Freak Factor Response

The article can be found here!

This article puts weakness and utilizing it into a different kind of light. Rendell says that our weaknesses are what make us unique and that we shouldn’t even bother trying to fix them. He believes we should just focus on our strengths.

Personally I disagree with this mind set. I feel as though the only way to grow creatively is to find out what your weaknesses are and not necessarily focus on them but work on them and make them less of a weakness. Creatively, I am horrible at drawing; however, that doesn’t mean I should just say screw it and not work on it and only do what I’m good at. You cannot grow only doing things you are good at.

With that being said I will analyze 3 of his 9 suggestions for overcoming weakness.

1. Forget it : Don’t try to fix your weaknesses

As I mentioned earlier I totally disagree with this statement. If I’m an artist, and I’m bad at shading, I’m not going to sit there and deal with it as Rendell suggests, I would recognize it as a weakness and work on it and try to improve. If a basketball player cannot shoot free throws, they aren’t going to say, “No, coach I’m bad at free throws I’m just going to shoot 3’s during practice since I am already good at those.” You need to work on your weaknesses and turn them into strengths. If everyone followed by this philosophy, where would the drive to become better come from? This particular reason just struck me as totally and completely wrong. I do not think people should follow this as a way to deal with weaknesses.

1. Foundation: Build on your strengths

Strengths are very important as well as weaknesses. Strengths need to continuously be worked on or else those strengths could turn into a weakness. If you stop working on things that you are good at you are doing yourself a disservice. That’s why you need to find a balance between working on strengths as well as weakness. Rendell used a good quote, “If you don’t use it, you lose it” which I believe in.

1. What’s your problem?

I agree with half of this suggestion. In the first part it talks about defining your weaknesses which is very important. If you don’t know what your weaknesses are how can you improve upon them? It talks about how in job interviews they will ask about your weaknesses which is completely valid. If someone is applying for an accounting job but one of their weaknesses is math, thats probably a good thing to know. In the second part however he talks about how this way of thinking produces well-rounded people. He questions if this is how things should be though. I see nothing wrong with producing well-rounded people. I would rather be good at a lot of things then great at just a few. I think being well-rounded is important.