Talent is defined as any recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied
Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton. Now, Discover Your Strengths.
What most successful people have in common? I mean really successful people who the best in what they do, people like: Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet. What make them so special? Maybe Michael Jordan was born with basketball player written all over his face? Was he gifted player from birth or he acquired all of his skills through practice? Do inborn talents have anything to do with that?
The real question we want to answer here is: Do each of us born with special natural talents or we acquire everything through practice and repetition?
Recently I came across a blog post “How to be great: rising above the talent myth”. In this post writer argues with the fact that we born with special talents and insists that everything we acquire is through practice and repetition. Also he point out to article written by Geoffrey Colvin, senior editor in Fortune Magazine. He wrote a book “Talent is overrated.”
Geoffrey wrote:
Scientific experts are producing remarkably consistent findings across a wide array of fields. Understand that talent doesn’t mean intelligence, motivation or personality traits. It’s an innate ability to do some specific activity especially well.
Definition described by Geoffrey assumes that talent something external. Activity to do well is an external factor, not internal.
Welcome, if you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!I came across Scott Young’s post “Should You Work on Your Strengths or Weaknesses?” It is good post and it makes point that we need to focus on passion and not on strength.
First it didn’t make sense to me, [...]
Self Fulfillment is a process. I was thinking about choices we as humans make and came to realize that there are two types of people in the world. Those who do what they love for a living and those who don’t. I is actually quite obvious and profound at the same time.
One power we always have available to us is a power of choice.
There are several choices we need to make to get to that level.
What is the solution that will make it possible to get from making a living into category of having an enjoyable fun lifestyle where is making a living and having fun is all the same.
Here is several important steps for self fulfillment which can not be ignored
1. Stop Blaming or Complaining and Take Responsibility
Recently I get involved into not so pleasant conversation with my friend. He sent me a facebook email blaming me for something I’ve done.
He ended relationship with his girlfriend couple of weeks ago. He got mad at me because I talked to her already ex girlfriend on a party. He didn’t expect me to talk to here because they weren’t together anymore. He was blaming me that I betrayed him in some way. I had really hard time to understand, how is that talking to her make me betray or disrespect my friend.
We all have different rules for how we behave and expect others to behave. We are all unique
In my last post I cover several most important Leverage Points and how to take advantage of them. If you don’t read my previous article, please click on Information Age or How To Avoid The Biggest Mistake Most People Make and read it.
One of the leverage points is importance to know your strengths, or to me more precise, your talents so you can gain advantage of them.
What the key to have fulfilled, happy and worry free living? It is knowing what your are good at (your natural talents) and being able to take advantage of this by matching those knowledge with choosing your business, life partner, friends, team members…. Choices are limitless.
But the first step is to know what you really good at.
Do you know your talents?
You would be surprised on how many people wouldn’t be able to answer this question.
According to Gallup study, after surveying 10 millions of people they find out that 7 million oft them don’t have an opportunity to focus on what they do best. They stating that people who are not playing to their strengths 6 times less likely to be engaged on their job. Those people are completely different people when they not playing to their strength.
This is pretty scary. You are probably heard that in US more people dying on Monday mornings around 8- 9 Am then in any other time. Job unsatisfaction is really a big issue. Why do you thinks this happening? It is simply because most people are in the wrong place and doing things they shouldn’t be doing in a first place.
photo credit: FredArmitage
As you may be aware we are living in time of crisis right now. At least we been told we are. Almost Everyone talk about it. Even if you like me and don’t watch a TV, you probably hear word crisis everywhere you go. People complaining about loosing their jobs, lack of security, job cuts, low income potential, economy suck and on and on and on…
Does everything that bad for real or there is someone who thriving in those times and shoveling even more money, having even more opportunities available then ever before?
If you look in world of Internet, it seems like there are so much different opportunities available, it is ridiculous. You do not even have to have your own business, product or service. You can promote others people products, do various projects for others.
Multiple opportunities become available all the time and number is growing each day. More and more people start to realize that job security is simply a joke. It is just do not exist anymore. More and more people thinking about going in business for themselves so they don’t have to depend on someone for their income.
If there are so many opportunities available then why so many of us struggling to meet the end needs and a lot of us afraid to even start a business in one form or another?
According to Michael E. Gerber in his famous book “E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It” he stated that 40% of business failed in a first year, and from those that remained 80% failed in the next 5 years. He discusses the several key reasons why it is happening and what you can do to avoid it.
The basic ideas of this brilliant book is that you should spend more time working on your business instead of working in your business.
In other words
photo credit: _ Night Flier _
There are so many things to do in life, so many places to visit, so much to accomplish. There is load of information coming our way from multiple sources. Are your head spinning already?
Unfortunately, there is so much time in a day. What we can do to capitalize on various opportunities that promise to bring desired outcome? There are must be some effective strategies so we can spend our time wisely, have more free time and at the same time reach our desired results.
Information overload has been a big issue for me and still is. It is so easy to jump into new thing, then jump into another new thing and do it again and again…
Let’s look at specific example. Could you remember time when you wake up in the morning, check your email and the next thing you know, 2 life hours gone somewhere. Sounds familiar?
One of the biggest insights that help me manage information that coming my way and to use in efficient and effective manner can be described as Concept of Leverages. What is leverage? Simply put, leverage is a power to act effectively.
I discovered that in life in order to get desired outcome we need to be aware of several Leverage Points that we can take advantage of, that will bring you desired outcome fast and with highest probability success. After Learning and applying various concepts I can define several most important leverage points to take advantage of:
Leverage Point N1 - Thought
Did you notice that when you jump into doing something fast without thinking about it first, it is possible to spend significant amount of time doing it, to later realized that it can be done in much more effective and efficient way.
photo credit: code poet
It is not a secret that we as humans we want to achieve incredible and meaningful things in life. In other words, we want to be successful and accomplish as much as we want for our own benefit and for benefits of others.
Countless books written on a subject of success and achievement. There is no lack of information available to us. It is actually quite opposite. There is so much information available to us that often we feel lost and don’t know what to do with all the information that flowing our way.
If abundance of information available, why don’t we use effectively to our advantage? What we need to do to make sure that we take advantage of all the information that available to us?
I love to learn new things and I am really grateful and fascinated with all the resources we have available to us. I don’t have to go to the library to get the information I want. I just sit on my chair, open my internet browser, type several keywords in Google and here we go, I have information I requested. It is incredible and we often take it for granted.
Having necessary information fast is a big deal. But to take this information, apply and internalize to our advantage it is completely different thing.
I tend to go through tons of information on a daily basis. Yes, I definitely notice that I became much more knowledgeable in many areas I have interest in. At the same time I notice that by becoming knowledgeable I did not necessarily improve quality of my life which I was intended to do in a first place. Yes, I enjoyed the process of learning, but something were missing. It seems obvious that in order to improve myself, have balance and desired quality of living, I would have to apply the information I’ve learned.
It is seems intuitive, but for me It took some time to figure out how to apply the information I’ve learn by internalizing it for lasting results.
I am convinced by now that the best and easiest way to create a lasting change is to become aware of those two secrets.
Secret 1
Apply idea as soon or as close as possible to the time you discover it.
Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric put it really well by saying:
“The desire, and the ability, of an organization to continuously learn from any source, anywhere and to rapidly convert this learning into action - is the ultimate competitive advantage”.
This can be definitely applied on a personal level as well.
