Lead With Your Strengths For Better Results

Leading with your strengths is a good idea and delivers better results for you.  Nobody is good at everything.  When we understand our strengths and lead with them, we gain not only confidence but competence.  Sophisticated, spontaneous, competent action comes from leading with your strengths.  Let’s explore why.

Your personality style has strengths and weaknesses

Do What You Are, Discover the perfect career for you through the secrets of Personality Type by Paul D. Tieger, Barbara Barron, And Kelly Tieger help us navigate our personality type and discover what occupations we may enjoy.  We each have 4 preferences that we use to comprehend and deal with the world around us. They consist of  1) the dominant function, 2) the auxiliary function, 3) the third function, and 4) the fourth function.  “As long as your dominant and auxiliary are in command, you are functioning well.  When your third and fourth functions take over, it’s as if the kids climbed over the seat and started driving the car (with predictably disastrous results). ” (pg. 65) This is an incredible reference to identify your personality type, then to understand what careers are suitable for your strengths.  “Do what you are” is therefore about finding a career that matches your strengths, your natural abilities, your preferences in life.

Your brain works better when utilizing your strengths

Your Brain at Work by David Rock is an absolute must-read.  When your strengths are engaged, a state of arousal is created which helps create a flow state, which further creates a positive spiral.  Positive spirals are created when you are focused and energized and are the main contribution to your happiness. You need to be interested in what you are doing to achieve optimal brain performance.   The upward spiral explains why people perform better when they are happy. Doing things that are significantly new can lead to a negative spiral of decreasing dopamine levels.

Happiness involves utilizing your strengths, they are your source of personal power

In his book What Happy People Know,  Dan Baker Ph.D.  informs us that Focusing on our strengths 1) works, 2) feels better, 3) creates the energy necessary for transformation, 4) Is self-sustaining because it is full of rewards and 5) encourages us to play to win because it works better.  Interestingly, our weakness’ can be disguised as strengths.  Workaholism, perfectionism, materialistic ambition, desire for domination, and status-seeking are all derived from fears.  Our individual character, our personal power lies in utilizing our strengths.  Without a feeling of personal power, than can be no happiness.  Leading with our strengths helps us to make our own rules and own our days.   Happiness tools are all about taking action.   Dr. Baker encourages us to shift our focus from our problems and weaknesses to our possibilities and strengths.  When we use our strengths and exercise them every day, we become increasingly intelligent and can turn those strengths into careers.  We are to not confuse what we wish we were good at with what we are actually good at.

First Things – the tip of your spear

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey enlightens us about what it takes to be effective in life.  The spiritual dimension is explored in Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind, to determine what is important to you to accomplish in your lifetime.  These important things are “first things”.  Habit 3: First Things First is about prioritizing these first things over everything else.  First things are the important things, your calling, your bliss, they resonate and excite you, they are your strengths.

Follow your Bliss – follow what excites you, lead with your strengths

I equate “leading with my strengths” with “following my bliss”.  Following your bliss is a mechanism of personal development offered by Joseph Campbell through his career evaluating myths and religions of the world.  When something resonates with you, it is a major hint of where your interests and associated strengths are hidden.  Follow that feeling of bliss.  Here are some concepts that I collected over the years from Joseph Campbell’s books noted on our resources page link below.

As we love ourselves, we move toward our own bliss, our highest enthusiasm.  Following your bliss is not self-indulgent, but vital, for your whole system knows this is how to be alive in this world, and the way to give to this world the very best you have to offer. The most heroic of all acts is the courage to discover who you are and what you would like to be, to slay the savage dragon of the ego, and to follow your bliss to the truth of your life.  There is a track just waiting there for each of us, and once upon it, doors will open that were not open before and would not open for anyone else. Everything does start clicking along and mother nature herself supports the journey (flow, magic).  The lion of self-discovery is meant to kill the dragon of thou shalt. Our job is to straighten out our own lives.

