A while ago at the doctor’s office, I read an article about a famous violin virtuoso who met the wrong end of the chef’s knife.
While cooking Christmas dinner, she got so caught up thinking about an upcoming performance that she ended up chopping her pinkie off.
(A frequent problem for N’s—to get so ahead of themselves they forget what they’re doing—but I digress.)
While she felt a sharp pain, she didn’t realize what happened until she saw her own severed finger sticking out of the onions.
And, since it was Christmas, it took several hours to find a surgeon not already drunk on eggnog to reattach it.
If you know anything about violin, even so much as spraining a thumb could mean the end of your career. So losing a finger—even if only temporarily—is catastrophic at the world-class level.
Thing is, with an exhausting schedule of over a hundred performances a year on stages and TV worldwide (among other things, she was a regular on Johnny Carson), she was already considering leaving the concert circuit completely well before the accident. But where she previously been contemplating becoming a mystery writer and even (gasp) attending law school, her gruesome injury brought her down so low that she even tried to commit suicide.
(Luckily, the gun didn’t fire.)
She eventually overcame her pinkielessness—it was successfully reattached and, while healing, she “refingered” her repertoire to play with three fingers instead of four. (Which is the equivalent to relearning how to play tennis while holding the racket with your teeth.)
And, since then, she’s slowed her breakneck speed and moved to more location-permanent roles, such as music director and concert master for an orchestra, and artist-in-residence at a university.
As she put it, “If you almost chop off your own finger, you start thinking about what you’re doing with your life.”
Now, not everyone’s come-to-Jesus moment is as dramatic as severing a finger.
But, regardless, the song remains the same: doing the “wrong” thing too much, too fast, too everything, can lead to disaster, even accidentally—like being so anxious about something you slice through a digit instead of an onion.
Or, in my case:
Nonstop 16-hour days balancing a high-velocity legal job by day and law school at night (and sometimes going back to work after that), resulting in a disastrous flame-out—with psoriasis, depression, chronic back pain, insomnia, and an extra 50-lb. to boot.
Woo-woo bullshite artists call this a “lack of alignment.”
Slightly smarter people call it being outside “your zone of genius.”
Either way you swing, both mean understanding your personality’s strengths—and limits.
Had I known this years ago, I could have saved myself from a lot of health problems—never mind a new wardrobe after “outgrowing” my old one. And, if I’d known this while first building my business, I wouldn’t have lost sales (and momentum) doing things the wrong way.
Granted, I didn’t lose a finger and, chances are, neither did you. But, before it gets to that, I recorded a series of videos on how to master your personality type’s strengths and weaknesses in business—whether you’re building a team, working alone, or even working for someone else.
This series (about 6 videos, all under 15 minutes) will be available later this week in my private membership site called Biz Typology.
Some of the secrets you’ll learn are:
– how an obedient assistant can actually hurt your business
– why “act first, think later” can cost you more sales than overthinking
– the exact type of VA who can solve your problems RIGHT NOW
– how to get your employees (or even yourself) to put their P-ness away without harassing them
– and more.
To learn more, all limbs intact, go here: