“Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness” by David Rendall discusses nine main points. Number one is your problems from other people’s perspectives. Interviewers, parents, and friends will always point out your flaws and weaknesses. Instead of being insulted, improve on these flaws. Number two is addressing your own weaknesses in your eyes. We seem to see our own weaknesses more than others do. However, we need to realize that the things that our flaws make us different and special. Number three states that everyone is flawless. The author says, that our flaws are what make us unique, and therefore, aren’t flaws at all. What you may view as a weakness someone else may view as strength. The author points out a few “weaknesses” like disorganization, dyslexia, and addiction that could be strengths.
Number four is don’t try to fix your weaknesses. This takes too much time, effort, is distracting, and doesn’t work. Number five says to build on your strengths. Building on your strengths gives you more potential and opportunities. Number six is focus. The author says you can’t try to both fix your weaknesses and build your strengths. You have to choose one or the other. Number seven is to find the right spot. You want to fit in to situations and places that cater to your natural strengths. Trying to fit in somewhere that you don’t, won’t lead you to success. Number eight is the power of uniqueness. Instead of being normal, strive for being exceptional. Exploit your differences. Finally, number nine is to put your quirks to work. You can do this by spending your energy on what is important, doing away with everything you don’t like to do, engaging in partnerships, and finding people like you, or people who are also unique.
Although I thought the entire article was kind of obvious and repetitive, I will talk about three of the points that I thought were interesting. Number two, which discussed discovering your own weaknesses was a good point. The author listed a bunch of typical weaknesses such as procrastination and poor listening skills, and turned them into quirky attributes. He said that he personally was able to overcome some of his major weaknesses by finding a strength that was close to it. Although, I think some people can achieve this, many people won’t be successful if they have such debilitating flaws like being impulsive and resistant to authority. I think you need to find a balance of what your strengths are, and how you can use your strengths to correct your weaknesses.
Number four, which said not to try to correct your weaknesses, seemed like a horrible point to me. He basically said that people couldn’t change. I think this is untrue. I know a lot of people who have noticed something about themselves that irked them, so they worked to change it. It may have taken a long time and been difficult, but it is possible. If you’re a person who has a flaw of always being late, you can’t just decide not to change that. You’ll never be able to keep a job because your employer won’t allow you to be late all the time. Some weaknesses need to be corrected.
The third point I will talk about is number nine. Overall, I though the tip was good, but something about one of the suggestions bugged me. It said, engage in permanent procrastination. So instead of procrastinating activities that you don’t like, just stop doing them all together. I think this is a very bad tip. If people stopped doing things they didn’t like to do, no one would get through grade school. No one would know how to add or subtract. No one would care about American history. Just because you get bored with something or don’t like it, doesn’t mean you should give up on it all together. Sometimes the greatest things that get achieved have a boring lull in the process. Some of the greatest inventions might not have been created if the inventor decided just to give up. I think everyone should persevere through every hardship until they finish what they started.
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