Martial Arts factors

Fighting has been said to be a good analogy for life.  I happen to agree with this.  In a way, we are all seeking a way to express ourselves and your strengths are your expression.  In the combative arts, there is considerable discussion and confusion as to which side should be lead with, the dominant or the weak.  Leading with your weaker side is an attempt to hold the dominant hand in reserve, ready to deliver a knockout blow when the opportunity presents itself.  It is a home run swing.  Leading with your dominant side; the aim is to prioritize timing and speed over power.

  • Jeet Kune Do (JKD):  Bruce Lee’s martial art puts your dominant side forward.  The leading weapons are the dominant hand and leg.   This allows for optimizing the priorities of a fight better:  distance, timing, speed, power.  JKD, a relatively new martial art, is the result of combining Wing Chun Kung Fu, fencing, and American boxing.  The on-guard stance of JKD is largely defined as placing your dominate side forward.
  • Fencing:  You hold your weapon in your dominant hand
  • Boxing:  Some famous boxers who place their dominant hand forward are Oscar De La Hoya and Victor Lomachenko.

Radiant, Prepped, and Frosty methodology:  leading with your strengths breakout

  • Be Radiant
    • Your survival, happiness, and effectiveness kits are inside you.  Re-frame your life to recognize your strengths and weakness’ and to lead with your strengths.  It was how you were made, it is why you exist.
    • The spiritual dimension is where you discover self authorization to be who you are.  Do what you are.  Do what you are good at.  Lead with your strengths.
    • There is only one spiritual message:  be who you are, follow your bliss and lead with your strengths.
  • Be Prepped
    • For strategic planning, your brain works better when you are doing work that interests you.
  • Be Frosty
    • For tactical execution, leading with your strengths allows you to rapidly adapt to emergency stimulus in the fastest way possible.  Your strengths are how you naturally approach problems, reducing the amount of thinking required, thus increasing your reaction speed.
    • If you are leading with your strengths, you can act spontaneously without hesitation.  Leading with your strengths increases both your speed and your competency.
    • In emergency situations, where you have no time to think, you must act spontaneously.

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Bruce Lee’s JKD: Interpretation for Everyday Life

In this post I offer an interpretation of Bruce Lee’s symbol for his martial art Jeet Kune Do (JKD) and attempt to generalize his concepts for everyday life applications.

  • The derivation sequence was:
      1. Research the internet, breaking the symbol down, and accumulating interpretations of them.  Most findings were combat oriented.
      2. Begin generalizing away from combat and refining
      3. Attempting to remove combat altogether and simplifying for everyday use .

I present my conclusions in reverse order.  In each refinement, I strove to clarify and combine similar elements from the initial search findings, but attempted to add nothing of my own.

