Find Your Strengths, The Money Will follow

The quickest road to being successful in business is to find your strengths and utilise them. Utilise them to help people, to entertain people, to make people’s life better in some way. If you do that, the money will follow.

If you’re a 9 at marketing you don’t have to work too hard to get to a 10 and be in the top 10% of people for that skill. If you’re a 3 at marketing it’s going to take an awful lot longer. You’ll have to work for many hours before you’re at the standard you need to make money from your skill.

Life’s easier when you play to your strengths. Hard things become more simple. Watch this video of Tom Fletcher from McFly. Nervous about making his wedding speech he decides to play to his strengths with great success.

Did you watch right to the end? There’s a second lesson in there – even when you’re playing to your strengths, you can be even better with a little help. Tom didn’t need a choir, but they added additional emotion to the performance and encouraged everyone to join in.

If you’re just starting out, or things have gotten confused and you no longer know what your strengths are, write a list. Write down everything you’re good at, knowledgable on and passionate about. Add in all the skills you’ve developed through life and the jobs you’ve done. Now look at a random selection of 100 people you know and decide where you would fit for each of your skills. So if you consider yourself better at something than 70 of them then you’re a 7, if you’re only better than 20 of them then you’re a 2. If you’re better than all of them you’re a 10.

Tip – if you have self esteem issues or under value yourself then do this excercise with someone you trust who will be honest both ways.

Now look at your list. Your 9’s and 10’s are your real strengths. With a bit of work your 7’s and 8’s can become a 9 or a 10. You should score off anything below a 7 and do those things for fun if you still want to. I like playing the keyboard but I’m about a 2, I’ll happily do it for fun but I’d be working at it for a hundred years before someone would pay me to do it.

The next step is to think of ways to help, entertain or make people’s lives better using your skill. That’s where the satisfaction and fulfillment is, and the money will follow.