“The point here is not that you should always forgo this kind of weakness fixing. The point is that you should see it for what it is: damage control, not development. And as we mentioned earlier, damage control can prevent failure, but it will never elevate you to excellence.”

“Third, you will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses. This is not the same as saying 'ignore your weaknesses.”

“In Martin Seligman's words, 'Psychology is half-baked, literally half-baked. We have baked the part about mental illness. We have baked the part about repair and damage. But the other side is unbaked. The side of strengths, the side of what we are good at, the side…of what makes life worth living.”

“Our definition of a weakness is anything that gets in the way of excellent performance.”

“The only possible failure would be never managing to find the right role or the right partners to help you realize that strength.”

“Well, more than likely you will never entirely dissolve either your fear of your own failure or your small pleasure in other people's.”

“Skills are so enticingly helpful that they obscure their two flaws. The first flaw is that while skills will help you perform, they will not help you excel.”