Your “Cindy Crawford Mole”: Turning Flaws into Business Strengths

A note to young leaders.

What’s one thing you wish you could change about yourself, and if it were to change, would accelerate your business success?

Are you too tall, too short, too introvert, dyslexic, without a university degree, have a foreign accent?
Now what if – instead of lamenting this one thing – you came to embrace your ‘flaw’ and see it as your silver bullet? What would happen then?

Take for example, 1990’s super model, Cindy Crawford.
When she started her modelling career, she was urged by just about everyone to remove the mole on her left upper lip. “Apparently, if it was on the right side, it was a beauty mark, but if it was on the left side, it was an ugly mark”, Cindy later explained.

She decided instead to keep the mole and it went on to become her unique trademark, propelling her to international stardom.
“It’s the thing that made people remember me, and it made a lot of women who also have beauty marks identify with me,” she said.

“So often the thing we think sets us apart and maybe we’re insecure about, becomes the very thing that makes us stand out. I think that was a big lesson for me.”

Is it possible that what you think of as your Achille’s heel makes you more authentic and relatable – and far from holding you back, is in fact your “Cindy Crawford mole”?
It’s worth a thought.