Talent

Talent. 

When I was in second grade and living in Kansas, I participated in my school's talent show. Two of my classmates and I donned bandanas, and sang a rendition of My Home's in Montana. We were the proud recipients of a fourth place yellow ribbon. Who knew the early sixties was the beginning of the whole participation award thing!

Now the interesting thing is that I have never considered myself a singer, although being a singing sensation has always been a fantasy of mine. Notice I didn't say dream, because I would hate to fall prey to The American Idol Syndrome of thinking just because it's your dream you deserve to win. 

No, I believe that you have to have the talent as well. Natural talent, or the 10,000 hours theory of talent, either way it must exist. Now when it comes to talent I've always thought it fell into the category of what you could do in a Talent Show or a Miss America competition, so as a result I never really considered myself to have a talent. I wasn't an accomplished singer, dancer or ventriloquist, so I guess I must have missed out when they were handing out the talent genes. 

Except that we all have talents or as Marie Forleo likes to say, strengths. Now often times we are unaware of these strengths because they come so easily to us. If they don't require any extra effort then they mustn't really be very special. 

This is how I felt for years. Years in which I excelled academically, could express myself both verbally and in writing, could easily organize and take charge, seemed to have a knack for encouraging others, and had a mind like a human Mapsco. As it turns out these are all talents, albeit not the kind that wins blue ribbons in a talent show, though, but talents just as well. 

 Forleo also states that it's easy to get caught up in the whole what is my passion debate in determining these talents, when technically no matter what you end up doing career wise, you will bring the same set of strengths to each job. Of course, along the way you will probably find something that seems to fit. I know every part-time job I ever had only encouraged me to continue on with my education, and teaching seemed to fit well with my natural strengths. 

Don't sell yourself short when it comes to this talent idea, and think that it has to be pageant worthy.