I wrote this section to display the things at which I am good and bad. I intend these to be a bit less specific than my skills and knowledge. But, in general, my strengths and weaknesses are the intangibles that provide the foundation for what I do. They are not who I am, per se, but they build directly off my core traits and personality.
​
I have listed these in no particular order of importance; otherwise, they would probably be in a different order every day. I purposely kept them all in verb form, as the intent is to represent broad things I do well (or not).
STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES
Building
I could summarize this strength by saying that I love getting things done, especially when dealing with problems or situations in a hands-on manner. I love to be busy doing things, especially when I have the chance to build or create. I have had lots of pet projects over the years that I love to sink my jaws into just for the heck of it. This is also a great asset when I can use this tenacity to implement the products of some of my other strengths. I have an innate desire to achieve excellence. This desire manifests itself even more than usual when I get locked into a particular task. I become very focused on what is in front of me and am usually 100% determined to see it through to completion. Many people would call this hard-working, but in my opinion, hard work is just the outward manifestation of internal determination.
Decision Making
I don’t want anyone to interpret this as saying my judgment is impeccable; I have had way more than my fair share of mistakes and screw-ups in my life. What I mean to say is I have a powerful ability to look at multiple angles of an argument or issue to figure out the best path forward. I use the mental models built from my education and life experience and apply those to a problem to analyze different outcomes and cut through emotional or personal issues. If I don’t yet have a model for a particular situation, I find the information I need to build one. This strength is further accelerated by having a reasonably high tolerance for ambiguity in most cases. I have learned that in the real world, answers are never black and white. If there were an easy answer, then there usually wouldn’t be a question at all. When I combine this strength with a very independent and fairly self-confident personality, I am not afraid to be decisive or implement a solution without external validation. I can generally figure out the right path and start down that without needing confirmation.
Learning
Out of all of my strengths, learning is probably the one I am most thankful for and practice the most. It is something that manifests itself a lot in my everyday life. I am insatiably curious, and without a doubt, owe Larry Page and Sergey Brin a massive debt of gratitude. I would go crazy if I were forced to live in a time without Google. As the saying goes, “curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.” I am always looking for new things to learn and new ways to improve myself. I think that this willingness and desire to learn enabled me to get as far as I have in my life. I strive for constant improvement and see it like compound interest in the stock market. I am able to build continually on the knowledge that I already have. In more recent years, this trait has led me to become more open-minded to new ideas and ways of thinking. At some point, I realized that I could only learn so much from one set of shoes, and closed-minded thinking made me seem like a know-it-all, which is never my goal.
Orchestrating
This one probably requires a little more explanation than some of the others. In essence, it has a similar meaning to strategy or organization. Similar, but not the same. The word orchestrating jumped off the page to me for two reasons. The first reason is that it is a bit unique; the second is that the definition seemed to fit my intent better than anything else. A quick search gave me three descriptions that all fit the bill.
Orchestrating:
1. to design, plan, or orchestrate;
2. to arrange or combine to achieve a desired or maximum effect;
3. to arrange or manipulate, especially through clever or thorough planning or maneuvering.
I think that in another life, I would have been an architect and designed buildings all day. I tend to be very structured and organized in my thinking and approach, which gives me an edge when spotting trends or figuring out how complex systems work. When I combine this with an imaginative and strategic mind, I can make connections between disparate ideas and weave them into a cohesive solution. This trait has led to me becoming quite adept at organizing and building processes or systems. As my personality evolves, it lends itself more and more to solutions that err towards simplicity. I have always had a knack for optimizing things and making them more efficient. Still, it took a little bit of time to shine that light on my own thinking and realize that more complexity does not always yield better results.
