ExodusMagApril2017

CAREER FOCUS
Why is it important to discover your
strengths? (1) It increases your chances of
success. You can easily succeed when
labouring on activities that resonate with
your strengths than average abilities. (2) It
takes the least amount of effort to develop.
It does not take too much effort for
an eagle to learn to fly because it has an
inbuilt system that allows it to fly if it will. (3)
You will tend to achieve more in your areas
of strength. If you look at great engineers
like Robert Oppenheimer, musicians
like Michael Jackson and soccer players
like Christiano Ronaldo and Lionnel Messi,
they achieved more in their lives because
they built careers in their areas of dominant
ability and strengths. Avoid trying to
achieve things in your area of average
ability when you have dominant ability.
Pursue career activities in areas of dominant
ability. (4) Strengths give you the
edge, allowing you to move from being
good to being great. Every cutting and
piercing instrument derives its strength from
the sharpness of its edge. You also derive
your career greatness from the sharpness
of building it around areas of your dominant
ability and strengths. It increases your
chances of excelling than if you elected to
build on average abilities. Great people
out there found their strengths and built
their life project on them. (5) Strengths
used maximise you, strengths unused degenerate
into a weakness. Is it not human
habit to want a new challenge and avoid
what seems easy? A challenge may mean
taking up those things we feel less good at
and avoiding those we feel are too easy
for us. Imagine if the eagle said, ‘flying is
now too easy, let me try swimming?’ we
tend to avoid our strengths because they
seem too easy. Should you rather not say ‘I
will pursue those things that are easy but
will create challenging projects to apply
my strengths? We spend most of our life
trying to correct our weaknesses and in the
end, subject our strengths to neglect, degenerating
them into a weakness. (6) Your
strengths help you solve problems. Essentially
life pays you relative to the problems
you solve. Whether the type and level of
problems determine what you get out of
life. Consequently we all pay for our ignorance.
We pay for everything we don’t
know. The more your strengths are developed
to solve critical problems of society
the more your earning ability will be great.
(7) Your strengths help you save time. You
will eventually achieve more with less once
you focus on your strengths. You need
more time to accomplish things in your areas
of least ability and less time in your areas
of dominant ability. In all intents and
purposes it pays to conduct career choice
constructions around your areas of dominant
ability and strength than otherwise.
People like Richard Branson are great today
because they did not listen to those
that attempted to force strengths on them
by telling them what they were bad at. He
pursued what he was good at instead of
building a project around removing weakness
from his life. If you are not built for the
sciences don’t labour to correct that, fight
what it is worth your labour and pursue it. If
you are built for the sporting field pursue it
with all your might and the world will be
waiting to see you entertain them to your
greatness.
*On the next issue I will discuss how
you can discover your dominant
strengths…
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