Do You Have Talents or Skills?

Talents and Skills do you know what are the differences in the two?  An illustration of talent is. You may be born with talent in drawing, you can draw the most beautiful drawing since young.  However, if you do not put in effort to continue drawing and focusing your time and energy to nurture talents, chances of you becoming a successful artist is slim.

How about Skills? Skills developed through pure hard work in training to become better each day.  To excel in what you do, you got to do whatever it take to become better each day.  When the others are sleeping, you work.  When the others are having fun, you work harder.  Skills are being developed with effort.  And it can easily replace a talented person with little dedication.

In Outliers a book written by Malcolm Gladwell, he wrote a chapter on the 10000 hours rule. It talks about successful people who became successful not because they are purely talented but because they are talented and committed to put in hours and hours of practice amounting up to 10,000 hours. 

He cited an example of a group of students in a music school.  All the students who enter this school have to go through an examination and were hand-picked talents.  However, why is it so that not all turn out to be successful musicians?

They did an interview with those who achieved stardom and those who are music school teachers.  All are graduates from the same school of the same time.  They found out that the differences between them were the hours and hours of practice they put in when they were young and during music school.  Those who spent more than 10000 hours in practice were successful musicians and those who spent less than 10000 eventually became normal music school teachers.

It is the same as any successful athletes. I watched a video on China’s gymnastic team, the girls entered the academy at a young age. All they do were to training every single day for hours and hours.  They have not gone home for many years and only seen their parents for once or twice a year. They trained endlessly for the Olympic gold medal dream and yes they fully deserved it.

So, do not worry that you do not have talent in anything.  It can be replaced with skills and still be successful.  If you have talents develop on it and be successful.  Find a good mentor and your learning curve will expand exponentially as you will avoid the mistakes they make and learn their 30 to 40 years of experiences in a short time frame of 2 to 3 years or maybe even lesser.

What is stopping you now?  Develop your skills and act now.

This is a promotional effort for my new ebook, What Is Stopping You Now?