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Embracing weaknesses

In school we learn that it’s best to have no weak spots.

In real life, however, it turns out that acknowledging our weak spots allow us to really let our strengths shine.

Here’s a great example from Transfer Wise (now know as Wise), an international money transfer service, who once published this customer experience on their site (emphasis mine):

“Great exchange rates, much better than the competition. The transfer could be a bit faster. For me it took five business days to get my funds.“

Being razor sharp about the fact that “fast” is a weak spot, Wise gains two things:

Simplified decision making. By focusing on one priority rather than juggling two (or more) priorities, they avoid the struggle to decide which of the two is the real priority for any given situation. “Cheap” is their top priority, not “fast”. Always. Whenever they face a choice between two services, one of which is quicker while the other is cheaper, the decision makes itself.

Clear positioning. By being upfront about their priority they filter their customers. If you care for fast, they might not be for you, but if you care for cheap, they clearly are.

Even more: By surfacing their weak spot, they reinforce their strong spot. They will compromise everything else for being the cheapest and they have no problem telling you so.

It’s about time to ditch the school approach to weaknesses.

Nobody’s perfect in a wider range of areas. Nobody can be.

Pretending to be is lying (in the worst case, even to yourself).

Acknowledging our weaknesses, even embracing them, allows us to let our strengths shine. When we can’t have it all, then setting a priority, doing it consciously, and being upfront about it, is – in my experience – a much healthier approach than trying to hide our weaknesses.

(And while we’re at it, why not stop associating “weaknesses” with failures.)

Any given day

6am. I stand up. And then I have literally a million choices of what to do on that day.

I could read the news. Or a book. Scan social media. Go for a walk with my family. Start learning Japanese. Write a song on my guitar. Start learning to cook like a chef. Watch a movie. Go to the gym. Play with my kids. Meditate. And so much more …

Even when I stick to just work related activities, it’s still a million choices.

I could prepare a speech. Do some research for an article. Write a book. Interview an expert on neuroscience. Zoom with a colleague. Think. Publish a post on my Instagram channel. Write a lead generator. Record a podcast. Or an endless list of other things.

While it might be a radically different list for you, I bet it would not be any shorter. Each of us has quite literally millions of choices of what to do with any given day.

Of course, the big question is: out of all the things we could do, what’s the right thing to do? We can do anything. But what should we do?

Often, we find ourselves letting our mood decide. Or external factors. Like that push notification on your phone. Or that email that just popped up. The article that we just read about which leads us deep down into a rabbit hole.

But rather than letting the Universe decide, we can also make it a conscious decision: What is the thing that I should be doing today? A great first step is to become aware of the fact that it is a choice.

Let’s Talk: Was ist sinnvolle Kommunikation?

Heute zu Gast bei Let’s Talk: Clemens Meiß, Geschäftsführer bei Get The Point, einer Marketingagentur aus Köln, die sich auf die Positionierung von Unternehmen spezialisiert hat. Der Leitspruch von Get The Point lautet „Wir machen Sinn zur Marke“.

Wir haben uns darüber unterhalten, ob es so etwas wie sinnvolle Werbung gibt und was sinnvolle Kommunikation eigentlich ist. Wie kommt man auf sinnvolle Ideen? Was sind die Voraussetzungen dafür? Und: Tut das weh?

Weitere Links zu Let’s Talk

Folge 10 als MP3 herunterladen
Let’s Talk bei iTunes
Let’s Talk als Podcast abonnieren
Homepage von Let’s Talk

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Dr. Michael Gerharz

Dr. Michael Gerharz