According to Maya Angelou, ‘talent
is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it’. There is
no one on earth who doesn’t have the intrinsic ability to do something
differently than others. Talent is what separates the poor and the rich. We know Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi for
playing football, Roger Federer for tennis, Michael Phelps for swimming, Usain
Bolt for athletics and many more.
Therefore, it is not an overstatement to say
everyone has an ability to do something spectacularly. However, discovering
that particular thing and polishing it is what will make us different from
those that have the same ability. ‘It's
not enough to be Hungarian, you must have talent too’ - Alexander Korda
How do you know you have a particular
Talent?
Well, you
might be lucky enough to see people help you discover your talent. They just
noticed you have a flare for a thing or you do it better than others and they
call your attention to it. However, it is best when you identify the things you
can do well yourself. Some children don’t like schools, they just don’t grab
anything in school, and they pretty find it hard what others find very easy in
school. Provided that they are not lazy or just trying to run from school, it
is suffice to say book might not be their way.
It is not
only in school we acquire education. Look well and deeply into the children and
their future, you will see one thing they love to do, probably writing stories,
painting, playing ball, swimming, running, singing, dancing and the likes. No
profession can be ridiculed as long as it is legit. What we think is stupid,
some people actually do it to make money and they derive utmost satisfaction from
it.
Marilyn
Monroe says, ‘A career is born in public—talent in privacy.’ Suffice to note that
your talent might be an enviable one but still not enough to bring you into
limelight. It might be the ability to play good football than Messi, but still
not richer than Messi or popular than him. Aside luck and grace, hardwork is
very important in bringing out talent. An anonymous speaker once says, ‘If talent doesn’t work hard, hard work will
beat talent’. You might have the
talent, but if someone who doesn’t is working harder than you, the person will
beat you hands down. It is your talent that will make you popular and make
ways for you. ‘A man’s gift makes ways
for him’ – Bible.
How do you nurture your Talent?
Käthe
Kollwitz says, ‘I do not want to die...until I have faithfully made the most
of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me until the last small
twig has grown.’ It is one thing to have a talent and
use it, it is another thing to polish and nurture it. Aside the ability to do a
thing, you must increase your knowledge of that thing. You might know how to
sing naturally, don’t you think it will be better if you went to a Music
School.
You can play ball well, then go to a football academy to get you
trained and prepared. You might know how to write fictions, then go and increase
your knowledge in it and get updated. Never
rest on your oars. Always try to be better on that thing each day. Else, you
become analog and look as if you don’t actually know how to do it.
Do we make it only through Academic Schools?
Alan Sugar says, ‘I just have
an aptitude towards business. It's something you can't learn at university.’
The simple answer to the question is No.
Truly, you must have the ability to read and write and also be able to
understand and interpret things. However, you don’t learn everything in school.
No school teaches you how to make money.
A school only teaches you how to be
valuable in the society; how to fit in to varying conditions and how to be
prepared for the future ahead of you. Making something out of your life is your
own responsibility.
Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, all dropped out of the university and that didn’t limit
or stop what they can become in life. They only identified their strength,
polished it and started using it to make money. Thomas Wolfe says, ‘If a
man has talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses
only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has a talent and learns somehow to
use the whole of it, he has won a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know.’
Is there a difference between Talent
and Hardwork?
Aldous
Huxley says, ‘There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all the virtues are of
no avail.’ It might be difficult for you to delineate between Talent and
Hardwork, however, there is a difference. Have you ever wondered why some
struggled to do a thing and they need to sweat over it countless times before they
got it right while some at any moment can do it without any challenge. Now, the
first is not talent while the second is. When
you have the talent to do a thing, you will do it with simplicity. I mean,
you will do it at anytime you are called, you will do it right before the deadline.
We can’t all be the same, therefore, never envy people that
do the things you find very hard easily; if you looked deep enough into yourself,
you will see there are things you can do with ease and they struggle to get it
done. A person can be the best student
in your class while you are the last, but when it comes to strength, emotional
intelligence, athletics, things that do not involve academics; you might be
miles better than the person.
We might
not be good for all things, but we are good in certain things, yours is to
identify your strength and your talent. You can check the story of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniack and discover their roles in setting up Apple. Steve Jobs never wrote a line of code before in his life, Wozniack did, so what was the role of
Jobs himself, you can check it out here.
The difference between the Poor and
the Rich
According to Bob Marley, ‘They gave me star treatment because I
was making a lot of money. But I was just as good when I was poor’ You can
have a talent and be rich by the function and use of your talent, and you can
as well have a talent and be poor by the virtue of the docility of your talent.
Nature has been fair enough to you by
giving you a talent, turning the talent to what can fetch you a living is
solely your responsibility.
The rich
can identify talent, nurture it, use it to produce and sell it to make wealth,
while the poor also has the same talent, however, moans all day, complains
about his tools, blames the government, shouts on the authorities on not
producing an enabling environment for him to thrive, while the government may
have a blame, a bulk of it lies on you. The government not living up to
expectation doesn’t affect you alone; if some could make it under the same
government, then you can also make it. Just be up and doing.
‘I don't think success is harmful, as so many people say. Rather, I
believe it indispensable to talent, if for nothing else than to increase the
talent’ - Jeanne Moreau
Identify your talent, nurture it,
look at what you can make out of it, fight so hard to get to the top, have the
right attitude, be hardworking, and before you know it, your talent will make
you rich.
And
never let a goblet of gold
face the bright moon empty.
Heaven bred in me talents,
and they must be put to use - Li Bo
face the bright moon empty.
Heaven bred in me talents,
and they must be put to use - Li Bo
We hope you learnt one or two
things, please do not forget to share with friends and family, and remember
also to leave a comment so others can learn.
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