Why You Shouldn't Become A Better Person
- Apr 3, 2015
- 4 min read
The Modern Worker
Stephen King has one and only one talent: he is the best at writing engaging and suspenseful books.
He can’t even write a screenplay which rely on the same principles as books but are slightly different. Even by his own admission the movies he directed were terrible. He gets other people to handle distribution, sales, and marketing.
Yet Stephen King is worth about $400 million. Clearly his lack of talent in other areas of his life hasn’t hurt him financially.
We don’t care if Stephen King is on social media or is on TED Talks. We only care that when we pick up his latest novel it is entertaining.
In the digital age we are expected to do everything and it can often be overwhelming.
We are no longer just expected to work on a factory line doing the same thing over and over again.
The modern worker must problem solve, communicate, write, speak, lead, follow, market, sell, buy and the list goes on.
When I talk to people I hear that by far social media is their biggest stress. Our bosses and co-workers expect us to be experts – to be tweeting, Facebooking, messaging constantly.
There are two problems when it comes to social media: the first is most people don’t truly understand the purpose of the social part of social media and the second is that it can be a never-ending abyss that sucks your entire life down.
If you don’t enjoy it I give you permission to give it up all together. If you feel drained then do something else.
There, don’t you feel better?
Develop your Strengths
In The Effective Executive Peter Drucker writes that workers tend to work on their weaknesses and forget about their strength, thinking they need to be well-rounded individuals. But what ends up happening is that although a person may be okay at everything, he or she has no skills that puts them at the very top of their market.
Hall of Famer Ted Williams is often considered the best baseball batter of all time. His on-base percentage was .482. which is the highest of any baseball player. He was the best at swinging bat.
He wasn’t a great outfielder and would often practice his stance and swing for his next at-bat while standing in left field. He wasn’t even a great runner and only stole 24 bases despite his high on-base percentage.
He was a student of hitting. He used lighter bats than other sluggers of his generation to increase his swing speed. He famously could tell the difference of a bat’s weight even if there was only a couple of ounces difference. In 1970 he wrote a book called The Science of Hitting.
Now can you imagine if Ted Williams was expected to practice his speaking abilities, his communication skills, his writing skills. He probably wouldn’t be that good of a batter now would have he?
We Pay For The Best But Expect Well-Roundedness
People pay for the best service or product, not just something that is mediocre. Everybody wants the best cellphone, computer, or television.
Why does Hollywood put up with bad behaviour from their movie stars? There are movie stars who fight reporters, do drugs, walk off sets or threaten producers yet executives don’t try to coral their behaviour because they can sell movies.
Ultimately Hollywood doesn’t care if a film star is difficult to work with as long as they have one skill—the box office draw.
I’m not saying that I’m giving you a licence to abuse your clients, co-workers and bosses but if you’re not a people person than just acknowledge it and move on.
It’s a paradox that we reward those who have tremendous skills yet we aren’t expected to become better at our own strengths. Why then do companies and bosses compel us to work on the things we’re not good at? Why do they put people in positions they aren’t naturally suited to do?
Part of the problem is we don’t always realize what we’re naturally good.
As a writer, it took me awhile to realize I had good interpersonal and relationship skills. I am a creator but not an implementer. I have grand visions but not always the discipline to see something through myself.
When I look for a business partner whether it is in a film or a marketing venture I know what I need. I need an extravert who loves negotiating and selling to people. I can take care of the vision but I need someone to look at the details of the operation.
If I can’t find a business partner then I hire a freelancer to do the tasks for me. For every task out there that you hate somebody else loves. For me, heaven is sitting in front of a word processor but there are people out there who loath writing.
Personality Types
Once you realize your personality type and your strengths and can offload all the tasks you don’t want to do or aren’t good at, you’ll find your business and your life will improve immensely. You’ll not only find you’re more efficient but you won’t be dreading doing certain tasks.
Let me know what strengths you’re good at and how you plan on building on those strengths while letting others supplement your weaknesses.
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Joel Mark Harris is a Canadian writer, marketer and speaker (@joelmarkharris)
He is the proud founder of Writers' Labatory and Scene2Studio. You can download your FREE Content Marketing Tool Kit Here
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