Welcome to Part 6 of the "Who's Controlling Your Life?" arc. We started the discussion with therapy, workaholism, differences in different cultures, neurologic adaptations that can and can't be seen, dinosaurs, homosexuality and evolution in action. Part 2 wondered if big teeth and big muscles was an experiment that failed and part 3 questioned if homosexuality was another of Nature's experiments.
Part 4 reflected on some of childhood's mysteries and part 5 wondered about finding teachers who honor differences.
Here we explore one of the things I was taught early in my studies; Every weakness is a strength, every strength is a weakness (one of the early people who worked with NextStage couldn't understand this, unfortunately, and we had to let him go).
The most I could ever benchpress was 350# ten times and that was years ago. I have talked and laughed and trained with people who could benchpress me, the bench, that weight and a hundred pounds more all day without breaking a sweat. I've also met, studied and worked with people whose intellectual capabilities make me seem a driveling fool. I don't know who I pity or envy more.But weaknesses are strengths just as strengths are weaknesses (remind me to tell you about moving safes sometime).
A problem, once solved, bores me -- great for research, lousy for productization (and Susan, the truly intelligent one in the family, suggested a reframe of this such that it's also great for productization. I always tell people she's the really smart one. Wish they'd believe me). A question, unanswered, requires research -- Eric Peterson suggested I check The Future of ... blog twice a day and post to it. Post what? It takes me two weeks of study before I begin to understand the questions being asked. Coauthoring the blog with Eric has given me the opportunity to analyze the thought processes of others personally, sans the objective distance the NextStage Toolkits provide me. I've learned why people are sometimes impressed at my ability to focus and other times accuse me of not appreciating a situation's complexity.
I've been trained to break apart things, to determine key concepts, to isolate and categorize relevancies -- focus, a strength. But doing so causes others frustration -- I don't seem to stay focused on the larger issues, a weakness.
(more to follow)
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Upcoming Trainings:
- Know How Someone's Thinking in 10 Seconds or Less Half-day training at Toronto Emetrics Marketing Optimzation Summit, 3 April 08
- Know How Someone's Thinking in 10 Seconds or Less Half-day training at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, 13 June 08
- Toronto Emetrics Marketing Optimzation Summit, 31 March - 2 April 08
- New Communications Forum 2008, 22-25 April 08 at The Vineyard Creek Inn & Spa, Sonoma County CA
- San Francisco Emetrics Marketing Optimzation Summit, 4-7 May 08
- SUNY Marketing Professionals Conference at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, 11-13 June 08
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