Dive deep into the annals of history. Open the biographies of great statesmen, inventors, industrialists, artists, and leaders.
Trends emerge.
Is it our strengths that make us?
I think -- not.
Strengths are common. And too often, strengths produce not very much success.
As the American President Calvin Coolidge said, "...nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent... unrewarded genius is almost a proverb..."
If you look to the history books, you find the people who made enduring contributions to humanity are largely the ones who learned how to manage their weaknesses and liabilities.
We all have our faults and weaknesses; indeed, some of our weaknesses are the flipside of strengths.
An "infinitely industrious character" is a tremendous virtue in most fields. However, in the field of investing in equities, patience is a virtue and constant tinkering is a tremendous vice that destroys a man's capital and returns. A person who can't stop tinkering should first learn that about himself, and then place his stock investments in an automated account that he does not see, or should invest in a different type of asset altogether -- something improvable as time passes, something where tinkering is a virtue.
Being a faster decisionmaker is a virtue in most places, except on the decisions that need to be meditated on to make a good decision. Again, knowing that one decides quickly lets you mitigate the risks and damage, by getting trusted advisors, putting a process in place, or otherwise ensuring you don't move too quickly into fields where going slowly is in order.
Perhaps strikingly to me personally is that I don't deal well with boredom; I am constantly seeking out new and interesting things to do. It's a virtue much of the time. I've been able to identify and pioneer a lot of approaches. It's brought me wealth, fun, adventure, and great satisfaction. It's made me valuable to clients and friends; I know a lot about a lot of fields, and can synthesize them.
But lately I've been coming to terms with the downside of that -- which is that, once an excellent process is discovered, boring and repeated running of that process produces results. Lately I've banned almost all distractions -- uninstalling the web browser, Youtube, and other entertainment-ish apps on my phone, liberally blocking almost all distracting sites on my computer (again, including Youtube), and forcing myself to just feel the boredom when it comes on.
And it's terrible! It's awful. It's almost painful. But now, slowly, it becomes meditative. I can work through boring work as a change of pace from the normal inventing, pioneering, researching, hustling type stuff that's my normal workday. I'm learning -- gradually -- to manage my liabilities in that area.
Oh, that Calvin Coolidge quote from earlier? It was slightly abridged. Here is the whole thing:
“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
You Press On! not through strengths alone, but through management of your weaknesses. Analyze gradually; where is your base nature harming your results? Then begin working out how to manage it appropriately.