We
live in an environment that is constantly changing. Downsizing,
reorganizing, reengineering, and outsourcing have become household
terms. The reaction for the average worker is an endless expanding of
their skills in the hope that they can become more marketable in the
shifting labour market. Is that the best approach?
That
may be a good reaction, but a poor response. Becoming a
jack-of-all-trades and a master of none is not what today’s knowledge
market requires. It demands depth not breadth, focus not frivolity.
The
market is beginning to align itself to the age long philosophy of
enduringly successful people. For ages they have deepened, focussed, and
played to their strengths
while managing their weaknesses. They have found greatness in their
strengths, while the populace seeks it in vain by living one long big
remedial life of fixing weaknesses.
If
you have to specialise, and in these times, you must, your odds of
standing out in your industry will be proportional to the degree your
specialisation plays to your innate strengths. Strengths, activities you
are naturally great at and that leave you feeling energised, is your
foundation for greatness.
As
the world around us changes, one thing remains constant within—your
natural abilities. You may build on them and make the most of them, but
you cannot change them. Why then not settle and build on the changeless
core instead of chasing after the mirage out there.
Wired
a certain way and endowed with specific abilities, you possess the
potential of becoming great only in harnessing the core of your
strengths—your talents. Fuelling your abilities with your ruling
passions, create a masterpiece of what your hands find to do.
Move
from living for the weekend to looking forward to Monday. Live as James
Michener remarked when he said, “The master in the art of living makes
little distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his
leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his
love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues
his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide
whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.” Live a
strong life!
