The Report Card Lie
What if you're being lied to? How do you know what is true? Do you only look for what confirms your fears, or do you examine what is working, what is consistent, and what stands critical observatin?
When I was growing up, report cards taught me a lesson that I don’t think anyone intended.
If I brought home an A in English and a C in Math, what became the conversation?
The C.
Not because my parents didn’t care about the A. They wanted the best for me. Like most parents, they believed success meant fixing what was broken before celebrating what was working.
School taught us this.
Work reinforced it.
Performance reviews often revolve around “areas of opportunity.” We’re asked where we need to improve, what skills we’re missing, and where we fall short. Somewhere along the way, many of us started believing our greatest value would come from becoming less weak instead of becoming exceptionally strong.
I don’t believe that’s how we were designed.
I think every person has a handful of gifts that come naturally—things they can do with a level of excellence that feels almost effortless. Those gifts aren’t accidents. They’re assignments.
Imagine if instead of spending 80% of our energy trying to become average at everything, we invested that energy into becoming extraordinary at the few things we were created to do.
The world doesn’t need billions of people who are equally mediocre at everything.
It needs builders.
Teachers.
Designers.
Writers.
Engineers.
Nurses.
Craftsmen.
Leaders.
Listeners.
People who have mastered their gifts and willingly use them to serve others.
The beautiful part is that none of us were meant to possess every gift.
My strengths cover your weaknesses.
Your strengths cover mine.
When we stop competing to become the same person and instead become the fullest version of ourselves, something remarkable happens. We begin functioning like a body instead of isolated individuals. Each person contributes something unique that someone else cannot.
I believe that’s closer to God’s design.
Our responsibility isn’t to pretend we’re perfect. We all have shortcomings. We all need humility, forgiveness, and the willingness to grow. But growth isn’t the same thing as obsessing over deficiencies.
Growth is becoming more of who God created you to be.
The battle isn’t between being strong or weak.
The battle is between living from fear, constantly comparing yourself to everyone else or living from purpose.
One path asks,
“What’s wrong with me?”
The other asks,
“What have I been entrusted with?”
Those are very different questions.
I believe humanity becomes something almost unimaginable when enough people discover their gifts, master them, and use them in service of one another.
A society of specialists.
A community of servants.
A world where people stop trying to do everything and instead become exceptional at the thing only they can uniquely contribute.
Maybe that’s what we’ve been missing all along.
Instead of fixing everyone...
What if we started unleashing them?