Capitalize on your Strengths? Short route to happiness

Capitalize on Your Strengths? Short route to happiness

The late B. F. Skinner, one of the most influential behavioral psychologists in the world, defined happiness as “doing what you are good at”.

Warren Buffett one of the richest men in the world, in a speech to students at the University of Nebraska said to them:
“I may have more money than you do, but money doesn’t make the difference. Sure, I can buy the most luxurious handmade suit, but I put it on and it just looks cheap. I would rather have a cheeseburger from Dairy Queen than a hundred dollar meal”.

The students listened to every word he said. He continued, “If there is any difference between you and me, it may simply be that I get up every day and have a chance to do what I love to do, every day. If you want to learn anything from me, this is the best advice I can give you.”

It reminds me that once Mr. Buffett went in a speaking tour with Bill Gates and the one condition he demanded was to have cheeseburgers available in every city that they had to speak.

I spoke in Jackson Hole a couple of years ago and my driver told me that he got to drive Bill and Warren all over town. And one day he took them to play golf and when they got back in the car, they were arguing about who won the bet while playing golf. How much was the bet for? $1.00

Anyway, getting back to the subject matter, what Warren Buffet and B. F. Skinner said is that human beings, should, throughout their lives and careers, do what they love to do. Doing what you love to do comes from applying your strengths to whatever you do. It is possible to be good at something that you don’t like but sooner or later, you will be so bored and disgusted that you will have to give it up.

Tiger Woods loves to play golf and he is very good at it. His extraordinary long game, hitting the ball with his woods and irons, is strength. His putting we might say is also strength. His ability to chip out of a bunker is not. I am not a golfer, in fact, unless, somebody convinces me otherwise, I find it a very boring sport. But I have been told by golfers that in “sand and saves”, Tiger is not that consistent. In fact, many golfers are much better than him. He is successful because he capitalizes on his strength.

Steven Jobs, in a business context, is a genius at taking innovations and transforming them into user-friendly computer hardware. This means that he has that strength. His ability to maintain and manage a large enterprise he is not that good at but he surrounds himself with people that are.

Expanding the title of this article to Capitalize on your strengths and manage around your weaknesses is an interesting concept, easy to grasp but difficult to apply.
Building a strong life will always be a challenging project involving many different variables: your talents, your education, your skills, your self-confidence, your maturity, the piranhas you face everyday and some might even include “your luck”.

A few months ago I had dinner with one of Willie Miranda’s assistants, a lovely lady and she was telling me some of his plans for the future. Now, life threw a curve at him, and he will have to fight the most important fight of his life, pancreatic cancer. Totally unexpected like many events in life and nothing to do with politics.

No one can give you a magic bullet to solve every problem you have or can have in your personal and professional life.

In fact, I don’t think anyone can do that except you. A good friend, many years ago, said to me that everyone, deep down inside, knew what needed to be done to improve their conditions in life. He might have been right. You have to look deep inside and see what your instincts tell you but it will definitely help if you at least have a basic understanding of psychology.

First of all, you must understand how to distinguish your natural talents from things that you learn. Strength can be described as consistent near perfect performance in an activity. The question is how do you get to near perfect performance?
Practice, practice, practice?

Or near perfect performance requires certain natural talents? You can get a little bit better at anything but practice will not get you to a near perfect performance. To develop strength in any activity requires talent.

Another question pops up? What is the difference between a talent and strength? What role do skills, knowledge, experience and attitude play in building strength?
Not knowing the answers to these questions will make you waste lots of time trying to learn strengths that will be difficult for you to learn if not impossible.

So let’s define some terms for you:

Talents are your naturally recurring patterns of thoughts, feelings, or behavior.

Knowledge consists of information, facts and lessons learned in life.

Skills are steps of an activity. For example in sales, asking questions or closing the sale would be defined as skills.

These three, talents, knowledge and skills combine to create your strengths.

Attitude is the motor behind the whole thing. Attitude is what defines how much will you achieve or how successful will you be.
When Henley wrote the prophetic lines “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul” he should have added, ‘because we have the power to control our thoughts and our thoughts make up our attitudes”.

Carl Ripken, the baseball player played in 2,216 consecutive ball games. That is a record that will be very difficult to break. Carl had knowledge of baseball; he had the talent to play the game and the skills to make him a great ballplayer. It was his attitude that made him a super star.

My cousin Jorge Posada plays the most difficult position in baseball: catcher. It is very tough on your knees and your whole body because you get wacked by the ball and the bat very often. Yet, he played 1,450 games and 4,877 at bats, before being placed on the disabled list.
I bet no catcher in history has been able to do that.

You must have a very good attitude and be very motivated to be able to accomplish that.

Your attitude will be a definite factor in how successful you are. Make sure you choose a profession that you have the talent for. It is the only way you will be really happy and self realized.