyway.
Discipline is different than excitement. Discipline doesn’t care. Discipline keeps pressing even when it feels pointless, even when nobody notices. This is why it matters.
In business, I lean on this strength more than anything else. It’s what allows me to take on more than most people would be comfortable with and still keep moving. Not because I have more talent, but because discipline gives me the structure to carry it. I don’t get everything right, but I don’t tap out easily either.
This is the real edge. Not brilliance. Not luck. Just discipline, the quiet strength which lets you keep stacking bricks long enough to see something take shape.
The Balance...and Why It Matters
People admire you for your strengths, but they connect with you through your weaknesses. Both matter. You can’t flex one and ignore the other.
There’s research to back it up. Gallup ran a 30-year study across millions of people and found those who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged at work, three times more likely to report an excellent quality of life, and far less likely to quit.
Knowing this doesn’t make weaknesses disappear. Psychologists Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, two of the leading voices in positive psychology, found people who thrive aren’t the ones who ignore weaknesses. They are the ones who practice awareness. They name both their talents and their blind spots, then design their life and leadership around this reality.
A Cornell study showed, leaders who overestimate their strengths and dismiss their weaknesses actually perform worse long-term. Why? Because they lack self-awareness. The leaders who are brutally honest, “Here’s where I shine, here’s where I stall”, are the ones who make better calls, grow stronger teams, and scale further.
This is the balance: own your weaknesses, but don’t bow to them. Lean on your strengths, but don’t worship them. It’s not either/or...it’s both.
You don’t get strong by avoiding weak things. You get strong by naming where you’re weak, owning it, building around it and doubling down on the real strengths that move the needle.
Today’s Forced Challenge: I want you to FORCE yourself to attack at least one of these challenges:
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Cut an Excuse: Eliminate one line you use to justify inaction and replace it with movement.
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Expose a Blind Spot: Ask someone close to call out what you don’t see about yourself.
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Do the “Not Me” Thing: Attack something you’ve always labeled as “not who I am.”
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Bet on a Strength: Take a strength you’ve downplayed and put it to work this week.
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Stretch a Weakness: Work on the muscle you’ve avoided, the skill you’ve ignored.
Strengths will carry you forward, but weaknesses will always call you back. You need both. Strength without humility makes you arrogant. Weakness without awareness makes you stuck.
The tension between them is where growth lives. This is the fight, learning to lean without limping, to push without pretending, to stand honest in who you are and who you’re still becoming.
“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
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