The
last thing I addressed on talents and gifts last week was growth, and I
insisted that we can never undermine the role growth plays on talent: “unless a talent is grown, it will
soon fade away.”
Today, we
continue with the third part of the four main points I was discussing which
will help us grow our niche through identifying our abilities, talents and
gifts;
Quote: Passion is an
aggressive approach towards talents/gifts.
I met a
certain young person sometime back with an interest in building and creating
mobile apps and a probable OS (yeah, that was his dream, and yes, it is right
here in Kakamega – note: we’re
awesome like that. Hah.) But the problem was that the boy is forever
complaining about capital. Capital? Yes, capital. So I was like, “Capital my
foot!!”
After
hearing him rant about lack of capital, I decided to grill him. I asked him how
many developers he knew that make apps that are similar to what he was going to
make. Nada, he didn’t know any. Then I asked him what he wanted to call his
app. No, he had no idea about that either. (Okay, he wanted to call it a name
that was already existing but he knew nothing about it…) I asked him if he knew
coding. No, he didn’t. Then I asked him a final grilly one: “So what do you want to make and how do you want to
make it if you don’t even know it and
you have no idea of your competitors?”
We reached a
conclusion that he lacked passion. He lacked a deep interest in what he wanted or
as aspiring to do.
We see it a
lot: “I wanna be this, I wanna be that… I
wanna build this, I wanna build that… bla bla bla, but these kids (anyway, even
old people do this) don’t even know what they are saying.
You see, if
you claim that your abilities and interest(s) are in science and that science
is your stuff; or that music is your thing and you are a musician, you need to
know that s*** really well. Yes, you
need to know it like you always know you are hungry. Do you consult anyone –
say, a doctor - to know you are hungry? No. Alright, do you consult your dad or
mom to know that you need to visit the washrooms? No? Yeah, then you need to
know what you are doing or what you are engaging in reaaaaaalllly well.
Let us be
realistic. Without passion in your area of specialization, you are doing
useless work and you are neither building your niche nor creating a brand, yet
that is all this is about.
Passion is
when YOU KNOW what you are doing (when you know your abilities, talents or
gifts) and you are now developing them with enthusiasm (a.k.a. zeal) and
enjoyment. It is when
once woken up in the middle of the night and you are asked a question concerning
your talent/gift, you’ll reply without hesitation or blinking, right in your
sleep, and give a fascinating answer!
Passion is when you stand out in the crowd because you know a little more than
everyone else and your perfection in doing whatever you do is higher than
everyone else. Passion resists the urge to only start a business when there is
“enough” capital (like my friend above). It denies you the pleasure of being
normal.
I will give
you a few examples: a singer who can’t freestyle is yet to be passionate. (It’s
like joining that Jaza Mistari show
on @KTNKenya yet you don’t even know the lyrics of a single song… *sigh!*). A
poet or a writer who needs hours in order to create a post is yet to develop
passion in/for what they are doing. A dancer who needs to practice forever in
order to give forth something of worth is still underdeveloped in their
passion. It is passion that differentiates a good scientist/artist form a great
scientist/artist. It is passion that makes your schoolmate get employed
before you do, because they are awesome at what they do. Passion is a mark of
awesomeness. Yeah, you need to get me really good: passion is a mark of
awesomeness!!
a) Master your talent/gift
Quote: If
you are able to master and enjoy every fine detail of whatever you do, then you
can nurture it, grow it and create a brand out of it.
In an
article Strive Masiyiwa wrote last week titled “Be Consummate
About What You Do!”,
there is one point he reiterates: to
become consummate in area of specialization, you need to master and enjoy doing
whatever you do. Here is the whole article;
“Last week, I
attended an international conference, where I was a keynote
speaker on the subject of Mobile
Money Transfer services. The audience, wanted to know how our
company had built one of the most
successful services of its kind
known as, Ecocash. One of
the first things I did was to show them
a slide, showing, 'key performance indicators', based on a
comparison with
similar services, in other parts of the world, such as Kenya's M-PESA
(the best such service in the
world). This is 'benchmarking':
how you are doing against the
best, in your game.
I told them, that we
did not 'invent' Mobile Money Transfer service, but we
studied carefully what others had done
all over the world. Our teams,
went on field visits, to
countries, like Kenya, and the Philippines. Our people also did 'focus group' studies with
customers, to try and evaluate their
needs. Then we ran a pilot service, for many months, which we used to evaluate
customer responses,
and redesign the product.
When you are in a
business, you must join
associations, (both local and international),
so that you can exchange ideas,
with people from the same
industry, including your competitors.
This is how you 'benchmark'.
Before you dash off to implement
something, try and find out what others
have done, or not done... This
is really how you should be using
tools like the Internet.
Do you want to raise
chicken? That's good, but now
go out, and become a member of
that industry... go down
deep. Yes, learn about the industry... make yourself, a 'chicken guru',
eat, sleep and talk chicken! If someone asks you about chicken, talk
about the Chinese and American industry,
tell them who is the biggest
player in Nigeria...what type of chicken are preferred in
Brazil... It’s your game!
My
game is telecoms: the other day someone asked me, over dinner about the
history of 'prepaid
service', I gave them a lecture, tracing its history, all the way
to the first lab tests, in Israel! When I open a
newspaper or a magazine, I flip through looking for articles, first
on telecoms.
Anything
related to communications... I just devour it! It’s my game!
