Strong Weakness – Lessons from Mulan

Happy Anniversary – www.animatingyourlife.com started a month ago today.  When I started posting, I hoped to get a couple of hundred hits…this afternoon, I topped 1,000 views and am now at 1,043 with visits from 25 countries…I’m floored and overwhelmed.  Thanks for all the comments and views, I’ve been smiling all day, it’s nice to surpass a goal.

Soooo enough of that nonsense, what shall I post about today?  I was thinking about Mulan today, I love the scene where she needs to climb a huge pole with two large weights.  The pole would be difficult enough without the weights, with them, it seems impossible.  Then she gets creative – – – and uses the weights as the tool to climb.  The metaphor is pretty clear to me, but I love it anyway.  We’ve all got problems, everyone has something they’ve been criticized, knocked down or judged about.  Can we turn the problems into our solutions?  Can we find our strengths in our weaknesses?

Let me use an example that’s very close to home…ME!  Yes, I know, how totally full of myself, but I’m what I’ve got so I’m going to use it…him…me.  I was that kid who was always in trouble for talking in class.  Now I speak for a living…and LOVE it.  I’m interested in WAY too many things, I used to call this a lack of focus, now I call it eclectic and multi-faceted.  So far, my eclectic little blog seems to be gathering some steam.

A few weeks ago I asked a room full of animation students if they could relate to this – finding strengths in the areas where we used to be in trouble.  Almost every one of them had been in trouble, at least once, for drawing in class…now they were pursuing art full time.

Where are your strengths?  What’s the thing you’ve been called out on, gotten in trouble for?  Get creative, and be honest, hidden inside your “weakness” may be your great genius.

PS I’m up another 14 views to 1,057.  Thanks. . . I think I need to set higher goals.

PPS Special thanks to elflamingo2 on Redit – who posted a link and sent me a HUGE pile of new friends.