#04: How To Uncover What You're REALLY Good At (Burning Passion Series, Part 2)

What are you good at?  I mean what talents do you have, what skills have you developed?

You may think you know exactly what your talents and skills are.

But do you really? 

What about those you don’t know you have?  That maybe only others see or things that you have not even tried yet, but you could be really talented at! 

In this episode, we  delve into 

• What exactly talents and skills are
• Why identifying your key talents and skills (and uncovering your hidden superpowers!) is so essential to your career and life change project, and to achieving success
• Most importantly, how exactly you can go about revealing them!

If you want to be clear on what you're really good at,  grab a coffee, find a comfortable spot and press play!

Links mentioned in this episode

Download my free guide ‘ How to find your Burning Passion (and ignite your career and life)’

Gallup research link - employees-strengths-company-stronger.aspx

Find out more about the Johari_window

“Thinking, Fast and Slow”, Daniel Kahneman

Can’t listen right now? Here are some of the highlights...

Even if something truly lights you up, unfortunately it’s less likely to bring you success if you do not have the innate talents or learned skills that align with it.  

In my years as a learning and development specialist and recruiter, I have seen people getting confused over the difference between talents and skills. 

They’re often used interchangeably,  so let’s go back to basics for a moment and get clear on exactly what we are talking about.  

Let’s start with your talents.. 

Well your talents come to you naturally. They are your superpowers!  They are gifts you were born with and you're just great at without trying too hard.   

Talents can be physical gifts like speed or flexibility, natural ability in sports or in the arts, or more mind focussed attributes like leadership, organisational ability and inspiring trust, 

or practical ability such as being able to grasp technology easily or maybe having an eye for design. 

Your skills on the other hand.. 

are the abilities you have learned,  from school, further education, or on-the-job at work. They are perfected through training, experience and practice over time.  

Skills can be developed if you put in time and effort but it's important that you do want to do the work to develop them!   How long you have to practice those skills, and how much effort you have to put in, depends on how much natural ability or talent you have related to that skill. 

Your skills don’t have to be related to your talents..  

You may have had to develop skills in an area you have no talent in because it’s part of your job.  Like , you may have no affinity with spreadsheets and numbers but you learn the skills to ensure you can do that aspect of your job because you have to.  

Whereas, if you have a natural talent for numbers, learning how to use complicated aspects of Excel or how to analyse complex numerical data will come to you much faster and you will expend far less energy. 

In other words, the energy expended and time spent perfecting it is higher when learning a skill that is not related to a talent. So it makes sense to work to improve skills that do relate to your talent! As much as you can delegate those tasks you are not so good at. 

Developing skills can sometimes make up for lack of talent in a certain thing.. 

but the path is much harder.  Think back to school, there was always that annoying person who does not do much study but still manages to sail through their exams, while you have to put in loads of hours studying and still don’t quite make the same grade. 

That said, just because you have a talent for something does not mean you can be lazy and don’t need to work on it!  Sometimes people willing to put in the time and energy to learn the skills will outstrip you if you put no effort in. 

The talent definitely gives you an advantage, a step up, but you still need to put the work in to develop it and work on the associated skills. 

Sometimes though, you are not even aware of a talent..

because either they are so natural to you , that you do not consider them talents, until you discover they are by accident or someone else tells you!  

Or perhaps you have never had the opportunity to try something to know if you are talented at it or not. If you have never managed a team or created a strategy,  or written a book or painted a landscape you will not know if you could be good at them. You may have an idea, but will not know for sure. 

So many people go through life confined to one path because that was what was expected of them, or they did not have opportunities to discover more about themselves.  

Often it was drummed into us that some talents did not give the opportunity for a lucrative career, so there was no point developing it or discovering if you were good at it.  

Were you in a family where  it’s expected you go into the professions like law, dentistry, medicine, engineering, banking or science. 

Or maybe  you were expected to go into the family business?

Perhaps you were told that creative careers would not bring the life you want?

Now that’s great if you have talent and skills that you want to use in the ‘required’ career path, but what if you have totally different talents? It will always be harder and you could end up a square peg in a round hole! And always feeling like you were on the wrong path.

Which is why it’s so important now, when other career paths and ways of working have opened up to us, that we experiment and try new things.  Not only is it enjoyable but it could open up a whole new path to you. 

So get out there and try new things, experiment in your professional and personal life, you may very well hit on something that changes what you want to do with your life.

Let’s break this down, here are the four reasons why it’s ESSENTIAL you’re clear on your talents and work with them daily!..