  • Personal Take Away’s from Bruce Lee’s JKD Emblem:  Combat removed
    • From a Wing Chun man, to a Gung Fu Man, to a JKD man, to an individual human being
    • Through his evolution of martial arts, to creating his own art – JKD, Bruce Lee sought continuous improvement on how to be himself and express himself.
    • Practicing in various styles revealed the limitations of any style, in the inability to properly address the dynamics of a fight, and constrained the ability to be fully spontaneous and express oneself.
    • Properly aligned and integrated best practice concepts (Wing Chun, Boxing, and Fencing) produced something new, that frees us to trust and follow our own path.
    • Recognizing that we are participants in the duality of yin yang, expansion / contraction, hard / soft, one must recognize the whole and its dynamics.
    • Recognizing the  “dynamic oneness” necessitates certain criteria.
      • Flexibility, adaptability, speed, economy of motion,……
    • Although JKD contains the chaotic forces present in an physical encounter (Arrows around Tai Chi symbol).
      • Utilizing No way is the way
        • Your “style” needs continuous improvement.
        • Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, it’s a subtraction process.
        • Your way is the way. It must be created individually.  An existing way is somebody else’s way.
      • No limitation as limitation
        • There should be no style, no mind.
        • Sophisticated spontaneity is the goal.
        • Fully express yourself in combat, as in life to obtain victory.
        • Open your heart, trust your feelings.
  • Summary conclusions of Bruce Lee’s JKD Emblem:  Generalizing away from combat
    • Taijitu 
      • Represents the realization of the supreme ultimate undifferentiated oneness before duality which is an indivisible whole.
      • The indivisible whole contains two characteristic seemingly observable forces of Yin Yang.
      • The interplay between the forces is spontaneous, dynamic, alive, and every changing millisecond to millisecond.
      • You and your opponent are part of a oneness and complement each other.
    • Arrows: represent your personal style or approach to the  oneness represented by the Taijitu
      • The arrows around the Taijitu signify an awareness and  recognition of the Taijitu realization about our existence represented by the symbol.
      • The requirements of a solution are determined here as they must address the Taijitu model of existence.
      • The solution must address the ”dynamic oneness” of yin yang forces of which one is a participant in.
      • To address the dynamic interplay where every situation is varied, the solution must be flexible and adaptable.
      • This necessitates a flexible and adaptable approach to deal with varying conditions.
      • To obtain victory, therefore, it is essential not to be rigid, but to be fluid and able to adapt to any situation. He compared it to being like water: “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. Lee’s theory behind this was that one must be able to function in any scenario.
      • Economy of time and energy are needed.  Jeet Kune Do seeks to waste no time or movement, teaching that the simplest things work best, as in Wing Chun
        • Maximum expression/effect with minimal movement
          • Maximized force seeks to end the battle quickly due to the amount of damage inflicted.
        • Economy of motion is the principle by which JKD practitioners achieve
          • Efficiency: An attack which reaches its target in the least amount of time, with maximum force.
          • Directness: Doing what comes naturally in a disciplined way.
          • Simplicity: Thinking in an uncomplicated manner; without ornamentation
        • Interception
          • Simultaneous parrying & punching utilizes the principle of economy of motion by combining attack and defense into one movement, thus minimizing the “time” element and maximizing the “energy” element. Efficiency is gained by utilizing a parry rather than a block.
          • Redirection has two advantages over blocking,
            • First that it requires less energy to execute and
            • Second that it utilizes the opponent’s energy against them by creating an imbalance.
          • Efficiency is gained in that the opponent has less time to react to an incoming attack, since they are still nullifying the original attack.
    • Chinese characters indicate:  Your personal style needs continuous improvement:  Where you are has limits, and there are no limits.
      • No way is the way
        • There is no standing method or system that can deal with full spontaneity.
        • You must be flexible and adaptable with speed to be victorious.
      • No limitation as imitation
        • Continuous improvement is required, every method has limitations that need improved.  Its a subtraction process.
  • Background details / Research Notes: Combat oriented
    • Taijitu:  Symbol representing the yin yang forces of existence
      • A commonly used version of a symbol for Taiji.
      • Taiji is a Chinese cosmological term for the “Supreme Ultimate” state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential, the oneness before duality, from which Yin and Yang principles arise.
      • Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts.[2]Everything has both yin and yang aspects (for instance, shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The yin yang (i.e. taijitu symbol) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section.
