All our lives we have been educated and sometimes forced to overcome our weak points and get better at some things. There's an American dude, who's living here in Romania, old friend of mine and he aims to start a project based on career re-orientation for young people working in environments not allowing them to express their full potential, based on their real strengths and talents.

In a nutshell, his concept is based on the fact that in our society, folks are always forced to work on their weak points and in this way, they totally neglect their strong ones, ending up doing things which maybe they were not meant for, thus never achieving their full potential as human beings and of course, not being happy.

He is very fond of artists and he likes to talk to a lot of us in some of the bands here, as he thinks we are a good inspiration source for the people he aims to help.

Now, I took a test based on answering 180 questions, each of them having 20 seconds to be answered - this lead to discovering my top 5 strengths:

Cosmin's Top 5 Strengths

That doesn't mean that others not present, but these 5 are supposed to define you in a greater amount than any other of a total of 34.

I don't know how much I can believe these but, what I can tell you is that I was very honest with my answers in the test - for more insight, visit www.strengthsfinder.com

If i am correct, I remember a little movie with Steve Vai (posted here on GMC) underlining that we should work on developing our strong points not our weak ones as players and I think that now I understand what he meant and I can agree.

What do you guys think about strengths vs weaknesses?

Cosmin

Maybe I misinterpreted what Vai said in that video, but I disagree with him. When we first start out, everything is our weakness. We only turn them into strengths because we practice the hell out of those techniques. There is always room for improvement and a broadening of technical horizons. I think if we just work on our strengths and ignore our weaknesses then we would miss out on a whole world of knowledge we didn't have beforehand.

I try and practice everything no matter how much I suck, because eventually, I will master it all

I guess this is where the Doughnut Master would say:

"From one thing, learn 10,000 things."

Well, of course you have to try stuff before knowing which way to go, but I tend to think that each one of us is predisposed to some particular things and we may excell in those, rather than trying to make the best out of everything and not get to that point because of the difficulty in focus due to a great amount of information and too little time. Then again, I made this assumption based on the fact that not everyone can spend 100% of their time studying. If you could dedicated 8 hrs/ day to FOCUSED studying, you have all the chances of becoming, at least technically speaking, the next Guthrie Govan out there

That's my plan! Except, I am striving to be better than him

I know this all may seem egotistical and ridiculous, but I think we all have it in us. We just have to fight hard and keep wanting 'it' no matter what life throws at us.

I personally believe this.

I still think we can work to improve our weaknesses but if we acknowledge natural strengths (or anything that we gravitate towards) and devote our energy to taking them as far as they can go, we will naturally travel much further in our potential than if we held it back and transferred the energy onto trying to make everything a strength.

I know I said before that I believe on making all my weaknesses my strengths but more recently I've been accepting Vai's way of thinking. When you accept who you are, what you're good at and what you're not good at.. and you tell yourself 'I don't have to be great at everything, I can just follow this path that I am good at' then it feels like a great burden being lifted off of you.

That's another interest thing about life / learning / the journey is that beliefs change, approaches change as you learn more and more

Bro, I just can't wait to say 'Cheers Ben! Shall we have another pint?' and I really mean it man!

That would be awesome !

Sounds great cosmin. I do believe this also.

Where is this test and can anyone take it?

Reminds me on what Rudolf Steiner wrote about child education - support their strength and talent - when they recognize who they are - no problem with managing their weakness if needed.

I strongly disagree. One of my twin sons was born with a gentle spirit, always wanting to give and able to sympathize with others and quite willing to sacrifice for the benefit of his brother. The other twin was (and is) dominant, self confident and striving to achieve goals. My daughter when she was born had an acute awareness of her surroundings - at 6 months old, she picked up a single hair, stretched it between both hands and carefully studied it, whereas both boys at that age would have been oblivious to something so small.

These gifts they were born with - they certainly didn't learn them from my wife, myself or each other. Those strengths came natural to them, and because they had them to begin with, it was the easier path for them to take into adulthood - they practiced their strengths because they were already acquainted with those tools/gifts.

