Ask HN: Should I focus on my strengths or compensate for my weaknesses? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Should I focus on my strengths or compensate for my weaknesses?

9 pointsbiznerd4 comments

We all have a limited amount of time and willpower to spend. I remember reading here (can't find the post) that the really successful people focus on their strengths than compensate for their weaknesses.

I was talking to a founder of a company that was bought out for $100 million. I told him I wanted to do startups, was learning programming for about a year but did not like it. He suggested that I focus on what I was interested in instead. That might be growthhacking. I've studied it this week and find it much more interesting. I think I can come up with good ad copy.

My social skills aren't that good, possibly naturally. I'm just bad at reading social cues, have pretty bad social anxiety and frequently encounter awkward situations. However, my thought that there is a "low hanging fruit" I can seize. I'm going to start doing toastmasters. I think I could learn to network at a baseline level. The ability to coldcall is a huge asset to have in a startup, that might be a stretch though.

I've always felt I was creative person and have many ideas to write about. I'm not sure if it's something worth spending 1000 hours on improving. In the past I've tried writing but it's so painful. And the product is basically unusable. I know we live in the self help age where everyone can do anything they want, but how much is writing a skill vs a talent?

You appear to have little confidence in yourself and that is the fundamental problem.

You are seeking direction from people who cannot understand your problem fully because it is internal. You are seeking instructions, solutions, answers and validation, all of which cannot take into account your key issues.

Where you are in terms of your skills, or your professional or career success is basically irrelevant. You would do well to strive for whatever you wish to strive for, whether you get there or not.

I would advise you to start a process that leads you to learn most about yourself as quickly as possible. Anything that turns your realisation inwards and shows you who you are will benefit you most. Do not run from yourself.

Now, what you do could be varied. They could be to face your fears (e.g. toastmasters), or they could be simply a discussion with a friend who can help you look at yourself.

The final decision about what you choose to do needs to be your own, for as is in your nature, you will always doubt whether you have chosen the right thing, and you will no doubt find excuses about why the advice you were given and attempted to follow might no longer be the right advice for you.

Good luck. I'm pretty sure this isn't supposed to be easy.

I would strongly recommend to focus on your strengths as your friend suggested. Working on your weaknesses will only drive you toward areas you are not naturally suited for, which is a reliable recipe for mediocrity.

As for what you might be suited for, certainly, follow your excitement. Copywriting does not require you to use your muscle memory to project confidence, you can get the same effect by iterating over your wording. And it scales to boot!

Finally, you might actually have better social skills than you think, but might not be among people who value what comes natural to you.

I have found that to be common among people who value substance over talk: Talkers will be put off by your truthful analysis and define it as poor social skills because your insights make them uncomfortable. They might also consider you rude for not listening, while they simply have nothing of interest to say to you.

People of substance will be delighted by your insights, and be interesting enough to make you want to listen to them.

Focus on whatever is missing for you to achieve your visions. If you know what you want to build, but are lacking some skills to execute on it, thats what you need to focus on.

"The Gap" by Ira Glass is a great little talk about will happen to you as you evolve - http://vimeo.com/85040589

Also, try to actively "lean in" to discomfort. Discomfort (or light fear) is usually related to the unknown. The unknown is where you will find your greatest amount of personal growth. Every time you lean into discomfort, you will find that your personal sphere of possibilities will grow. More possibilities allows you to accomplish more through more avenues.

Good luck!

Cold calling is one of the easier social skills. Write yourself a script with if then branches and read the thing when you get someone on the phone. You can write the scripts such that the questions you ask are reasonably close-ended and then write if then branches like a program.

That's what I did when I used to do door to door sales. You've got the time to plan, the person you're calling doesn't - you can offload a lot of the usual needs to be good at socialising by planning.

You can even use technical aids if you don't need to be near the person you're talking to. Make yourself a little program that notes changes in tone of voice, for instance. And then feed that into your plan's conditionals.

IME, the anxiety drops off after you've called on a few hundred people.

I'm not sure how that would work if you've got severe social anxiety though. That sounds like something it might be worth going to therapy or the like to deal with. After all, working with others is a pretty vital skill almost regardless of what you want to get done. But I can't comment on how to address the difficulties of that, not being a psychologist or having it myself.

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The more general point as to whether to focus on your strengths or weaknesses. Three things spring to mind:

1) You need a wide familiarity with multiple areas to judge experts in those areas and to see how the things you're good at can be used to address them. It's usually worth investing enough in your areas of weakness, if you expect to run across a situation where they'd be relevant, to bring the skills up to a basic level of functionality.

2) You'll probably never be as good in that area as someone who loves it and getting to a deep level of knowledge requires considerable sacrifices in other areas. You can probably rent the strengths you need and be stronger that way than either of you would be alone.

3) I don't know I'd be focusing on talent as much as I would passion. Effort trumps intelligence for most things. I've known some very smart failures in a wide range of areas. This week it'll be one thing, next week it'll be another. Since they don't sit down and do the work, since they're not really passionate about the work, just the idea of what they'll have at the end, it never comes to anything. They're not creators, they're just slightly smarter dreamers. To be a creator is to create. Just as to be a programmer is to program, or to be an (almost) anything is to practice that anything.

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