Play to Your Strengths and Charge Your Business More

It's often easier to focus on what isn't working, than to play to your strengths.

Have you ever stayed up until 2 a.m. having an imaginary conversation with a blog reader who likes your writing?

Or have you spent hours trying to figure out how to do a better job, inspired by a fan letter from a client about a great job you did?

It's very likely that your late-night conversations and problem-solving are going to trollscomplainers, and people who just can't stand it.

Don't worry. If you pay an inordinate amount of attention to negative comments and feedback, to the point of almost completely ignoring the good stuff, it doesn't mean you're disturbed. It means that you are just like the rest of us.

Chip Heath and Dan Heath in their wonderful book Change look at this:

“Think of a world where you were happy to be thankful every time you flipped a light switch and the room lit up. Imagine a world where after a husband forgets his wife's birthday, he gives her a big kiss and says, 'For thirteen of the last fourteen years you remembered my birthday! That's exciting!'

“This is not our world.

“But in times of change, it has to be.”

Another: play to your strengths

The advice to focus on our strengths, not our weaknesses, to create success is very interesting.

Very attractive, isn't it? You mean I don't have to learn how to pick up the phone even if I know how SEO for content writers does it work? Sign me up.

But it seems that another opinion may contradict. One that has gotten a lot of attention in recent years, especially when it comes to talking about it the art of content marketing: There really is no such thing as talent.

Researchers like Carol Dweck and fiction writers like Malcolm Gladwell tell us that what we call “talent” is actually the result of a lot of hard work.

How do you play with your cards, though?

It took me a while to realize that this is a trick question. I thought your strengths are the things you are good at and your weaknesses are the things you don't like.

But Marcus Buckinghamwho does the work for writing about power, put it this way:

“Strength is 'work that makes you feel strong.' It's a job where doing it gives you strength. Before you do it, you find yourself craving it instinctively. While doing that you don't struggle to concentrate, but instead you get so absorbed that time flies and you lose yourself in the moment. And after you're done doing it, you feel authentic, connected to the best parts of who you really are.”

When you play to your strengths, you find jobs that give you a boost. A job you love enough to be the best in the world.

An example of playing to your strengths

Have you ever heard how Yo-Yo Ma got his start as a cellist? As it turns out, Yo-Yo's parents are both musicians and had high musical expectations for their young son. So when Yo-Yo was three, they gave the boy a violin.

And Yo-Yo hated it. I wouldn't practice. Couldn't focus. I didn't have the zest for it. His distraught parents eventually gave up.

Then little Yo-Yo saw and heard something wonderful, something that surprised and delighted him. The thing he knows is exactly what he wants to play. It was a double bass – really a violin, really its big brother. Now that it was like it.

Something that works for you

He and his parents decided to split the size difference. Ma started learning the viola and then settled (at age four) on the cello. At seven he was a well-known performer, playing for Eisenhower and JFK, and at eight he performed on national television, hosted by Leonard Bernstein.

To be so talented at the age of four to seven, he must have trained for hours. But it was hours spent doing something he loved, because he learned to play to his strengths.

One thing that interests me about Ma is that she is not just a brilliant cellist. He is not just a world famous name.

Ma also seems to be an incredibly cheerful and kind person. He likes to work with children. She radiates grace and a certain charm. He has a sense of humor, sometimes calling himself a “touring artist.” And he is known for his unlimited energy.

If I'm going to be a nationally famous virtuoso, that's the kind I want to be.

Build your business like Yo-Yo

When you see someone writing tons of great content and podcasting and doing everything else we need to do to build great rosters. freelance writing clientsit's easy to ask:

How does one find time to do all that?

The truth is, it's not a time management problem — it's an energy management problem.

When you focus on your strengths, you do such a job he gives you are the power. You're doing work that drives you, makes you giggle, and keeps you awake because you're too happy to stop.

When you start, you do everything. Create a blog and write all the content and do the bookkeeping and answer support emails. Some of those things build you up and others debilitate you.

Pay attention to which

As soon as possible (maybe today), find partners who are good at exhausting and exhausting activities. If you can't find the right partner, find the aspects of your business that make you want to crawl back into bed.

And put your time and attention into what the Heath brothers call “the bright spots” – that indeed we are working today. That's how you play to your strengths. You focus on the work that gives you juice.

Do a lot of good work, and what energizes and strengthens you. Double down on what your readers and customers like. Work on what you can do better than anyone else in the world.

I know it sounds too easy to be true. But that's how all truly great businesses – of any size – are built.