      • In Taoist metaphysics, distinctions between good and bad, along with other dichotomous moral judgments, are perceptual, not real; so, the duality of yin and yang is an indivisible whole.
    • The arrows
      • Represent the endless interaction between Yin and Yang.
      • It is the awareness that both life and fighting can be shapeless and ever changing that allows one to be able to adapt to those changes instantaneously and bring forth the appropriate solution.
        • According to Dan Lee, “Bruce added two arrows around the Tai Chi circle to further emphasize that the JKD fighting techniques must contain the harmonious interplay of Yin (pliable, yielding) and Yang (firm, assertiveness) energies.” It is to emphasize the continuous, unceasing interplay between the two forces of the universe: Yin and Yang. “
        • Lee emphasized that every situation, in fighting or in everyday life, is varied. To obtain victory, therefore, it is essential not to be rigid, but to be fluid and able to adapt to any situation. He compared it to being like water: “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water.” Lee’s theory behind this was that one must be able to function in any scenario.
        • Real combat is spontaneous, alive, and dynamic, with circumstances changing from millisecond to millisecond.  Be unpredictable placing emphasis on efficiency, speed, and adjust-ability.
      • Economy of motion
        • Maximum expression/effect with minimal movement
          • This is meant to help a practitioner conserve both energy and time, two crucial components in a physical confrontation. Maximized force seeks to end the battle quickly due to the amount of damage inflicted upon the opponent.
        • Jeet Kune Do seeks to waste no time or movement, teaching that the simplest things work best, as in Wing Chun. Economy of motion is the principle by which JKD practitioners achieve:
          • Efficiency: An attack which reaches its target in the least amount of time, with maximum force.
          • Directness: Doing what comes naturally in a disciplined way.
          • Simplicity: Thinking in an uncomplicated manner; without ornamentation
        • Interception
          • A concept originating in Wing Chun where one attacks while one’s opponent is attacking.  Interception may occur before, during or after the opponents attack.  The concept may be extended to include understanding your opponents’ thoughts and intercepting them to your advantage. Interception
          • An opponents attack offers me an opportunity to intercept it. This means intercepting an opponent’s attack with an attack of one’s own instead of simply blocking it.
          • Simultaneous parrying & punching utilizes the principle of economy of motion by combining attack and defense into one movement, thus minimizing the “time” element and maximizing the “energy” element. Efficiency is gained by utilizing a parry rather than a block. By definition a “block” stops an attack, whereas a parry merely re-directs it. Redirection has two advantages, first that it requires less energy to execute and second that it utilizes the opponent’s energy against them by creating an imbalance. Efficiency is gained in that the opponent has less time to react to an incoming attack, since they are still nullifying the original attack.
    • Chinese characters indicate
      • No way is the way
        • Lee did not believe in “styles” and felt that every person and every situation is different and not everyone fits into a mold; one must remain flexible in order to obtain new knowledge and victory in both life and combat.
        • Fight circumstances change from millisecond to millisecond, thus pre-arranged patterns and techniques are not adequate and can be described as a “classical mess”
        • One is to approach combat without any preconceived notions, and simply respond to “what is.” In this way, the martial artist is adaptable and pliable enough to fit in with the opponent and situation instantaneously. He is using no particular or set way that was preconditioned in him. “No-mindedness” is a term often used to describe this state of unconscious consciousness or conscious unconsciousness. And, indeed, it is an ideal state that is difficult to attain but which one aspires to.
        • In addition, one tries to be like water when using this “no-way” approach. Water automatically assumes the container that it is poured in, thereby constantly fitting in with and adapting to the situation.
        • “All out Sparring” provides the right environment to determine if a technique is worthy of adoption
      • No limitation as limitation
        • To fully express yourself, you can have no limitations.  Traditional or classical styles of martial arts are limiting due to rigid and non – flowing movements.
        • By having no limitation as the only limitation, one can transcend martial arts boundaries that are set by style, tradition, race, individual preferences
        • One must never become stagnant in the mind or method, but always evolving and moving towards improving oneself
      • Combined effect of these phrases
        • Lee wanted us to search deep within ourselves to find what works best for each one of us.
        • No longer are we dependent on the teachings of various styles or teachers.
        • But by taking an honest assessment of our own strengths and weaknesses, we can improve our martial skill as well as our daily living.
        • Like he said, “Knowledge… ultimately, means self-knowledge”.
        • ” With this freedom to improve our skill and life in any way that we like, one is able to honestly express one’s self”

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