Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses. That’s life. The only choice you have is to maximize your strengths and diminish the impact of your weaknesses.
I heard someone say that, because he is a visionary, he can’t be expected to pay attention to details and follow-through. So he hired someone to do that for him and his business.
Since hearing this, I have been turning it over in my mind. How can a small business be run when the entrepreneur does not hold himself accountable for getting things done?
Like everyone, I have weaknesses. Various consultants we worked with over the years have told me that I had to take responsibility for overcoming them, at least to the extant I could.
In other words, I had to get off the pot and not keep sitting there using “who I am” as an excuse.
Years of hard work followed. I would make progress and then regress. Throughout, I wanted to be more effective and not be a prisoner of my inclinations.
As time went by, many of the small changes in habits I made helped our business become more successful. I had not done a 180. Rather, I had done the work that only I could do, and it made a difference.
The "way you are” can be the starting point of a life-long journey driven by the desire to become more the person you want to be. As a business person, this great work is the way to make more money and achieve a level of success you can’t imagine.
Envision who you want to be. Pay attention to the choices you don’t even realize you have, and then make different choices. Celebrate when you do so. And don’t beat yourself when you revert to your old habits.
The alternative is to never get off the john. You won’t make jack doing that!
