I don’t know if this is related, but I also have an intense fear of being called-on. I fear this so much that even if I know the answer is right, I won’t raise my hand. It comes from my fear of public-speaking. When I have to do these speech-projects, I often rush them to the point of stuttering, which in turn gets me a bad grade. I don’t know why I, and pretty much everyone, has a problem with speaking in public. I think it’s because we don’t want to break the herd-mentality. That mentality that if we are different, that will make us a target. That’s why zebras stay together. If a lion saw a pure-white horse in a zebra herd, it would go after the horse. I think fear of public-speaking is some leftover-monkey-stuff.

I have to give a big kudos to Life Coach Priscilla Palmer for starting her Personal Development List and a thanks for recognizing The PDA Pro Blog. I have decided to publish the list on my site as well for…

I just came across your site today. This post really resonated with me. I recently had the opportunity to hear Marcus Buckingham speak. He has basically devoted his life to what he calls the “strengths revolution” – finding, using, and developing your strengths.

Most people spend a lot of time trying to become medeocre at what they’re bad at when they could have a much bigger impact becoming great at what they’re already naturally good at.

I look forward to reading more of you posts.

- Paul

Looking at it now, maybe deep down I do know my strengths as others say to me, but almost fear the prospect of failing at something that perhaps defines me as a person? – Who would I be if that happened?

Maybe I’ve spent my time since leaving school doing the wrong things (especially in terms of jobs) because of this and been happy just to be in a comfort zone instead.

Thanks very much for this post, it’s definitely given me food for thought.

Just a thought, perhaps we sometimes have strengths that we don’t acknowledge as such because we don’t want to be bored or overly challenged. For example, I am great at writing grant proposals….yawn. Do I publicly acknowledge this strength? Nope…

This reminds me of the “Animal School” story that has the same point. Basically, different animals like ducks, zebras, bears, and fish were in the same school and had the same curriculum for running, flying, and swimming. You can guess how the story goes, but sometimes these simple stories are needed to make sense of the real world.

This is a great post. I think this particularly applies to children, as parents we can see strengths in our children when they cannot and should encourage them to see both their strengths and weaknesses and work on both. I have also seen parents push their kids so hard in a direction that the parent wanted to go in when they were young, it is sad to see.

thanks again

I think this has been a major quest of mine. My mother decided that I was a child prodigy at writing; she encouraged me from the age of six to spend all day writing, hours and hours. By the time I was in high school I was a better writer than most of my peers, but not because of my inherent prodigy talents. By that time I had spent three times as much time writing and developing my skills than most other students, so of course I was a better writer.

I am not untalented, but I don’t believe writing is my only or even best strength. I am a very talented artist and I love draw, but that skill is decades behind my writing abilities. I always knew I could draw and that I enjoy it, but it was something I pushed aside because of what someone else said my strength was something else. It took me a long, long time to break away from my mother’s definitions of my strengths. I’m going to school now for a fine art degree, and I’m producing good work (for a beginner) but it still is hard to think of it as a strength!