Are you identifying and playing to your strengths while delegating or outsourcing tasks that align with your weaknesses?
In this episode Carl discusses the importance of playing to your strengths rather than trying to force yourself into areas you are weak at. He uses the analogy of being a fish (excelling at swimming but failing at climbing a tree) versus being a cat (struggling with swimming but excelling at climbing a tree).
Stop trying to be a “fish” if we are naturally more of a “cat.” He suggested leveraging tools like voice-to-text on phones or AI tools like ChatGPT’s voice mode to dictate content rather than writing it out. The key is identifying your natural strengths and weaknesses, doubling down on the strengths, and finding ways to delegate or outsource the areas you struggle with.
While there are times you may need to push yourself out of your comfort zone for personal growth, Carl cautions against constantly trying to improve major weaknesses. Instead, focus on honing and maximising the skills you’re already talented at. Surround yourself with team members who complement your weaknesses so you can lean into your core strengths. Trying to force yourself to be something you’re not may only lead to frustration.
Personal growth often requires stepping outside of your comfort zone. However, continually attempting to improve upon significant weaknesses could also be leading to unnecessary pressure . Instead try focusing your energy on refining and maximising the skills and talents that come naturally to you. To create a well-rounded team, surround yourself with individuals whose strengths complement your weaknesses, allowing you to fully embrace and leverage your core competencies. Attempting to force yourself into a role that doesn’t align with your inherent abilities may ultimately lead to frustration and suboptimal performance.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…
- The phenomenon of forcing yourself to be a fish, when you’re actually a cat (00:24)
- The value of leveraging and growing your strengths and delegating tasks you find challenging (02:28)
- What you can do if you’re more of a speaker than a writer: record audio messages, use voice-to-text features, Chat GPT (03:13)
- The difference between stepping out of your comfort zone to grow and forcing yourself to do things you’re really weak at (05:20)
QUOTES
- “If you judge a fish by its ability to do something that a cat could do easily, it’s going to fail. Just like if you judge a cat by its ability to swim, it’s going to fail compared to the fish. And so what we’re talking about here is finding your strengths.” – Carl Taylor
- “There’s a delicate balance. There are times where perceived weaknesses may just be, you need to push through some stuff … but I’m gonna say the majority of the time, you just want to find your strengths, play to your strengths, grow those strengths, and then delegate, outsource, find other ways to find people who are really good at that thing that you suck at.” – Carl Taylor
- “There are certain elements where you might have to do some things that are out of your comfort zone to grow. But that’s a different thing to try to force yourself to do something that you’re really weak at, rather than maximising your strengths.” – Carl Taylor
WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter
TRANSCRIPTION
Carl Taylor: Are you trying to be a fish when actually you’re a cat?
Hey, and welcome to another episode of Dadpreneurs Rising. This is the podcast for you. If you are a dad in business and you’re maybe struggling with how do you balance being the entrepreneur, the dad, the husband, the lover, and a man in today’s society? I’m, your host, Carl Taylor.
And in today’s episode, we are going to talk about a really interesting phenomenon of are you forcing yourself to be a fish when maybe you’re actually a cat?
Let me lay some context. This comes from a conversation from within the king’s council. It’s a coaching and community programme that, dadpreneur.com, where we run. And the king’s council is really for men who are looking to get support in balancing the worlds of dad, entrepreneurship, health, relationships, the whole gamut. Being a man in today’s society.
One of our members said that he was trying really hard to do these things. Like, he found it really hard, but he was trying to do it, like writing things down, making plans really challenging. Like, at the time, he’s like, I’m trying to, trying to create this one page marketing plan, and he was really getting quite stressed out about it. Writing emails, replying to things, even inside of our community, writing things was challenging for him. And I just stopped him and said, hold on a second. What I’m hearing from you is writing is really, really hard for you. He’s like, yep. I was like, okay, what’s easy for you? He said, talking. He’s really good with people. I said, great. I know people just like that. I’ve got a really good friend who’s probably very similar. He’s not a bad writer, but he definitely is amazing at speaking and talking to people.
And so I said, okay, what if you stop trying to force yourself to be a fish? And I use the analogy, I’m sure you’ve heard this story before. The idea of, like, if you judge a fish success, by its ability to climb a tree, it would fail, right? It’s all about the context of it. There’s nothing wrong with being a fish. Nothing wrong with being a cat. But if you judge a fish by its ability to do something that a cat could do easily, it’s going to fail. Just like if you judged a cat by its ability to swim, it’s going to fail compared to the fish.
And so what we’re talking about here is finding your strengths. There’s a lot of people in the personal development space, at least that are like, overcome your weaknesses, grow, grow, grow.
There’s a delicate balance. There are times where perceived weaknesses may just be, you need to push through some stuff. There are a few times, but I’m going to say the majority of the time, you just want to find your strengths, play to your strengths, grow those strengths, and then delegate, outsource. Find other ways to find people who are really good at that thing that you suck at. Don’t try to make yourself good at something you’re weak at. Make yourself better at the things you already naturally have talent and good at. Grow that, expand that, and leverage the other people who are really good at the stuff that you suck at.
And so with this particular guy, I said, okay, well, within our community, you don’t need to write text messages. Like, you can access it on your phone and every phone, whether you got iPhone, Android, whatever, you’ve, got the option to press a little button and speak and it will take what you say and turn it into text. So I said, if you need to write an email, a couple of options. One, you could record an audio message and just send them the audio. Or you can do a voice to text feature that’s built into your phone. You can send emails, you can write posts on Facebook, you can write, comments within side of a community. So if you are like this particular member who you suck at or struggle to write, and maybe that’s why you’re listening to an audio thing, you like listening to things, then play to your strengths. Use those voice to text. in particular, he was talking about struggling to use chat GPT because we talk a bit about how do you use tools like Chat GPT in your business to get an edge? And he was struggling with using Chat GPT. I said, well, did you know it’s got an audio version on your phone? You can speak to it, it can speak back, but even what it speaks back, you could then copy and paste that text because it gives you the text, and then you could then send that to someone else to write the email, or it can have written the email for you.
So there’s so much tools available to you today, even that one idea of like, hey, you struggle to say what you want to say in an email, fire up chat GPT, start the voice mode and say, hey, I, want to write an email. This is in general what I want it to say. Can you write me one and then have it write the email and then give it its feedback all via audio. And then when it’s finished, you go, great, you go into the text mode of the app, copy and paste the message. And then you can just paste that into your email and click send. Mind blowing for him. Allows him to be a fish in water, not a fish in a tree.
And I really want you to think about where in your life and your business are, you maybe trying to force yourself to be a fish when actually you’re a cat, right? Where are you judging yourself or pushing yourself into areas that you suck at and you know you suck at? Now, as I said at the beginning, there are certain parts, relationships, for example, if you just accept, well, I’m just sucking at relationships. So therefore, this is just how I am. I’ve found from my own experience that is a false belief system that is keeping you trapped and maybe stopping you from getting what you want. There’s, a lot of personal growth that can come and usually it’s to do with healing of our past experiences. So, there are certain elements where you might have to do some things that are out of your comfort zone to grow, but that’s a different thing to trying to force yourself to do something that you’re really weak at rather than maximising your strength. So that’s it for today. Till next time, keep up the journey.
Hey fellow dadpreneurs, thanks for tuning in to today’s episode. If you’ve missed something said on today’s episode, you can find transcripts, links and other notes from today’s episode, as well as all other episodes over at rising show. That’s show not so. Head over to rising show to get all the information that you need.