Focus on your strength

The Animal School

by George Reavis, 1940

Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “new world” so they organized a school. They had adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming, and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming. In fact, better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school so nobody worried about that, except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down. He also developed a “charlie horse” from overexertion and then got a C in climbing and D in running.

The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class, he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceeding well and also run, climb, and fly a little had the highest average and was valedictorian.

The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school.

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FOCUS ON YOUR STRENGTHS

In his book, Business Brilliant, Lewis Schiff made these observations:

1. Only 55 percent of  “middle-class” survey respondents are aware of their exceptional skills compared to  97 percent from the “ultra-high net worth” group. If you don't know what you're very good at how can you excel at it?

2. “Unbelievably the lowest net worth people in our community had the greatest number of things that they thought they were excellent at. As levels of wealth go up, the number of things you think you're exceptional at goes down.” The middle class survey respondents, those with the lowest net worth, wrote down an average of six things. The ultra-high net worth group? Two.

3. Schiff saw that as levels of wealth go up, there is less attention to weaknesses.  Fifty-eight percent of the middle-class group said they do work to get better at their weaknesses. By the time you get to the ultra-high net worth group, zero percent of survey respondents spend any time working on their weaknesses. Tied together, the survey questions paint a clear picture of the differing approach of the middle class and the self-made millionaires.

This boils down to one assertion: poor people spend a lot of time trying to improve on their technical weaknesses, rich people focus on working in their areas of technical strength.

The higher the number of things you think you're very good at, the lower your chances of being exceptional.

The choice is yours.