Success does not mean that you ignore your weaknesses. It doesn’t mean that by following your passion you will succeed. It also doesn’t mean fame and fortune. It doesn’t necessarily even mean doing what you love since most of us aren’t that fortunate and quite often what we love isn’t what we excel at. Success is taking what you do well and leaving the rest to someone else. It means succeeding for yourself and yourself only, not for anyone else.
Over the years, I can think of several examples of people who were in the wrong professions for the wrong reasons. Science teachers who loved science but couldn’t teach well, conductors who loved music but didn’t have the patience to lead a symphony orchestra comprised of over 80 members to the perfection they wanted so badly. Both of these are examples of loving a subject but not necessarily taking the right path or making the right choice. The science teacher would have been better off in a lab, the conductor leading a life as a musician and not leading others.
Many extremely intelligent people, most of which have started their own businesses, learned the hard way that they have multiple interests, but not necessarily multiple talents. Time and again, when asked what they loved to do, they not only didn’t have an answer, the topics they were interested in were so varied that they didn’t have the time or the energy to invest in half of them. They realized along the way that to make a living, they needed to focus on what they were good at, small or large as that was, and they set out to grow a business. They were also smart enough to know that even with their hobbies and interests, they didn’t really want to spend all of their time on even one of them.
Even knowing all of these things, once their businesses were up and running, they ran into difficulties, since they didn’t know everything there was to know about keeping a business running in an ever changing technological world. Following the advice of others, they looked around for the best people to support them. Virtual teams, comprised of members with many talents, each doing what they’re best at and leaving the ‘other stuff’ to those best suited closed the gaps, creating a whole that got the job done.
Success is having the courage to know what you are good at, build your business around it, and leave the rest behind.
© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2013
Image courtesy of elitedaily
