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circumstance that would lead most people to give up
any dreams of becoming a professional dancer.
But to Bates, losing a leg was not a weakness for
long. He made it his strength. He put a tap at the bot-
tom of his peg leg and developed an amazing syncopated
tap-dancing style. Obviously, he stood apart from other
dancers in auditions, and it wasn’t long before his weak-
ness became his strength.
Master fund-raiser Michael Bassoff has dazzled the
development world by turning unappreciated staff mem-
bers into great fund-raisers. He, too, likes people’s weak-
nesses, because he knows that they can be turned into
strengths. If there is a “shy” secretary in the develop-
ment office he’s working with, he turns that person into
the staff’s “best listener.” Soon donors can’t wait to talk
to that person because she listens so well and makes
people feel so important.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger became a professional
actor, he had a weakness: his thick Austrian accent. It
wasn’t long, however, before Arnold incorporated his
accent into the charm of his action-hero personality on
the screen, and a former weakness became a strength.
His accent became an identifying part of his character,
and people everywhere began imitating it.
One of my weaknesses early in life was my difficulty
in talking to people. I had no confidence in my ability to
speak and converse, so I got in the habit of writing
people letters and notes. After a while I got so prac-
ticed with it that I turned it into a strength. My letter
writing and thank-you notes have created many rela-
tionships for me that would not have been created if I’d
just focused on my shyness as a weakness.
I have four children, but I didn’t begin having chil-
dren until I was 35 years old. For a long time I saw my-
self as being “older than normal” to be a father. I worried