Personal branding with Bernard Kelvin CLIVE: The Rhino’s horn effect: When your greatest strength becomes your blind spot

By Bernard Kelvin Clive

Today, I want to introduce a concept I call The Rhino’s Horn Effect, drawn from my book Gifted but Gated. It’s a powerful idea—simple on the surface, but deeply confronting once you begin to reflect on it.

At its core, the Rhino’s Horn Effect explains how something that once helped you survive, fight, win, and rise can, at another stage of your journey, quietly become a barrier, a blockade, or even a hindrance—if it is not properly managed.

Think about it this way.

The rhino is known for one dominant feature: its horn. That horn represents strength, courage, confidence, dominance, and the ability to charge forward and win battles. It is the rhino’s signature advantage. It’s how it defends itself. It’s how it asserts presence. It’s how it survives.

In the same way, every one of us carries a kind of horn—a unique strength, gift, talent, or ability that has given us an edge in life. For some, it’s communication. For others, it’s intelligence, speed, discipline, creativity, decisiveness, boldness, or whatever.

That strength helped you rise.
It helped you stand out.
It helped you build your brand.
It helped you win early battles.

You walk into environments and people notice it immediately. Your gifting is obvious. Your talent is visible. You are known for it. Opportunities come because of it. Just like the rhino’s horn, it is impossible to ignore.

And for a long time, that horn works beautifully.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth:
The same horn that gives the rhino power can also limit its vision.

Now imagine something unusual.

Picture a rhino trying to paint a picture.

Every time the rhino leans forward to see the full scene, its horn blocks part of the view. No matter how beautiful the landscape is, the horn keeps entering the frame. As a result, every painting the rhino creates contains traces of the horn—not because the horn is bad, but because it sits directly in front of the rhino’s eyes.

So, the rhino paints what it sees—but what it sees is partially obstructed.

That’s the Rhino’s Horn Effect.

It’s like trying to take a photo while one finger covers part of the camera lens. The image may still look good. The quality might still be impressive. But there’s always that shadow, that blur, that obstruction showing up in every frame.

In life, leadership, branding, and business, this happens more often than we admit.

Your strength begins to leave a footprint in everything you do.
Your dominant trait shapes every decision, every response, every perspective—even in situations where it may not be appropriate.

You are no longer just using your strength.
Your strength is now using you.

And this becomes especially dangerous as you grow.

Because growth introduces new environments—new rooms, new responsibilities, new levels, and new expectations. What worked perfectly in one season may quietly sabotage you in another.

The problem is not the horn.
The problem is unexamined strength.

Most people never pause long enough to ask:

• Is my greatest strength still serving me here?
• Or is it now limiting how I see, listen, and respond?

In the next part, I’ll share a real-life story that perfectly illustrates this effect—how a simple phone setting turned into a powerful metaphor for perspective, perception, and professional blind spots.

But before we move on, let’s pause with a few actions:

• Identify Your Horn
  Write down the one strength people consistently associate with you. What are you “known for”?
• Track Its Influence
  Observe how this strength shows up in your conversations, decisions, leadership style, and problem-solving.
• Ask the Hard Question
  In your current season, is this strength still helping—or is it quietly limiting your vision?

Don’t rush to change anything yet.
Awareness comes before adjustment.

Seeing Through the Wrong Lens

Let me make this even more practical by sharing a real-life experience—one that perfectly captures how the Rhino’s Horn Effect plays out in our everyday decisions, especially in business and branding.

Some time ago, I was in a meeting with a client. He had recently launched new products and needed high-quality images for promotion. To support him, I recommended a professional photographer—someone I trusted, someone whose work I knew was solid.

The photographer did his job well. He took the product shots, edited them professionally, and sent the final images digitally to the client.

A short while later, during another meeting, my client raised a concern.

He said, “The photographer you recommended is good, but these images are too bright. The colors don’t feel right. I think they may need to be retaken or re-edited.”

That caught my attention.

So I said, “Really? Can you show me the images?”

He pulled out his phone and scrolled through them. On his screen, the images did appear overly bright, with a strange color tone. He was already messaging the photographer back and forth, questioning the quality of the output.

I asked him to forward the images to me.

When I opened them on my phone, I paused.

They looked… fine. Clean. Balanced. Professional.

So I said, “Hold on. Let me check this properly.”

I asked the photographer to email the images to me, and I opened them on my laptop. Again, they looked excellent. The lighting was right. The colors were accurate. The images were exactly what you would expect from a professional shoot.

Now I was curious.

I turned back to my client and asked, “Do you have a laptop?”

He said yes.

I asked him to download the images and open them on his laptop as well.

And that was the moment everything changed.

On the laptop, the images suddenly looked perfect to him too—clean, bright, and properly balanced. No strange colors. No excessive brightness.

At that point, the confusion ended—but the lesson had just begun.

I paused and asked him a simple question:
“Have you checked your phone settings recently?”

He went into his settings, and that’s when we discovered the real issue.

Some time earlier—months back—he had adjusted his phone’s display settings to suit a particular need. Maybe it was for Instagram. Maybe for TikTok. Maybe for content creation. He had changed the color profile and brightness to achieve a certain effect that worked for him at the time.

And it did work—for that season.

The problem was, he never reset it.