The sympathizing, gentle nature'd son (Tim) just graduated from Pepperdine with a religion major and seeks to be a missionary.
The self confident achieving son just graduated Cal Poly with a Computer Science degree and landed a job with Cisco.
My daughter, 13, works with my parents who are artists - she is an avid drawer, loves to read and write fiction and is drawn to all things creative.

My point being - when we start out, we start out with certain gifts, whether physical, mental or spiritual (kindness, loving, etc.) that are very much more apparent than our other traits. I saw this in my sons and my daughter before they were walking. And because our natural tendency as humans is to follow the path of least resistance, we use those gifts we start out with as tools to understand and manipulate the world we live in, while ignoring the other ones that don't come naturally (because it would be a struggle to start a new gift from scratch when one is already available for use). And as is the case with all things, the more you use a gift/talent, the better refined you become at using it.

What many people have a hard time with (ironicallY) is identifying their own natural gift. Why is that? Perhaps because we have grown up with it. It's kind of like air - we are born breathing it, surrounded by it, in constant contact with it - but how often do we pay attention to it unless it is blowing in our face, making itself apparent.

If you want to know your natural gifts - ask your parents and friends. They see it much better than you do, I guarantee it.



I strongly AGREE with this!

Many regards, and keep rockin!
Chris

Brilliant post Chris ! You've described something eloquently that many us struggle to put into words

And congrats to your children for their achievements

I'm a strong believer in developing your strengths, though you shouldn't completely ignore your weaknesses, depending on what they are and how they can possibly affect your life.

I also couldn't agree more to what Chris said. We are all born with certains abilities or gifts and it is just natural to use them to your advantage.

I also think Chris' post is a good proof to the fact that each of us has gifts and talents which are pretty obvious from an early age, although we are not always encouraged to pursue a road based on what we have. I think we owe it to ourselves to explore and find the best ways to become the best 'US' we can be.

Many thanks. It's been a whirlwind of activity around the house for the past 2 months. Boys graduating from school, moving out of dorms, massive amounts of programming and frustration at work, and still finding time to burn the midnight-oil with learning songs for my band. I think we're all settled in for the near future now and I'm very proud of my kids for their accomplishments and determination.

My kids thank you as well for the kind words.

Chris!

I also am not sure I agree with what Vai said in that video. He says something to the effect that he concentrates on his strengths and ignored his weaknesses. The first thing that came in my mind when he said that was if he developed his strengths AND worked on improving his weaknesses would he be twice as good a player as he is now? Just a thought, but I tend to believe you need to do both. Like you say everything is a weakness when we first start out, which in itself implies that anything can be turned into a strength, if practiced and developed with that goal in mind.

I think a generally weak area for guitarists can be ear training and aural perception. There's not much out there on this subject, I have a lot more work to do with it.

Yah for me my weakness has always been my ear. And although I think it is very important to develop your strengths , you cant just give up on something and be like oh that's my weak area so i'm not even going to try. For me personally I know I am going to be working on my ear for a long time and it is going to be hard but I am not going to give up on it . At the same time I am going to keep working on my strong areas because I want to be a good all around guitarist .

I agree with Nihilist, Christian and the rest of those guys - there's a difference between ignoring your weaknesses and focusing on what you are a bit better at, not because you've not practiced anything else, but because you just 'get it' more or it works better for you.

I'm sure those players with small fingers didn't have the easiest time when learning (I'm thinking along the lines of Jess Lewis here), and had they ignored doing stretches and practicing relatively stretchy licks (i.e. one of their weaknesses), they wouldn't be as good as they are now.

Sure, these players wouldn't then decide to base their technique around super-stretchy licks, but would use what they are better at to make more progress.

A little effort can turn a weakness into something manageable, and in some cases, a strength (as perhaps you didn't understand a part of that area properly, and all it took was a good explanation/the right exercise).

I understand what's being said, being able to get more out of an apparent strength in a shorter amount of time than an apparent weakness, but don't be so quick to shun that weakness, it may just need the right info. to push it past its tipping point.

