Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what Nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing.

Whatever you are actually built for is worth more than a better version of somebody else’s talent. Play the game you were shaped for and you can be excellent at ordinary cost; play a game that is not yours and you spend everything to end up somewhere in the middle. The failure is not effort but direction.

Work out what people come to you for without being asked, since that is a more reliable signal than what you admire. Then spend the next month deepening it rather than repairing your weakest area. Shore up the weakness only where it is genuinely blocking the strength, and let the rest of it stay unimpressive.