Someone once told me that real humility is the pure acceptance of my God-given excellence.

“Do the thing you fear most, and the death of fear is certain.” (Mark Twain)

“If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” (Andrew Carnegie)

“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” (Alfred Hitchcock)

“In time we hate that which we often fear.” (William Shakespeare)

“There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.” (André Gide)

I’m re-reading the book, Now Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham & Donald Clifton. The basic premise - when we know what our strengths are and then operate from them, we will be much more successful.

They define a strength as - consistent near perfect performance in an activity. They go on to say that first, for an activity to be a strength you must be able to do it consistently. You must also derive some intrinsic satisfaction from the activity. The acid test - the ability is a strength only if you can fathom yourself doing it repeatedly, happily and successfully.

Second, you do not have to have strength in every aspect of your role in order to excel. They see the belief that excellent performers must be well rounded as a pervasive myth. What they have found is that excellent performers are rarely well rounded, but “sharp.”

Third, you will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses. They discovered that successful people find ways to manage around their weaknesses, thereby freeing them up to hone their strengths to a sharper point.