A (0:06)

This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, editor in chief of.

B (0:12)

Entrepreneur magazine, and I'm money expert Nicole Lapin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the helpline and help callers solve their work problems.

A (0:20)

And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.

B (0:25)

And it starts now.

A (0:33)

Here's something to reflect on today. What if your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness? What do I mean by greatest strength? It's whatever you think it means. Maybe it's your analytical mind or your people skills or your quick thinking or whatever abilities you attribute your success to. How could any of that be bad? Well, here's an explanation from clinical psychologist Martin Dubin. Our challenges often emerge from investing too heavily in our strengths, he writes in his new book, Blind Spotting. The super strengths become supernovas and tip into qualities that frustrate people around us and get in the way of our success. As a result, the confident person becomes arrogant. The friendly extrovert can't leave people alone. The visionary struggles with execution. The agreeable boss loves every idea, leaving no one sure where they stand. This is a hard thing to hear because it means questioning the things that we're most proud of. But as I thought about it, I realized this exact thing happened to me and it truly was a hindrance in my career. So today I'll share that story along with Martin Dubin's advice on managing your superpowers to achieve true greatness. First, let's talk about my personal kryptonite. When I first started giving keynote talks, which was, I don't know, back in 2016, 2017, I thought I had an advantage over other speakers. It was my energy. I'm a naturally energetic person. I can be fast and loud. So when I went on stage, I thought, my job is to wake people up and hold their attention. Big voice, stomping feet. I went all out, out. But about four years ago, my wife attended one of my talks. Afterwards, she said, you were great, but the energy was way too much. It felt like you were screaming at people. And that constant energy felt like its own form of monotone. This was hard to hear. I wanted to push back and say, no, you don't understand. This is my superpower. Energy is my thing. Then I watched a video of myself at the event, and my wife was right. I wasn't just energetic. I was an uncontrolled explosion, and it was a liability. Dubin calls this a trait blind spot when our greatest strengths tip into qualities that impede our success. As he explains, we are not as self aware as we believe. We tend to feel as if most of our traits, instincts and feelings are like everyone else's, except for where we see ourselves as exceptional or gifted in ways that we imagine can only serve as positive. That was a quote from him. Because we're so proud of these strengths, we never pause to consider their downsides. Consider it for yourself right now. What are you truly excellent at? And has that ever caused a problem? I can think of plenty more for me, here are three. Number one, I'm great at juggling projects, but that means that I keep adding new things without realistically assessing my bandwidth for them. Number two, I'm great at asking questions, but that means that I can also get too personal with people without realizing where their boundaries are. And number three, I pride myself on being accessible. But my inbox is overflowing because I keep inviting people to just contact me directly and therefore I create logjams for people as they wait for my response. So what are we supposed to do about any of this good news? You shouldn't abandon your strengths, but you should become aware of the problem and work to solve it. Here's how, in two parts. Part one. You need to find the problem. Dubin offers three suggestions to find the problem. They're all really interesting. Number one, the to test. First, ask yourself what words would people use to describe you professionally? Is it decisive? Clarity? Collaborative? Careful? Now put the word too in front of any of those adjectives. Are you too decisive? Too collaborative? Too careful? Here's the second idea. Notice complaints. When people give you feedback, do they criticize the extreme version of your strengths? For example, if you're praised for being thorough, do people also say that you're slow to act? And then here's the third. Sometimes a superpower in one context can become harmful in another. Maybe you're an amazing consensus builder and that was useful at a large company, but now you're at a startup and people just want you to make a damn decision already. Alright, so that's how to find the problem. And now part two, how to manage around it. Don't fight your instincts. That'll never be helpful. Instead, Dubin writes, quote, it is almost always more productive to become aware of our traits and then manage around them. End quote. Here's how you can push yourself out of your comfort zone when the situation requires it. You can hire people or surround yourself with people who can handle the tasks that don't suit your natural tendencies. And you can create systems to harness your strengths while mitigating their downsides. For example, Dubin writes about a CEO he coached named Mila. She's an introvert, and that served her well in prior roles where as an individual operator, she could isolate herself and focus on a task. But now, as the leader of a company, her introversion was a problem. She avoided external facing activities like sales meetings, keynote speaking, media interviews, and so on. So here's what they did. They hired a chief of communications and inspiration to own some external facing tasks. They booked Mila's time strategically, say, for only the most relevant and important sales closings. They worked with marketing to position her as a brilliant, compassionate, introverted leader, really owning her strengths. And they scheduled these small Friday breakfasts with Mila where she could connect with employees in a more comfortable setting. As a result, Mila and her company thrived. Now, with all that in mind, here's how I fixed my own blind spot. After my wife told me that I was too high energy, I went through a similar process. I started to experiment. I went on podcasts specifically to practice a more natural speaking cadence. I found a new baseline tone to speak in, warm and WELCOMING with maybe 70% of the energy that I used to put out regularly. I also rethought my superpower. I don't want to be high energy anymore. Now I want to be highly engaging. And energy is just one part of that. After a while, industry friends, including actually Nicole, my co host here on Help Wanted, started to notice and compliment me on this new presentation style. Clients started wanting to bring me back for second or even third engagements, which never happened before. And my career really began to thrive. Now I've learned success comes from balance, not from one strength alone. We cannot fall victim to our own excellence. Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason.