Again, this is coming from my phone, as I sit by my pool before 3 in the afternoon. 2:37 to be exact. I’m teaching 3 classes this summer (which is why I’m not at work),  and this might be the most wonderful summer  I’ve had in years, as far as self-refelction goes. The kids I teach are fantastic and smart to boot. But not only am I able to teach these kids (young adults really), I’m learning to take my own advice.

One of the lessons we do is practicing improving on their strengths, or areas they are already good at. Watching them take the information and apply it to their own lives is great, and makes me feel like I have a chance of making a difference in this world. Explaining my class to you all would take too long, but it’s basically an intro class to life. Sure, it was supposed to be college success, but to be good in college, they have to be good at living. And the best way to help them do that is to help them to live to their fullest potential, which is where strengths come in.

We start our lives with people influencing our strengths. We see a boy hit a ball well and we sign him up for tee ball. Our kids draw us pictures and even if they are total crap, we slap those puppies on the fridge and we tell them it looks great; they should be an artist. But somewhere down the road, that stops. They reach a certain age and we tell them a picture looks nice but they should try to color in the lines better. Or we see the little boy has one hell of a swing but he can’t throw far, so we begin to focus on throwing and his batting isn’t getting the attention it deserves. Why do we do this?

A couple report cards ago my daughter had all A’s and one B in Chorus. I read this impressive report card and then I asked her what the hell happened that she got a B in what I saw as a gimme class. I didn’t think twice about it. And the next report card you bet your ass she had an A in chorus, but she had a B in science – one of her best subjects.

So what did accomplish? Well I made her focus on a weakness and her strong area failed. This isn’t an isolated incident. I could give hundreds of examples of when I thought it was best to help the kids focus on an area of improvement as opposed to helping them get better at what they already do well.

It takes so much energy to go from terrible to kinda bad, when we could go from really good to incredible so much faster.

About a year ago I met a man who asked me a loaded question. He said “What are you great at?” And I gave him a bullshit answer about being organized and having a strong work ethic, and he called bullshit. He said “No, what things do you do that make you feel alive?”

Holy shit. Uhhhhh. So I thought about it and I knew, I feel the absolute best when I know I have helped someone see that they are their biggest obstacles in life. Too many times we give up on a goal or a dream because it seems too hard, or it seems like it will take too long. Or we are afraid to fail.

Fuck. Being afraid to fail is the utmost ridiculous fear ever. Hell, not one of us would have learned to walk if we had that fear as a baby. Or to talk even. Thinking “Damn, there’s so many words to learn, that will take years. Nah. Imma just grunt and cry to communicate”. No. We didnt have it in ourselves to think about time till completion or if we might fail or fall or get laughed at for saying our words wrong (yes mom. I still say “sawl”)

Only 17% of Americans have a career in which they feel they use their strengths and are excited and challenged by what they do for work. That’s sad. I don’t want to raise kids like that.

This week my class has been focusing on what their strengths are and learning ways to make them work for them. I get that all of us will be able to have careers in which we know we are doing what our natural abilities made us good at, but what if we could stop our kids from losing sight of their strengths? Can’t we give them the courage to be in that 17%? I sure hope so.

It’s so easy to look at what aren’t good at and try to get better. I asked my class to write 3 things they don’t do well, and it was easy for them. I asked them to tell me 3 things they are great at, and they sat silent. I asked them to write their name with their dominate hand 5 times. It took them less and 30 seconds. I had them do the same with their other hand it it took 4 times as long and it wasn’t nearly as good as if they used they hand they were already strong with. Think of this in a real life situation. The amount of energy and time we spend trying to get better at a weakness is wasted when we can make what we are naturally good at, great.

I know it’s a little rogue to think this is possible, but what if we all began to encourage ourselves, our colleagues, and our children to focus positive energy on the positives and less on the weaknesses? How different could our lives be?