According to the book "Now, discover your strengths" (by Marcus Buckingham & Donald O. Clifton), a strength is "consistent near perfect performance in an activity". In that sense, Tiger Woods's extraordinary long-game and his putting is a strength. While his ability to chip out of a bunker is not. Bill Gates's genius at taking innovations and transforming them into user-friendly applications is a strength, whereas his ability to maintain and build an enterprise in the face of legal and commercial assault is not.
By defining strength in this way, the author reveal three of the most important principles of living a strong life:
1) How to make sure you are acting at your strength? The answer is you must be able to do it consistantly, which implies that it is a predictable part of your performance. And you must also derive some intrinsic satisfaction from the activity. Occationally getting a 80s score at golf game doesn't mean you are a 80 golfer, only constantly hitting 80s can claim that. By contrast, Bill Gates is quite capable of implementing Microsoft's strategy, but performing this role drains him of energy, this ability is not a strength. So the ability is a strength only if you an fathom yourself doing it repeatedly, happily and sucessfully.
2) You don't have to have strength in every aspect of your role in order to excel. excellent performers were rarely well rounded. On the contrary, they were sharp.
3) You will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses. It is not to say to "ignore your weaknesses". They found ways to manage around their weaknesses, thereby frring them up to hone their strengths to a sharper point. A fews ways to do that: hire someone to do it for you(Bill Gates); stop doing it(if you are not good at some career);damage control by either reaching acceptable levels or by minizing the chances to deal with your weaknesses(like Tiger Woods and weak backhand tennis players)
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