So for months, every image, every photo, every visual he consumed was being filtered through that one adjusted setting. He had grown comfortable with that lens. It became normal to him. He trusted it.

But now, that same setting had become a distortion.

The photographer didn’t send bad images.
The problem wasn’t the work.
The problem was the lens.

That phone setting had become his rhino’s horn.

Something that once helped him became something that hindered him. Something that once enhanced his work now limited his perception. He wasn’t seeing reality—he was seeing everything through an outdated filter.

And this is exactly how many of us operate in life and business.

We carry mindsets, habits, strengths, and perspectives from one season into another—without reviewing whether they still fit. What worked when you were starting out may not work when you are scaling. What helped you survive may not help you lead. What made you stand out may now be holding you back.

Yet we cling to it because it once worked.

That’s the Rhino’s Horn Effect in action.

We are not wrong—we are just seeing through the wrong lens.

In leadership, this could be over-talking in rooms that require listening.
In branding, it could be over-emphasizing one message while missing the evolving needs of your audience.
In business, it could be insisting on old systems because they once brought success.

The danger is not having a horn.
The danger is refusing to adjust how you use it. Do this:

• Check Your Lens
  Ask yourself: What “settings” have I left unchanged simply because they once worked?
• Change the Viewing Platform
  Just like the images looked different on a laptop, seek alternative perspectives—mentors, data, feedback, or fresh environments.
• Separate Output from Perception
  Before criticizing results, ask: Is the problem the work—or the lens through which I’m viewing it?

Mastering Your Strength Without Letting It Master You

Now that we understand the Rhino’s Horn Effect, the next—and most important—question is this:

What do you do with your horn once you recognize it?

The answer may surprise you.

You don’t cut the horn.

The rhino does not become better by removing its horn. In fact, without it, the rhino becomes vulnerable. The horn is not the problem. The issue is positioning, control, and awareness.

The real work is learning how to wake the rhino—how to become conscious of your strength and intentionally manage how and when it shows up.

This is where maturity enters the conversation.

Many people think growth means adding more skills, more tools, more noise. But true growth often means restraint. It means knowing when not to deploy your strongest weapon.

Take communication, for example.

You may be gifted with words. You think fast. You speak well. You command rooms. That strength may have opened doors for you early in your journey. But as you grow into new environments—boardrooms, partnerships, leadership roles—talking all the time can quietly work against you.

Wisdom teaches you this:
Sometimes the most powerful communicator in the room is the one who listens first.

Your horn is still there. You haven’t lost it. You’ve simply learned when to lower your head—and when to lift it.

The same applies to analytical thinkers. You are sharp. You see flaws quickly. You can dismantle ideas with precision. But in some rooms, immediate analysis feels like criticism. So you observe first. You read the room. You choose the right moment.

This is not weakness.
This is mastery.

The Rhino’s Horn Effect becomes dangerous only when we carry one dominant strength into every environment unchanged, assuming it will always work the same way.

But seasons change.

Growth introduces complexity.

And leadership requires discernment.

At some point, the very thing that made you successful must be filtered, not flaunted.

That’s why self-awareness is one of the most underrated skills in branding and business. Brands don’t just fail because of lack of talent. They fail because leaders refuse to evolve how they deploy their strengths.

So ask yourself honestly:

• What strength has always defined me?
• Where has it served me well?
• And where might it now be limiting my growth?

Sometimes, the horn shows up as a mindset you developed in childhood.
Sometimes, it’s a coping mechanism that helped you survive.
Sometimes, it’s a skill that gave you relevance early on.

But growth demands review.

This is where many people get stuck—gifted, but gated.

Your gifting is intact, but your access to the next level is blocked by an unexamined strength.

To move forward, you don’t abandon who you are. You refine how you show up.

You learn to adjust your lens.
You learn to read the environment.
You learn to ask, “What does this moment require from me?”

When you do this, your horn stops being an obstruction and becomes an asset again—this time, used with precision. Do this:

• Name Your Horn Clearly
  Identify the strength that has consistently defined your journey—speaking, speed, boldness, discipline, faith, creativity, logic, or control.
• Audit Its Impact
  Ask trusted people how this strength shows up in different environments. Where does it help? Where does it overwhelm?
• Adjust, Don’t Abandon
  Your task is not to silence your strength, but to regulate it. Learn when to charge forward and when to pause.
• Change the Lens Intentionally
  Regularly review your mindset, habits, and assumptions. What worked in the last season may need recalibration now.
• Lead with Awareness
  Mastery is not loud. It is intentional. The most effective leaders know how to carry power without displaying it at all times.

When you learn to work around your rhino’s horn, rather than letting it block your view, your strength becomes refined—not reduced.

And the effect changes.

Your Rhino’s Horn Effect becomes positive, not limiting.
Strategic, not obstructive.
Impactful, not blinding.

If this message resonated with you, you can explore more of my work by searching for my books—Gifted but Gated, The Selling Advantage, and others—on major online bookstores.

Remember, I am your Branding and Publishing Consultant.

Let me know how this insight has helped you reflect, reset, or reposition. The best is yours.

The post Personal branding with Bernard Kelvin CLIVE: The Rhino’s horn effect: When your greatest strength becomes your blind spot appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.

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