1. Make it Easy for yourself!! 

The more you are working with your innate talents and associated skills the easier it will be for you.  You will expend more energy and enjoy something far less if you are not good at it. It’s all about pushing against an open door, rather than trying to open a locked door that is double bolted!  Make it easy on yourself!

   2.   Knowledge is power! 

Another name for talents, are your strengths. Gallup, the research think tank, conducted research on people who use their strengths every day and how it affects their performance and their overall quality of life.  

Their data show that simply learning what their strengths are makes people 7.8% more productive. 

They also found out that building your talents and strengths is far more effective in improving your performance than trying to improve your weaknesses. This means you can benefit more if you use and build on your talents and strengths every day.

It’s also easier to develop the skills related to your innate talent than struggling to get good at something that does not come naturally. 

   3.  Set yourself up for success! 

In his international best selling book,'Thinking, Fast and Slow', 

Daniel Kahneman introduced his equation for success: 

Success = talent + luck

Great Success = a little more talent + a lot of luck

So in his view, talent is essential for success, along with luck. There is no  doubt that some element of luck will always play a part  but,  in my view,  if you play to your talents and you work to improve them you are putting yourself in the best position to be lucky! As the saying goes, the harder you work, the more luck you have!

  4. Share your talents with the world! 

You may have a talent that benefits others.  This may or may not be important to you. But a natural result in you sharing your talents with the world is that they may do others good.  Think of who you could help or the impact you could have, by using your natural talents.

How you can identify your own talents and skills?

There are three steps:

Step one - Think about all the things you know you are good at

Take some time to think about all the  talents and skills you know you have, from every aspect of your life such as your work, family time, friends and relationships and hobbies. 

Write them all down on a piece of paper or digital device, whatever’s your preference!

Step two - The next part is one you may want to avoid, but please DON'T SKIP IT!

The absolute best way to find out where your talents and skills have shone through is to ask others!  You may even discover things about yourself you did not know!

Reach out to a selection of family, friends, colleagues and even clients if you have a good relationship (ideally by phone, video or in person, but email or message if the only option) and ask them one question:

'From your point of view, what do you think are my top talents and skills'

It’s normal to feel outside your comfort zone, but I promise you what you get back is pure gold!  So go for it!

Step 3 - is based on the exercise The Johari Window, which was created by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham, and is really helpful for self-discovery and is generally used in gathering feedback. As you can probably guess, the model is a combination of their first names.

Follow the link in the section below  to learn more about the Johari Window and you will also find more information in my free guide (link below).

We use some elements of the Johari window to categorise the talents and skills you have gathered in the first two steps, so you can narrow them down. 

• Things you know you are good at, and your friends, family, colleagues also observed 

These are clearly your superpowers, so underline or highlight them. You will focus on these and develop them further. 

• Things you know you’re good at, but your friends, family and colleagues did not mention.

These are talents or skills that you have kept hidden because you don’t think they are important, or have been fearful of sharing them. You need to think of why that is. What is stopping you.  If you feel comfortable showing them to the world then highlight them.

Of course, it may be that you are not as good at that skill as you think! So in that case ask some trusted friends or family why they did not mention it.  It may be that it just did not come to mind as a top talent or skill of yours but they do think you are good at it. If that is the case - highlight or underline them

• Things your family, friends and colleagues mentioned but you did not know you were particularly good at.

These are the happy surprises! You were not aware of them, maybe because you did not think of them as talents, so think about them now and if on reflection you agree with them, highlight or underline. 

• Finally, think about any activities or tasks that you have never tried but always thought about doing. These are not relevant right now but could be in the future.  You will want to experiment with these to find out if they could be something you are good at. 

Now, for everything you highlighted or underlined, think about if you enjoy it!

If it’s something you want to develop further and be part of your new career or business direction.  Anything you don’t enjoy, or are tired of doing, then strike it out.  There is no rule that you have to use a talent if you don’t enjoy it!

At the end of following these steps, you should have a full understanding of all the talents and skills you want to take forward into your new career or business direction. 

If you still are stuck, don’t worry,  download my free guide ‘ How to find your Burning Passion (and ignite your career and life)’, as it shows you step by step what to do, gives you more information and also gives you a sneak peak into the upcoming episodes in this series!  Click on the link below to download your copy!

Now, You may have now discovered that some of the things you know ‘light you up’ and are passionate about, unfortunately you do not have a meaningful talent for!
Something may light you up but if you do not have the natural talent or skills for it, it may be best it remains a hobby and not something you base a career or business on.