One of the best kept secrets to giving yourself an edge in business and in life is to invest in your business strengths and your personal talents and abilities while others let theirs get stagnant.
Why it’s such a secret: By definition, it doesn’t seem that your strengths would warrant further time, attention or development.
And therein lays the opportunity to supercharge your work.
A noticeable example of how this idea separates the successful from the satisfactory can be seen in our lawns in the spring: some are very lush and green and others aren’t. The difference: smart people know that the fall is the best time to fertilize. And in the fall, they did.
Fertilizing now, means greater growth in the spring.
The same can be true for you and your work.
So, where does it make sense for you to invest?
Think about what you do best, your business strengths (or personal talents and abilities) and invest in that. Take your superb people skills and make them 20% better; Sharpen your skills in decision-making, or taking initiative or setting strategy so you become a master of masters.
Maybe it’s something you’re good at, specific to your industry. Take yourself from being “one of the better ones” in your field to being the best at what you do.
Surely we all realize by now that the difference between good and great is significant and perhaps our greatest areas of opportunity.
Three ideas for how to invest this fall:
(1) education / knowlege: take a class, do research, follow a new blog, immerse yourself in publications related to your strengths
(2) equipment or infrastructure: upgrade the tools or facilities that help you put your strengths in play. Give better presentations by having a better projector. Supercharge your brainstorming by having a better conference room. Handle customer complaints (a strength) better by having a better process for collecting them. Etc.
(3) new colleagues: make connections with others who can partner or play with you…or who really need what you have to offer. Start hanging around people who are the best in areas where you are…good. Find more people who desperately need what you consider second nature. They will call you to a higher game.
Fertilize, invest in yourself now, so that you can reap the rewards this coming spring. Mmmm…I wonder what a new guitar will do for my songwriting ability?
(This post was previously published in the November 2009 issue of Business Leader http://www.businessleader.bz/ )
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Written by Tom Plake
Topics: Sustain Yourself