Playing to My Advantages
Repair Shop, Farmersville TX. I think James knows what he's all about.
Since returning to chess as a time-killer to help deal with insomnia (mixed success), I've become a much better player. Partly I think it was just taking a break. Maybe you've experienced that: you step away from something you're good at (or at least competent at), and when you come back fresh, you kill it, at least for a little while. I think the real impact, though, came from playing to my advantages.
This is a concept that's been drilled into me at work, and I'm finding it to be a good mental cleanser.
In chess, it means warming up with puzzles and only playing 30-minute games, not 15-minute rapid, 5-minute blitz, or 1-minute bullet. Puzzles prime pattern recognition, which is where experience pays off. And I've seen this over and over in chess videos on YouTube: the main difference between an older master and a younger one is speed. Reduce the clock pressure, and the older player is still competitive. Choose the format where your strengths count and your weaknesses don't.
In other areas of life, like work, it means focusing on what you're good at, and getting help with what you're not good at.
This may seem super-obvious, but most of us don't do it. We think we need to shore up our weaknesses, or at least do whatever we're asked, so we become project managers or bookkeepers or whatever's needed, on top of our actual jobs. I could work very hard and at best I'd be a barely competent project manager. I would never be great at it. I'm not good at minutiae, I lose track of details, and I don't lose sleep if something is a little late.
So what's the difference between that and just being a lazy employee? A lazy employee avoids work. Playing to your strengths means the work still gets done. The project management goes to someone who's actually good at it, and your own effort goes where it pays off most. Everyone gets a better result.
I know what my strengths are. I'm good at relationships, communication, graphic design, and making existing things better. I'm a teacher, an improver, and an improviser, not an engineer. And in the age of AI, perhaps my greatest strength is this: I have good taste.
AI can offer "best practices." In the consulting world, that's the default reply from people who don't know what the fuck they're doing. Anyone can look up principles and try to follow them. Only people with expertise and instincts, i.e. taste, can say, "Here's why you shouldn't do that, in this situation."
Here's why that won't motivate that particular person, even though it would motivate most of us.
Here's why that's a dumb idea in India, though it sounds great in the UK.
Here's why that internal initiative got such a terribly low acceptance rate.
That kind of judgment comes from studying people, which is why I'm hopeful AI will spur a resurgence of interest in the humanities.
One of the best resources I've found for learning what you're good at is CliftonStrengths. The basic test ($25) gives you your top 5 strengths. The complete one ($60) ranks all 34, including the stuff you suck at. I think it's good to know both, but if you want to try it out, take the basic test, focus on your top 5 for a few months, and see what changes. It's only worth it if you regularly review the results and apply them to your decisions.
My top 5 are Relator, Empathy, Communication, Developer, and Maximizer, which matched almost exactly what I'd already noticed about myself. My bottom themes include Discipline, Consistency, and Arranger, which explains a lot about me and project plans.
It's genuinely helped me, both at work and personally. I'm now much more comfortable saying, "Can you help me with this?" instead of gritting my teeth in silence through something I suck at, which only lowers my self-esteem and gives a poor result, just like playing rapid chess with no warm-up.