Have talked several times about Michael Phelps the ace US swimmer who was blessed with perhaps the best natural physique that maxims the performance as a swimmer. Though he was almost 6.5 feet tall he had very short legs for someone of that height. Since the legs were smaller in height the upper torso was naturally bigger. With all the the swimming and the accompanying body workouts he used to weigh around 194 pounds. If we observe most of the champion swimmers, we will observe that the average height of all Olympic winning swimmers is 6.4 feet, and we can conclude this kind of physique is an advantage when it comes to competing and winning in swimming at the highest level.
We have seen for almost the last half century African runners dominating long distance running. If we look at all the ace middle- and long-distance runners, we find something very different with their physiques. Let’s take the case of El Guerrouj the ace Moroccan runner who won the gold medal in both the 1500 meters and the 5000 meters at the 2004 Athens games. El Guerrouj is just 5 feet and 7 inches in height and weights only about 138 pounds. What’s even more interesting though the height difference between Phelps and Guerrouj is almost 9 inches which is significant is the height of their legs or lower part of the body is the same. Which means Guerrouj had incredibly long legs compared to his total height.
If we observe all the African middle- and long-distance winners, we will find that they all have a similar body structure. Long legs and smaller upper body and light weight which makes it possible for them to maintain their strength and run seamlessly during these long-distance races.
Just imagine what would happen if these two champions had selected the opposite sports to compete in. Its true that with their persistence and routines they might still have become world beaters in their field, but the effort needed for them to reach there would be much more than those needed in the fields that they selected where their natural body structure becomes a big advantage while competing.
So, the secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right fields of competition.
This fact is true not only about our physical attributes like the one we described above but also for mental and other attributes that we have and hence that of your personality.
The most proven scientific analysis of personality traits is known as Big Five which breaks them down into five spectrums of behavior.
- Openness to experience: from curious and inventive at one end to cautious and consistent on the other.
- Conscientiousness: organized and efficient to easy going and spontaneous.
- Extroversion or Introversion: outgoing, high energy and talkative as opposed to more reflective, quiet and obtaining gratification from internal rather than external
- Agreeableness: friendly and compassionate to challenging and detached
- Neuroticism: anxious and sensitive to confident, calm and stable.
In our day to day lives it doesn’t mean that if our genes are more biased towards a particular nature, we cannot do the things that are not favorable for our natural personalities nor that we cannot be successful in them. It’s just that we need to be aware about these factors about us and our planned actions need to be built with this in mind using the environment or other support systems if as per our genes some skills and fields are not naturally aligned in our favor.
In our day-to-day life and to most of us the identification of what we are naturally good at based on our genes is not as easy as shown in the beginning of the article as it was for the two ace athletes. While trial and error are perhaps the best and most used way that we use considering the time that it takes it might not be the best way for the same.
Some of things that we could try that could help us identify the areas which are our natural strengths are as below
- What feels like fun to me but work for others.
- Things that I do which makes me lose track of time.
- Where do I get greater returns than the average person.
- What comes naturally to me.
Sometimes we might come across cases where there might not be specific categories which exactly helps us maximize our natural skill sets and we might need to create new categories. Will cover more about this along with a few examples in ensuing posts.
One factor that has been used by several successful people in their fields is specialization.
You keep getting better and better in a particular field that you are too good at it. With specialization you can become successful even when you aren’t the most naturally gifted.
Let me conclude with the below example. Boiling water will soften a potato but harden an egg. You can’t really control if you are potato or an egg, but you can decide to get into an area where it’s better to be hard or soft. If you find a more favorable environment, you can transform the situation from one where the odds are against you to one where the odds are in your favor.
To continue knowing more about how to go about the same and the various factors that will help do subscribe to my LinkedIn page, Rejo’s Business Bytes, or my website, rejofrancis.com
