Using Strengths & Positions of Strength

Some friends of mine just finished a huge remodel on their house. They built a new detached garage with a mother in law apartment over the top and they also doubled the square footage of their home by popping the top.  My friend did much of the work himself.  Heck I even helped a tiny bit:

My friend toured me through the project now 95% complete and it looks pretty amazing.  They also had to live in that tiny mother in law apartment straight through Covid lockdowns during the project.  

I asked him how that was and he gave me a great answer.  He said that it wasn’t easy but hey we gotta use our strengths right.  Look, we both had career changes so our earning potential was not as high as some others but we live in this awesome area.  Home values have doubled in the last 10 years and there is a lodging shortage in our town.  My friend went on to explain that he plans to airbnb out the apartment over the garage for income and he built lots of equity by doing much of the house remodel himself.  Hell yeah I thought, we all have strengths and weaknesses that are unique to us and he is using his.

One of his strengths is a personal strength (an ability and drive to DIY to create value).  However, just as valuable was recognizing his position of strength (his real estate position). 

Your Unique Situation Means a Unique Position of Strength

My brother in law is from Alaska and he and my sister were both teachers.  How is this a financial position of strength?  For Alaska residents if you return from college and teach in a rural district for 5 years, they will pay off all your student loans.  My sister and brother in law lived up there with no state income tax, sales tax, or property tax.  Heck they even made money from the permanent fund dividend which gives every resident around $1600 per year.  My sister used the long darker winters to make jewelry that she sold at Spring festivals.  They bought no meat over 4 years while they lived on moose, salmon, deer, etc.  Now that is using your positions of strength.  They may not have made huge salaries or even had access to modern amenities but they used the positions of strength that they had to the fullest.  We all have some position of strength that could be leveraged.  What is yours?

Personal Strengths 

When I was doing management inside an incubator at a big fortune 500 sized corporation, I wanted to learn more about the marketing and sales side of things since it was a weakness of mine.  My marketing partner wanted to learn more about program management.  So we switched roles for a few months mentoring each other and it was kind of a disaster.  We quickly switched back because while it is fine to work on weaknesses, the real power of a successful career comes from applying strengths.

A Movement Toward Discovering Strengths

Twenty five years ago, business thinking used to be that during reviews with the boss, one would be praised for what she did well and then a plan for addressing weaknesses would be discussed and created.  The general idea was that if you work on weaknesses over time, then you can reduce or eliminate them and be all powerful in all areas.  

However, there was a movement in the early 2000’s to focus on strengths as opposed to weaknesses.  In other words, why focus your development efforts on things that you kind of suck at and maybe don’t like?  What about focusing on things that you are great at and love?  Why not build a foundation out of that?  Talent is really just personality in the right place.  This seems obvious and passé now but early in my career I remember the book “Now Discover Your Strengths,” was revolutionary.  It remains one of the top 10 best selling business books of all time.  This way of thinking kind of transformed how companies develop employees 1,2,3.

Focusing on Strengths is Easier and More Effective

The fun thing about personal strengths is that using them at work often doesn’t feel as much like work.  In a previous article about designing your life with design thinking, I talked about looking for flow states.  When you are in the flow, time just seems to fly by. This is part of why exercising your personal strengths gets you so far ahead in career or finances. 

If everyone else feels like they are slogging when they do this thing and you are in the flow, you naturally get pretty far ahead in this one area.  The results of strengths then compound over time.  Even if you are 10% better but you do it ten times, the compounding comes in the results.  

When Strengths Become Weaknesses

Steve Jobs once said, “In most cases, strengths and weaknesses are two sides of the same coin. A strength in one situation is a weakness in another, yet often the person can’t switch gears. It’s a very subtle thing to talk about strengths and weaknesses because almost always they’re the same thing.”  This could not have been more true for Steve Jobs himself.  The same vision and perfectionism that made him successful when applied incorrectly made him cantankerous and difficult to work with.  I add this caveat to say that over reliance on a strength can lead to using it at the wrong time.  You may be the most empathetic person in the world but that may not be the tool to use when someone is trying to manipulate you for example.  You may have used frugality to build your wealth but that may not help you enjoy a splurge once you can afford it. 

Personal Strengths and Positions of Strength Are Your Edge

Today, focusing on your unique strengths is gospel in silicon valley and inside leading corporations.  It is also great advice for positions of strength and your personal finances.  After all, despite what your company says, your own finances should be even more of a priority than your career at any one company.  Leveraging personal strengths creatively gives you an edge.  So does leveraging your unique positions of strength.  Used inappropriately it can cut you but used correctly, the edge becomes a powerful tool.  Applying that edge and honing it makes you sharp and highly valuable.  Wealth can be harvested from that value and being slightly sharper means the results compound over time.   

How do you use personal strengths or creative positions of strength in your own life? I’d love to hear yours in the comments below.

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