[BCC 028] - Playing To Your Strengths
Happy Friday!
Today I want to talk about something that's SUPER important but RARELY talked about, at least in the books/podcasts/etc that I consume about the creator economy.
Those who have managed to create success for themselves will often attribute it to one big thing that they did. They'll talk about it as the "secret" to their success, they'll write a book about it (making it not-so-secret anymore...) and promote it often as part of their brand message.
But, what if that thing just worked for them?
What if it's the absolute WRONG approach for someone else?
What then?
I revisited the book Millionaire Master Plan by Roger James Hamilton, where he talks about 4 different types of "geniuses" - Dynamo, Blaze, Tempo, or Steel.
Which reminded me of a whole training I did a year ago about the DISC profile, where you have different "styles" - D, I, S, or C.
Plenty of other people have codified their own version of the four different personality types throughout the years. I remember growing up hearing the story about the four "temperments" - Melancholy, Choleric, Phlegmatic, and Sanguine.
They're all the same story. The one I like best is how the four different versions enter a restaurant:
The Dynamo/D/Choleric is greeted by the hostess and offered a table in the back and responds, "actually, over there by the window would be great. We'd love water and to have some bread brought to the table as soon as possible."
The Blaze/I/Sanguine approaches the hostess and says "Oh my gosh, I love your earrings! Where did you get those? Oh my gosh and your nails are amazing. Can we be friends!?"
The Tempo/S/Phlegmatic approaches and waits for someone to tell them what the plan is.
And the Steel/C/Melancholy observes the system of how the restaurant is run and starts analyzing how they would optimize and improve it.
Now, I write all of this out to say that if you are a Tempo/S/Phlegmatic person reading a book written by a Blaze/I/Sanguine, you're gonna have a hard time digesting it all - it may cause you to break out in a cold sweat - and an even harder time implementing it. It's not in your nature to be a people person. Same as if you read a book by the other two personality types.
Point of the story is that what may work for one person may be the absolutely wrong approach for you in your business.
And anyone who writes in absolutes should be taken with a grain of salt, because they aren't taking into account the reality of different strengths that come with different personalities.
For example - the Ds strength is with ideas and vision, I is great with people and community, you need S to get things done and follow the plan, and the C to optimize everything and create systems so that everything works.
Each has their own strengths and weaknesses.
I met a Blaze/I/Sanguine on the movie I produced earlier this year, and she was trying SO HARD to be like the Dynamo/D/Choleric producer, and felt like a failure every day because her brain "just doesn't work that way" no matter what she did.
I told her, instead, to try and focus on her strengths - being amazing with people and having creative ways of accomplishing her tasks. I put her in charge of the extras and designing the walls with all of the actors looks on them. She thrived!
So, if you're reading this, I want you to know that you have a superpower as well. You just need to understand your true nature, who you really are, and play into those strengths.
I realized I need to do the same. I've been trying so hard to grow communities and audiences and followings online, when that isn't my strength. I've got the Steel/C/Melancholy brain, so I love building and tinkering and optimizing systems. I've got a fair amount of the Dynamo/D/Choleric as well, which means I also have ideas and vision for the future.
What that means, though, is that I need to partner with people who have the strengths that I don't naturally have. Someone who can help with sales and marketing and interacting with people. Someone who can run the systems that I build.
So, what are you? What are your strengths? And what are you going to do differently with that new knowledge and understanding?
(You can take the quizzes to find out your "type" here (Dynamo, Steel, etc), here (DISC), and here (temperments) and even here (colors)
Daren
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