Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Cheap Tricks
If you're looking for ways to find undervalued advantages, a friend offers this advice "Look for the most disadvantaged person in any group, and see what their trick is." For examples, consider female executives, undersized athletes, minorities in underrepresented fields, etc.
The flipside of many of these "advantages" is that it requires you to do something unpleasant or uncool relative to what the prototypical successful person in your field is doing. Consider Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who had to develop his acting career by making "unlikable" characters sympathetic. No leading man would have picked his early roles.
Athletes, the ultimate field of cool, face these pressures even more acutely. A post by Henry Abbott, from TrueHoop, presents an interesting discussion of Shaq's unwillingness to consider a new trick when it comes to shooting free throws.
What advantages are you not giving yourself because you are trying to achieve an ideal of cool or conformity?
Personally, I think I try to hard to not surrender the initial gambit in a social setting. I don't have the physical allure that people will initiate conversation with me, and I'm usually unwilling to give the high ground in the conversation by initiating it.
Labels: Granny-style
¶ 7:04 AM
