A client came to me convinced she was too combative. Her team told her so, her husband told her so, and she’d spent three years trying to fix it. 

What she didn’t know was that same quality helped her build a $15M business against the odds.

She’s not alone.

In business, we understand the tension between price and quality. Both are needed. Neither is wrong. 

But when it comes to ourselves, we become categorical.

I’ve had clients judge themselves for being too accommodating and others for being too rigid. 

Some feel inadequate because they tolerate too much and others because they’re too confrontational.

Our strongest traits aren’t accidents. They worked once, so we keep turning up the volume.

Adjust the Volume

Given the right circumstance, every trait can be useful. It’s not black and white. 

Picture your traits on a continuum. There’s no universal point at which hot becomes cold. It passes through warm, tepid, and cool first. 

Traits are like that too. There’s no one correct amount for any trait.

A trait we see as negative, like impatience, can be exactly what’s needed when something needs to happen NOW. 

You want the surgeon to be impatient for the operating room if your mother is dying.

Yet the same can be said about its opposite, patience. You want the teacher to be patient when you’re learning something for the first time.

Patience and impatience are not inherently good or bad. They’re responses to different levels of urgency.

The context is key, both the circumstance and the level of intensity.

The skill is learning how to adjust the volume so that it’s appropriate for the situation.

Adopting the perspective of the Observer makes that possible. All that it requires is that you pause.

Instead of defending or attacking an aspect of yourself, you step back and watch it. 

Not to fix it, but to understand it. 

Then impatience looks less like a flaw and more like a signal for speed. 

Confrontation might be driven by the need for safety and tolerance seen as a desire to keep the peace.

The Price We Pay

Beating ourselves up and judging ourselves for having the volume up too high on a trait never helps us evolve. It just makes us feel bad.

Then we try to escape that feeling with food, alcohol, scrolling, or shopping. Or we blame the circumstance for bringing out the worst in us and avoid it at all costs.

For example, impatience is a trait of mine. It served me very well in getting my business off the ground. I went over, under, around or through obstacles because I was in a hurry to succeed.

Being impatient worked for projects, but it was a terrible strategy with people. 

When I realized it wasn’t working, instead of learning to modulate my energy, I decided it was a flaw and judged that part of myself as wrong. 

Since it was such a core part of my personality, the only conclusion I could see was to avoid situations where it was triggered, which unfortunately was often with my staff. 

Instead of learning how to adjust the intensity of the trait, I withdrew and abdicated, which only created more problems.

Since lifelong learning is another trait of mine, I decided the solution was to get a Master’s in Leadership from Georgetown. I was sure that more knowledge would “fix” me. 

And although I learned a lot, it didn’t fix my natural impatience which is closely related to my high energy style.

I’m sure as a young child this high energy level was a challenge for my parents. Like most parents they wanted me to be able to succeed, which meant fitting in. 

Early attempts to control me probably exhausted them and left me with the belief that I wasn’t ok just the way I was. I had to be different to be good.

They loved me. They just didn’t know what to do with me.

Your Strengths

One tool that helped me better understand and appreciate my traits was the CliftonStrengths assessment. 

I like how it reinforces positive aspects of our characteristics. 

As I learned about the benefits of my core strengths, Futuristic, Activator, and Command, I also understood why being present, patient, and collaborative have not been easy for me.

They simply ask for a different intensity and pace.

If you haven’t taken the assessment, it’s fun and useful. Give yourself permission to enjoy learning about the many positive aspects of who you are.

Only once you own and appreciate your gifts do you even have the ability to adjust them. 

Making yourself wrong for having the volume turned up diminishes your confidence. And that directly affects how you lead.

The opportunity before each of us is to have the courage to create a life aligned with our strengths. And to learn how to adjust the volume for each situation.

It doesn’t mean you don’t try to improve weaknesses, but you’ll get more value from improving your natural strengths. 

I could spend the next 10 years trying to be a better basketball player, but at 5’3” it’s not the best use of my time.

The Real Work

I like Carl Jung’s word, individuation, to describe the process of discovering, appreciating, and integrating different aspects of who we are.

This includes the parts of us we may have judged unfairly and tried to correct.

What I see more clearly now is that instead of treating myself like a problem to fix, the deeper work is to understand and appreciate all aspects of myself, and to use my natural strengths consciously for good.

Some traits need to be turned down in certain situations. Others need to be turned up. 

But making yourself wrong for how you’re wired only creates suffering and keeps you from fully expressing what’s valuable and unique about you in the world.

The real work is loving who you really are, and expressing your gifts into the world as you continue to evolve.

This week, pick a trait you’ve been judging. Write it down. Ask: When has this trait served me? What if I learn to adjust the volume? What else could it make possible?

You may be surprised to discover how a flaw starts to look like a strength.