Definition 3: Who's the most "talented" dishwasher on the planet?
We all know the kid who could draw well at school, or the programmer who was way ahead with her coding. But "dish washing"? How come we don't know who has the most talent in that department?
Imagine I told you I was really talented at washing dishes.
Okay, how about sharpening pencils? Would you consider that a talent?
And yet when I say: I’m magnificent at cooking or superb at drawing cartoons, you’re instantly interested, aren’t you?
In effect, talent is only something you and I can’t do.
If you can wash dishes and I can wash dishes, it’s not a talent. The moment you can do complex maths equations and I can’t, hey, now you’re talented.
Look around you and see what you consider to be talented people.
They’re just people who are doing things you can’t do. They know how to write programs, or can sing well, or dance well. And you can’t do it, so it’s suddenly a talent. I grew up in Mumbai, and when we were out on the street, we’d have kids speaking different languages. I learned about six languages without trying too hard. While I’m not fluent in all those six, I can understand and be understood.
If you showed up from a country where the only language of instruction is English, you’d think I was excellent at learning languages. However, on the streets of Mumbai, almost any kid would know more than two-three languages. It’s the same in Europe as well. You’ll find most Europeans on the mainland are fluent in two or three languages. And they don’t think it’s something extraordinary. They don’t see it as a unique talent.
On the streets of Mumbai, almost any kid would know two or three languages. It’s the same in Europe as well. Only foreigners are impressed.
Now put yourself on the starting blocks of any Olympic sport.
And almost immediately, you see how the competitors consider themselves. They don’t see this vast gulf of talent. Sure, one athlete may hog most of the medals, but it’s not like that athlete is way ahead of the others. They’re just marginally faster, often by a few hundredths of a second. And so are you, by the way. You write slightly better than the next person. Or little worse, as the case may be.
But there’s one more pretty insidious point we have to cover
Let’s say one person can write, draw, cook, dance, sing, take pictures, garden, and ski very well. And let’s say you can’t do any of the above. It seems like you chose the short straw in life, right? That when you were born, somehow you got deprived of all but the most mundane of skills. That somehow, the other person can excel in half a dozen competencies and continue to “discover” more talents along the way. Indeed not one of us is so deprived while another person has such a vast number of abilities.
“Even so, we’ve come to believe this untruth. There’s no doubt that we all have different brains, but to have such a high inequality of talents seems utterly bizarre. This is where I need to take you down a slight detour of why I feel so passionate about this talent discussion.
Back in 2008, I started up a blog on this topic of talent.
I had to write things down because the more I discussed this talent issue, the more people brought up objections. And it’s not like they’d stick to a single point either. I’d find the topic would bounce wildly from Michael Phelps to genetics and everything in between. But it wasn’t enough to write a blog. And so, I decided to do something that would prove without a doubt that anyone can acquire talent in a brief period.
The challenge was simple enough.
If you walk into a cafe and ask: Who’s a writer? Who’s a singer? Who’s a dancer? You’ll get a response. If you were to ask, “Who’s a cartoonist?” the place goes quiet. So we decided to start up the cartooning course. It wasn’t about picking people who could draw. Instead, it was quite the opposite. The challenge was to turn everyone into a cartoonist. Notice I didn’t say, “anyone.” I said, “everyone.”
There would be no failure.
Every single person in that cafe would become a cartoonist if they joined the course. But of course, I had my “cafe” at 5000bc.
I decided to offer the course free of charge. Today that course costs close to $2000, but back then, I wanted to prove that this crazy goal was possible. And if you look at the work that comes out of the cartooning course, you will frankly be stunned.
The same concept needed to be applied to article writing or headlines, or copywriting. It wasn’t just about getting one person or two people to be very talented. I wanted to make the training similar to what I learned on the streets of Mumbai.
It wasn’t a case of “one person” or “some people” being talented. Every person on the course, no matter their age, background or skill level, would be able to get to a precise skill level that had been pre-determined at the very start.
There could not, or would not be, some winners. Everyone had to meet the benchmark and do so consistently.
It’s tough to believe that talent isn’t inborn
We somehow like to think we’re special, but for the most part, talent is just a reduction of errors. If you find the errors, you can fix them. The fewer errors you make, the better you are at completing a task. Fewer errors result in greater efficiency. Instead of the job just being another mundane task, you’re now able to push your limits.
When I took two days to write an article, I had no energy to do much else. Now I can write over 4000 words in a morning, and I still have the energy to find some great stories and make the article come alive in a way I could never do before. I used to make all those errors back in the year 2000; well, I don’t make many of them anymore. And so hey, I’m a writer. That’s the first point: talent is a reduction of errors.
The second point is simply one of understanding how your brain works
It’s all about pattern recognition. You probably couldn’t multiply 11 x 24 before today, but now you can. And maybe you can’t write a sales page without banging your head against a wall, but given the pattern, you will. Any skill can be broken down into smaller bits, and you can recreate the pattern.
Would that make you Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt? No, it won’t. There are a lot of other reasons that we’re not covering right now.
Instead of bringing up objections about why you can’t do something, go out there and find the teacher, find the system, find the group. And understand it’s a matter of recognising the pattern and then executing it. Yes, you can cook food as well as any other accomplished chef.
You can draw just as well as anyone.
And you can make an outstanding presentation.
If we have limits, it is precisely because we do not understand the pattern.
In effect, talent is only something you and I can’t do. Which is why we never hear anyone being talented for “eating with a spoon”.
Finally, the last definition of talent is a closer look at ourselves in the mirror. How come we got passed up when the next guy got not one but a dozen talents? And how come we consider those gifts to be talents only because we can’t do it. It’s time to ask yourself these hard questions.
The concept of inborn talent is a prison.
If you believe in innate talent, that’s it; you’re done. You can’t learn any more. You’re stuck forever.
Or you can start searching for a teacher, system, and group. And explore a world like never before.
Oh, and yes, I am really talented at washing dishes! ;D ;D ;
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Oh, and if you want to know about me, me, me. I’m Sean D'Souza. Just another Kiwi who lives in middle Earth and enjoys the sweeping views of New Zealand. Oh, I’m a cartoonist too. And a writer, avid chef, but staying away from gardening and power tools. And um, I’d better stop. If you want to see some stuff, you can amble across to Psychotactics.com as well.