In the 1980s, Britain had one of the all-time athletic greats; the moustachioed and supremely talented Mr Daley Thompson, who would routinely whistle his way through the national anthem as he banked another gold medal.
His event was ‘events’; running, throwing and jumping. Daley was a double Olympic winning decathlete.
‘Dec’ = 10.
He honed his skills and pushed his body to its absolute limits so he could be the best of the best in ten disciplines.
Except he didn’t.
He trained and trained for nine of the ten because, you see, the 1500 metres, that wasn’t his thing. He was hopeless at it. Three and a half laps was best suited to tall, skinny, barrel-chested athletes.
Daley was chunky. He was exactly the wrong body shape.
Believe it or not, our world-beating super athlete never trained for the 1500 metres. It was the final event of the ten and his aim was to get through it without tripping up.
Oddly, Daley became the best all-round athlete on the planet by absolutely NOT training for one of the events.
The lesson? We all have weaknesses and it’s very easy to focus on them. In fact, most businesses spend an inordinate amount of time identifying employee weaknesses and trying to iron them out. Imagine Daley’s annual performance review? He’d have sat with his line manager, chatted through his ten disciplines, and they’d have sent him on a course to improve his 1500 metres.
Indeed, Daley might have made some marginal gains in the 1500, but at the expense of serious slippage in the other nine. Our world-beater would have been downgraded to an also-ran.
So work out where your strengths are and play to them. We can help with that.
As for weaknesses? Do what Daley did. Do just enough so that they don’t trip you up.