Podcast: Download (Duration: 12:35 — 22.6MB)
Over the past ten years, I’ve read and heard a lot about the value of knowing your strengths. From understanding how they show up in your life and work to ensuring that you are operating from a position of power if you want to be at your best, it’s better to build upon a foundation of strength, not weakness. But recently, I read a quote from Bono’s book, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story that got me thinking differently about strengths. Could it be possible that what was once a strength would become a weakness? What if, at some point in our lives, weaknesses become strengths? That is the premise that I’ll be exploring in today’s episode of Getting Work To Work.
From Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono:
“Carl Jung observed that the very things that made you successful in the first half of your life not only no longer work for you in the second half; they positively work against you. The Franciscan friar Richard Rohr put it to me like this: ‘It’s our strengths rather than our weaknesses that often hold us back'” (p. 542).
Five ways to prepare for the moment when strengths shift:
- Take an assessment.
- Journal and explore who you are in conversation with others.
- Surround yourself with people who will be honest with you.
- Know when it’s time to let your strength go.
- Don’t feel guilty if your weaknesses become more interesting than your strengths.
