Develop your talents

You have discovered your talent. Very big congratulations! You have crossed a major milestone. A lot of folks don’t. Discovering your core talent is half the story. Next, you have to develop your talents.

Your talents were given to you by God as raw materials to accomplish your purpose. It is like a seed, a potential. Attaining its full potential is up to you. It is not automatic. You have to nurture it, make it spring out from the soil, and blossom. If you starve it, it simply withers and dies. You either use it or lose it.

Your talent is like a muscle. If you exercise it, it grows and becomes stronger. It depends on you, you can develop it to become a world-class weight lifter. If you do not exercise or use it, it will wither, and atrophy. If you stay put in bed for two years without lifting your legs, you will lose those legs. It is as simple as that.

Invest in Developing Your Talent

Thomas Edison said, “Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration”. Your talent came from the “factory” in a raw form. You need to work on it and make it a world-class standard. It needs a lot of work: exercise, focus, persistence, study, and work. This article is just a guide, to inspire you to get cracking

You need to buy books on the area of your talent, study from the masters, get a good mentor (if possible) and learn at the feet of a master. Practice, practice, practice. Just do it! You perfect your act as you keep practicing. If you slouch on a couch and expect a miracle, you will wait forever. The tragedy of not doing anything about your talent is that gradually, you begin to lose it. And then one day, when you finally wake up too late, you find out that the little you had is gone.

Stretch Your Talent to the Wealth Zone

When you work on your talents, and become a master, a recognized authority in that field, money will gravitate towards you naturally.

When you excel in your field, you have stretched your talent to the wealth zone. Resources will begin to flow in your direction. The world will make a beaten path to your door

Just come with me for a moment, on a fantasy trip. Imagine you are a writer just starting out. You sweat it out at your word processor. You send your manuscripts to publishing houses. They get returned with rejection slips. You try to see the editor in charge. The secretary tells you he cannot see you. He is in a meeting.

You refuse to give up. You keep learning, attending writing seminars and retreats, getting established authors to critique your work, keep writing, and keep getting better and better.

Then comes one fine summer day. An editor decides to take a chance on you. Your book becomes a bestseller in weeks. Your publisher keeps going for a print run after the print run. The press takes notice. You are inundated with invitations for interviews and TV shows. You get a call from Oprah.

Boy!, have you arrived! Publishers will pursue you for book contracts. They will come after you with a deal, and offer a down payment for books you have not even thought about writing yet. You name your price. As a matter of fact, you don’t talk to them anymore. You hire an agent. The editor you could not get to see some years back now has to book an appointment to see your agent. Your phone number goes ex-directory. You have become a celebrity.

Sorry, back to reality…
Develop your talents Part 2

Photo: childmags.com.au