What Should I Do: Fight My Weaknesses or Concentrate on My Strengths?

The question of how should I proceed to improve my career perspective have always interested me. Since I was working hard - and currently I am still working hard -, it is logical to try to make the most out of my situation. The question for me was if I should try to improve in fields in which I was weak - like business math - or concentrate in fields that I was already strong - like interpersonal communication.

In my time as a high-school student I remember teachers telling everyone he or she should concentrate on their weak points. In fact, since in school we had not much to choose from, you should indeed be at least acceptably good in different fields - also in fields that you don't liked. Going to university changed things a little. There I could choose what I wanted to learn and how fast. That gives people like me an advantage over people that are reasonably good in many fields, but not spectacular in none. I could work long hours in a field if I were motivated enough to do it. By the way, by long hours I mean 12 or more. However, I was not able to motivate myself even to take short glimpse at topics that I hated: math was one of them, historical topics somehow too.

In a business environment, actually there is no one who is paying a descent salary for a second tier professional. You should try to be in a field where you are good at the task. Having a grasp of life is nice, of course, but nobody is going to pay you for that. Practically that means that if you choose a field like human resources you first ask you if you have the natural talent to be effective in it: good communicator, can handle stress and frustration, know the software of the used on the branch, and know who the players in the industry are. Having some ability that is not relevant to the field will not help you at all. You would have invested your time on it and lost an opportunity to improve abilities that you use on a daily basis.