What Type of Car Are You?

Knowing yourself could be the key to your success.

Written by Matt Wegner Founder and Lead Counselor, Matt Wegner Financial Coaching, www.mattwegnercoaching.com

Have you ever seen someone get promoted because they are good at their job, only to fail at the next level because they weren’t good at it?  Take, for example, a leading salesman who is promoted to sales manager and suddenly can’t perform.  What happened to that salesman?  Chances are, he’s meant to be a salesman, not a manager.  What makes you good at one task or career path may make you bad at the next.  You see, we are all “wired” a little differently than the next person.  Because of our unique talents, skills, abilities, interests and passions, each of us has a different combination of strengths.  Our own combination is best used to our advantage.  If you know your own combination, you can unlock the secret to performing.

You see, we often make the mistake of focusing on our weaknesses thinking that these are the easiest areas to see improvements.  The reality is that we will spend 90% of our time and energy trying to improve 10% of our skills that we don’t do well.  Why not spend 90% of your time enhancing and developing your natural skills that make up 90% of your skill set.  The results are much more productive.  By focusing on the things you do well and making them better, you are working with the way you were made.

For example, if you need to pull a trailer across the country, would you go buy a Ferrari to pull the trailer?  Why not?  Even though it has plenty of power, it’s not designed to pull a trailer.  A Ferrari only has 10% of the total skills needed to pull the trailer (lots of horsepower).  You could spend a lot of time and money trying to modify the Ferrari so it could pull the trailer but the end result will be a failure.  Why not go out and hitch the trailer to a pickup and get the performance that truck was designed for?  You can then set the Ferrari free to run at top speed on the smooth roads.

What type of car are you?  Are you a Ferrari or a truck?  Maybe you’re a sedan or a minivan.  In the career world and at home, it’s important to know what type of vehicle you are so you can drive the right roads the right way.

- Matt Wegner