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A Surprising Success Secret That Most People Miss

One That Feels Counterintuitive As Well

By Dr. Cody Dakota Wooten, DFM, DHM, DAS (hc)Published 11 months ago 3 min read

When people talk about Success, what do they often talk about?

The Successes they have had.

The Strengths that allowed them to get there.

What you discover is that a lot of what they Focus on are the Positives.

When they do talk about the Negatives, it is usually about how they Overcame them.

The Challenges.

The Emotions.

The Struggles.

But only based on how they Overcame Them.

However, there is a Surprising Secret to Success that Most People Miss.

Do you Know What it is?

Understanding Your Weaknesses.

Now, I know this sounds Counterintuitive.

There is a lot of Bravado and Chest Pounding when people talk about Success, which is Why our Tendency is to "Go" to that Ourselves.

But here's the Reality.

Most of that is a Facade.

An Illusion.

A Mask.

All designed to make you think "More" of the Individual in Question.

But behind all of that...

Usually is a Horrible Mess of a Human Being.

I do not mean that to sound Harshly, but most of Us Humans "Are" a Mess.

It is "Extremely" Rare to meet an Individual who is Not a Mess Deep Down.

Often, the Mess is Extremely Subconscious as well, which then plays out in all sorts of Erratic Ways.

I'm No Exception to this Either, I have "Plenty" of Failures and Weaknesses.

The Over 100 Awards and Nominations that I have received for my work since 2023 Do Not Change this Fact.

Just in Writing Alone I know that I Fail "At Least" 100 Times a Day - that is Courtesy of Grammarly that updates me of my Faults Regularly.

Now, something we should ask is "Why" so few people Discuss their Weaknesses.

This comes back to the Expectations that we have of What Success Is.

We tend to think of it as a Destination.

A Place we "Finish" At.

Which is Why people rarely Discuss their Weaknesses.

They Believe they have "Made" It.

They are "At" The Destination.

Psychologically, it Creates a Fear in Us that our Weaknesses will Lead to us "Losing" what we have Attained.

Indeed, we have seen "Many" Successful People Lose Everything.

But Why?

Those Individuals were Afraid of their Weaknesses.

Now, What Do We, As Humans, Do In Fear?

We Flee.

We Fight.

We Freeze.

But what do we Fail to Do?

Understand.

We Fail to Understand Our Weaknesses.

Which becomes Our Inevitable Undoing.

In Life, whatever we Ignore Tends to become a Problem for Us Later.

When we Ignore our Health, we become Sick.

When we Ignore our Finances, we Lose Them.

When we Ignore our Weaknesses?

We become Blindsided by them.

Which is Why it becomes Such a Valuable Secret to Success to "Understand" Our Weaknesses.

What Happens When You Understand Something?

Deeply?

Completely?

Truly?

You Can No Longer Fear It.

You Recognize it Exists.

It Doesn't "Disappear" by Simply Understanding It.

Yet, You Know that is Alright.

You No Longer "Need" It To Go Away.

You Also No Longer Need to Run.

No Longer Need to to Fight.

No Longer Need to become Frozen.

It Simply Is.

Which also allows you to Know when it can become a Problem for your Success.

It allows you to Plan around your Weaknesses.

Allows you to Adjust for your Weaknesses.

Allows you to Prepare your Path Forward into Success.

But Not just a Singular Success.

Every potential Success that you Move Toward.

It is through Understanding our Weaknesses that we also Gain Another Incredible Power in Life...

What happens when we Completely Understand Our Weaknesses?

We Learn to Love Ourselves.

Completely.

Not just the Parts of ourselves that we Display to the World.

We Love the True Version of Ourselves.

That is one of the Greatest Successes to Ever Exist.

---

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About the Creator

Dr. Cody Dakota Wooten, DFM, DHM, DAS (hc)

Multi-Award-Winning Sageship Coach, Daily Digital Writer (1,000+ Articles), Producer, TV Show Host, Podcaster & Speaker | Faith, Family, Freedom, Future | Categories: "Sageship" & "Legendary Leadership"

https://www.SeekingSageship.org/

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Comments (5)

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  • Shanon Angermeyer Norman11 months ago

    With all due respect Cody, I disagree at your opinion that "people in general" misunderstand or deny their weaknesses. I think the Fear is in advertising the weaknesses because they know that exposed weakness is a target for those who want you to fail.

  • Understanding your weakness and working on it daily is the key. I have my weakness always transparent with my employer and always ask to be up skilled if any opportunities around it.

  • It is a pride thing. People don't usually like admitting their flaws...and that stands in the way.

  • Pivot Pathways11 months ago

    True success isn’t just about strengths—it’s about understanding weaknesses and growing through them.

  • This is sooo true! Acknowledging our weakness and learning to plan around it is a hugeeeee win by itself

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