Nobody says the cat is only black or white the human individual represents a very complex system and you may never know what will happen in a certain situation unless you try. Adam has a point here

I saw Vai say that same thing, and I originally disagreed with it completely. For example....I've improved SO MUCH in the last 6 months, by working on my weaknesses!!


But, I think the REAL core of this statement, assumes that you are completely trained. For example, in a recent Guitar Player article, Joe Satriani says that he "doesn't practice anymore". He goes on to explain that when he was young, he would spend 8 hours playing every mode and scale in every position until he could play them PERFECTLY. He says that, since then, he no longer needs to really "practice".


So really, with Vai/Satriani players, there probably IS a point at which you can benefit from leaning into your strengths and avoiding weaknesses. For the rest of us mortals, you had BETTER work on your weaknesses if you ever want to become a better player!!

This is a good way of looking at the matter Honestly speaking, I never tried to overlook things just because I felt I was not good enough at them, but at a certain point in life, you have to face the idea in which you need to be effective and time is a great enemy. If, until then, as Gabe stated, you took care of covering enough ground, you can take just 4-5 arrows with you and get the job done without having the sword, lance and axe with you, if you get my idea

Nice thread. I always wanted to find out where my strengths are, not as just a guitarist or musician, but as a person as a whole.

Yeah, this is a great way of putting it.

It's not a case of completely ignoring the fact you have weaknesses but it's more like owning up to yourself what you're really good at and capitalising on it to reach your true potential

Ben, can I ask you what your weak spots are? In general not only as a player if I can ask, of course.

My right elbow

My feet..

Oh, you mean in my character ?

Well, if I share a public weakness it's only fair if we all do one too. I'll start it off, though..

For me, a weakness is not being able to say when I'm unhappy about something for fear of upsetting another person. I guess you could call it people pleasing. I've been working on it a long time and I'm getting better but it's an ongoing thing

Like Japanese people I heard about this dude who came visiting a friend of mine in Poland and he NEVER EVER complained about anything, until my friend insisted that he told him what he didn't like to do while being there. He finally admitted what he disliked

I for one have very little to no empathy towards people who are not doing their best to evolve and become the best they can. I despise lazy people and act very out front when dealing with them in real life... Some people also regard me as an arrogant person - I've been accused of that a lot of times - but hey, I get to choose who I like to talk with and who I am being friends with. If I am not being that friendly with someone I am not being arrogant.

hope I didn't scare anyone

Oh man, I am so with you on that one. People just don't want to look at themselves do they ? So, in turn, their lack of responsibility gets shifted onto the shoulders of those around them. Life is hard. We've all got our crosses to bear.. we shouldn't bear other people's crosses too because they can't be bothered.

Absolutely!

You're right it is hard, an uncovered and lacking part of many a guitarists skills including mine. When ear training there are all kinds of undiscovered nooks and crannies I find in my skill which I am lacking that I wouldn't have known otherwise.

I just bought a Techaffect USB footswitch and have it set to my left mouse click which I hover over the play / pause button on media player (there might be something out there specifically built for this but it was cheap and good enough for me). Without the pedal singing then repeating on guitar with backing tracks that use more than one chord doesn't work because once I have imagined / sang the phrase, by the time I play it back on my guitar, often the backing track has moved on. The pedal allows me to pause the track and play my phrase then carry on, obviously it doesn't sound great stopping and starting but I think it's the only way to do this particular kind of ear training with chord changes. Otherwise one chord vamps are usefull for this.

I start from the bottom and work my way up i.e. I, IV, V chord sequence I sing the roots of the chords only first time round, next time round it's the roots and 5ths, then roots and 3rds, roots 3rds and 5ths, b7ths. I could be a better Blues player or any other style than I am by now, but there are only 12 intervals and 12 notes in all music and I am going for long terms goals in less time rather than short terms goes in less time making the long terms ones longer.

I started with identifying the 12 intervals, most of the time you should use the guitar and play your answers so you connect muscle memory to your inner ear.

Nice approach man you seem very determined!