Your strengths are your best assets

Have you had anyone ever ask you what your biggest strength and weakness are ? I am not here to reveal what my strength and weakness are but to bring focus to few stories I read and also shared with my daughter. Often times, my daughter gets flustered very easily if she is losing. These stories have helped her understand practically why you cannot let your weakness control you, why you need to continuously hone on your strengths and why you cannot fear about failing.

The story of the Bar-tailed Godwit

The Bar-tailed Godwit is commonly referred as the “jet fighter”. This bird species recently flew a total of 12,000 KM(7,500 miles) from Alaska to New Zealand, and setting a new world record. For the record, the journey started in south-west Alaska and arrived in a bay area Auckland 11 days later, recording speeds of up to 55 mph! And you know what else is amusing, amazing ?

• It flew non-stop for more than 7500 miles! An area where this no real land.
• It knows where it’s flying, scientists cannot explain how but believe the bird has some sort of an onboard map/GPS that helps it navigate it through the pacific ocean.
• It is believed the bird does not sleep through it’s journey and continues to flap it’s wing most of the time.

The strength and perseverance that this little bird displays is a hope for many of us. Sure, one can argue that a wind-assisted passage over the Pacific would have helped the bird migrate but the reality that it was able to do this journey non-stop, over 11 days is mind-boggling. A true fighter!

The story of the chained Elephant

This story is about a little boy, who had a fascination and love for animals. One fine day, a circus troop showed up in his hometown and the entire town was going gaga over the circus and how great it was. The little boy and his friends got to talk about the circus at school, his friends would share stories about their experience visiting the circus. And knowing his love for animals his parents decided to take their little boy to the circus.

The little boy was super-thrilled and could not wait. He was amused with everything he saw at the circus from the trapeze artists and the various animal shows. He was particularly curious how the animals at the circus were so tame, docile. After the event, he asked his parents to take him to the back side of the circus because he wanted to see where the animals live. He saw cages for pretty much all of the different species of animals except the elephant. The little boy noticed the elephant was outdoors and one of it’s legs was tied to a pole on the ground. For the size of the elephant, the animal was literally not moving at all. The next day at school, his teacher was asking about the circus and several kids shared their perspective on what they saw. The little boy shared his story and also brought his observation about the elephant. He asked a question to his teacher - “Why doesn’t he want to run away?”.

His teacher responded to the little boy saying “He doesn’t run away because he is trained”. When the elephant was a baby, it’s legs were tied and as a baby elephant it fought to release the chain, but the chain would not budge. And as time progressed, it became big and forgot about how much strength it has. All it remembers is the childhood experience and that it cannot use it’s strength to overcome the weakness.

The story of the Salmon run

During our trip to Alaska in 2019, we had the opportunity to cross a riverbed that’s considered the spawning bed for the salmons. Salmon is another amazing creature that does not stop amusing me. Every year, hundreds of Salmon swim upstream from the ocean to make it back to the river bed where they came from and spawn.

“Anadromos” is the word that’s used to describe “running upward”. These variety of fish mostly live in the ocean but when they mature they migrate or swim-up to the freshwater rivers to spawn. And not to forget a journey that takes several days. A majority of the Salmons that make it the freshwater river-bed eventually die because they have very little energy left in them and the circle of life for next generation of Salmon starts then onwards. Scientist believe that Salmon navigate by using the earth’s magnetic field like a compass.

The Moral

So the next time you feel let-down, remind yourself off these stories above.

Don’t stop getting better on your strengths.

Don’t let your weakness de-stabilize you, your thoughts.

Believe in yourself and keep pushing.