The Way of the Wall Street Warrior

CHAPTER 15Turn Liabilities into Assets: Harness Your Superpower

Unless you're Buddha, Mohammed, or Jesus, you have weaknesses, defects, or things that make you less than perfect. Some defects are overt and some aren't. So just because you don't fit in, know that you're not alone. You have plenty of company and the key is to remember that there is no such thing as a handicap, just features that make you who you are and are destined to make you stronger. When the time is ripe, you can turn your liabilities into assets by heeding Sun Tzu, who said, “Appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak.”

When I was a young man, I took a sociology course at the University of Pennsylvania taught by Professor Michael Useem. He explained a controversial theory, but one that has stuck with me throughout my career. The higher up you go in an organization, the more uncertain the outcome, and the more reassurance and confidence you want from your team. A CEO's decisions on any given day have a greater impact on the future of the company than its janitor's decisions, and the far-reaching ramifications of the CEO's decisions are not known for weeks, months, or years. In the face of this massive uncertainty, senior people are even more inclined to surround themselves with like minded people, which results in less diversity at the top.

To my caveman brain, this made sense on an instinctive level. If our tribe of Homo sapiens were going to hunt wild boar, I'd rather have another of ...