Problem Solving
I think that problem solving is probably one of the more overused strengths out there, but hear me out. I initially wanted to put innovation on here instead, until I realized that innovation is even more overused and hollow than problem-solving is. Everyone with a LinkedIn page (including myself) wants to call themselves innovative. I eventually had the epiphany that nobody is actually qualified to call themself innovative. Similar to being a leader, it is a title that should be bestowed on you by others, not yourself. I aspire to be considered an innovator one day, but in essence, innovation can only be determined by the magnitude of the problems you successfully solve. So that brought me back around to problem-solving. I am naturally inclined to investigate and research situations and consider myself to be a very resourceful person. Others often call upon me to help them troubleshoot whatever problems they may have, and I am able to quickly notice and deftly fix technical issues in many different areas. I am a bit of a jack-of-all-trades who likes to incorporate a healthy dose of critical thinking, reasoning, and analysis into whatever situation I find myself in. These factors, along with my track record, help validate my listing of problem-solving as one of my strengths.
Strengths
Weaknesses
To start this one off, I want to make the distinction between conflict and confrontation. In general, I welcome a certain level of conflict. I love to have intellectual conversations and debates with people I respect and who don’t overpower the conversation. It can be rather valuable to hash out different viewpoints or debate the merits of an idea. This conflict is required to get to the truth and find what will wind up making an impact. Life is full of conflict, and conflict usually precedes growth. What I do tend to avoid, however, is emotionally charged face-to-face confrontation. I’m not particularly eager to get into irrational verbal arguments where the victor is the first person with a witty comeback. This aversion to confrontation has both upsides and downsides, but sometimes there are tough conversations that need to be had in person, heated or not. I also tend to shy away from situations where I get put on the spot to concoct an answer without first having an opportunity to process things. There are times when the situation demands an immediate response, and I tend to do well under that kind of pressure. I do not flourish when there is arbitrary pressure to come up with something right that second. I have a lot more success when I am allowed to play through various scenarios in my head and think things through before responding.
Avoiding
Confrontation
Similar to calling yourself an innovator, I think that calling yourself a perfectionist as a weakness is a bit hollow (this is coming from someone who would call themself a perfectionist). For one thing, it is almost like a backhanded compliment because, in and of itself, it is not necessarily a weakness. In my experience, people call it a weakness as a way to say, “look, even my weaknesses are strengths.” I want to flip that on its head, which is why I called my weakness expecting perfection instead of being a perfectionist. It is safe to say that I have pretty high standards, especially from myself, but expecting perfection from anybody or anything is a fool’s errand. There is always a flaw if you dig deep enough. As I have gotten older, I have done a better job of having reasonable expectations for other people. However, I still have a problem with tempering expectations for myself. I like to forget that I am a human, just like everyone else. While I eschew anything good in favor of things that are great, I often fail to draw a line between great and perfect. Jim Collins says that “good is the enemy of great.” While I wholeheartedly agree, I also think that perfection can be the enemy of great as well. In my pursuit of excellence, the manifestation of this weakness is either me abandoning great ideas that I didn’t perfect or taking too long for trivial tasks. Having a bunch of excellent projects or ideas that are 95% complete because they aren’t perfect is not any better than having a bunch of finished projects that are average. One could even make the argument that it is worse.
Expecting Perfection
I could also call this one playing things (too) close to the vest. When I am working on a task or project, I almost always have a plan and vision for how I want things to go. The problem is that I don’t always make my mental image abundantly clear to everyone else. In my personal life, this isn’t as big of a deal. I tend just to let others talk about how or what they are doing while I listen. However, this weakness can be a little more problematic in a business setting. Occasionally, I inadvertently expect others to read my mind. Even for small tasks, I usually think there is a “right way” to do things. This “right way” usually does a great job at making things more efficient and achieving results. Still, I am often bad at explaining the “right way” to someone else. This weakness leads to a lot of unnecessary annoyance for me.
​
In a slightly different vein, I also have a mentality of usually not wanting to “cast pearls before swine.” When I say this, I am saying that I reserve my knowledge for when it will be most appreciated or utilized to its fullest extent. When it comes to intelligence, I often view the world as a meritocracy. I can be very brief with those who have not earned my trust intellectually. When working with someone I distrust or who is not qualified for their position, I tend to take this one step further. I employ the approach of “I understand this, so why should I have to explain it to you?” Tying this back to avoiding confrontation, I think there are many times when I prefer just to let somebody go one with their life being wrong instead of arguing with them over it. I generally avoid this if there are negative implications for myself or someone else, but many times it is just easier to let people think what they want.