So you think, there is nothing about pigs, or rabbits? When you finish reading this,
do a search on the internet about the global 'pig industry',
or the 'rabbit industry'...
Even if you are
working in an organization, as a
professional, it is important to
remain current, about the job you do, and also about the industry
you are in. Be proud of what you
do. There is no better
way of doing this than
subscribing for professional and industry publications. What you are reading
locates, you... it’s your
game! What are you reading?”
That's why
the likes of Paul carried and read books wherever he went: for the sake of
mastering what they did! I need not say more about this.
b) Persistently aspire to change your world
Quote:
passion is about creating opportunities for yourself and making others want to
copy you.
If we have a
strong urge and desire to positively change our world, we need to aspire to
learn, on a daily basis, something new about our talents and how to use them to
make things easier and better. We need to learn how to create opportunities for
ourselves and to better other people’s lives.
Passion is
not about rising to fame overnight. No. It is not about creating a name for ourselves
out of our “awesomeness”. No. Passion is about building a system THAT WORKS. A
system that has been proven to work. A system that changes how things work by
simplifying them. Through growth and practice, passion proves that a certain method
can be optimized until a formula, protocol or method is achieved. This is how
mathematicians came to making and proving mathematical formulas. This is how
researchers come up with new technologies. It is passion that concluded that
the piano can only be played in a number of ways within a certain number and
bracket of keys. All these inventors sought to change their worlds and they
therefore passionately found a way to make things easier for whoever will live
after them. They never stopped until results were achieved. (You’ll understand
this better if you’ve read The Art of War
by Giles Lionel Sunzi.)
They worked
and used their abilities and talents with the future in mind. They did it progressively
without being selfish about the outcome. They saw the end-product in the whole
process rather than the means and the fame. They were resilient and focused.
That is what
we need to do if we can ever change our present world though the use of our
abilities, talents and gifts.
One example
I use is that I always tell people that I may not be that into technology but I’ll
always dream of a day when my dad can search for specific words in his paper
Bible without using sophisticated means, without needing a gadget and without
need for the internet. I dream of my grandmother being able to read without
actually knowing how to read. (Yeah, stop and think about it. It may be crazy,
but it is possible.) In my scientific world, I always think of a day when
cancer can be simply cured through the introduction of tumor-killing artificial
microbes which can actually eat away any type of tumor… I think of things
unimaginable in my world, but I think about them anyway. Dreaming is great. Dreams
are ideas in a sleep-stage and it never actually means that they won’t wake
up - because they surely will! Dreams always wake up and become a reality
when we work on them passionately…
4.
Our profession and career
There are
those amongst us who are blessed in a way that their abilities, talents, gifts
and passion marry their profession. A few of us have split these into two parts
of our existence, while others don’t even know what they’re doing. Well, it may
be okay, but let’s address a few things here…
I am always
against the notion that being great at school translates to being great in life
or being great at your career. Well, prove me wrong by taking statistics of
people who made it in life only because they had a First Class Honors in
university; prove it to me that a whole 100% of such people have made it in
life. Yes, please do it. Getting a First Class Honors is good, but unless one
has something to add onto it, it is futile and useless. And if it is the only
thing that drives our lives, what becomes of us after school and we are not
immediately employed? Huh?
Oh well…
Some people
study something else and become something else in life. Others don’t even study
at all, yet they end up employing all those creepy bookwarms… Hah… The endpoint should be, after school, are you able to enjoy what you are doing? Do
you feel excited when at work doing what you do to earn whatever you earn? Is
your profession giving you a stir of passion and satisfaction when you are at
it? If not, think twice about it.
A good percentage
of people who go for a second or third degree are those who are trying “to diversify” their career or
profession. The interesting thing about hearing the word “diversity” when dealing with career is that I always translate it
and make it synonymous with the word “randomness”.
This means that it always rings in my ears that these people may not even be
sure of what profession they are made for. To curb this (the lack of knowledge
on what you are made for career-wise), I recommend one to genuinely answer the
following questions:
- Do you enjoy it?
- Can you do it for the rest of your life?
- Do you feel excited to report to work
(especially) on Monday morning?
- Do you work for the money or for the love of the
work itself?
- Would you work under minimum supervision and
achieve the same results as when you are working under supervision?
- Do you aspire to grow in your area of work?
If above 70%
of your answers for the questions above were “no”, you are in the wrong place. You
may need to make your decisions really fast and change what you are doing
before it is too late.
When it
comes to choosing career, some people may choose it with reference to their abilities,
talents and gifts, while others may not. It really doesn’t matter so long as
you can pass the above test (the questions I posed above) by scoring above 70%.
As I finish
up, the few things you need to know about career and growing/building your
niche are listed below;
a)
They say that any skill can be
learned in 21 days flat. This is good news to anyone who desires to learn any new skill. Grasp
the opportunity and learn it. Stop wishing you had known something you can
learn in 3 weeks!!
b)
God does not bless lazy people. Only lazy people use those useless "confess and possess" quotes
because they think God is a robber: robbing people's blessings to hand them
over to them. Haven’t you ever read in Exodus 23:29
where He says, "I
will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become
desolate… little by little I will drive them out before you until you have
increased and possess the land…”? Do you think God was talking to a
lazy people? No? Okay, so work hard to get what is rightfully yours in Him!
c)
To some people, once school is over,
their lives are done. But those
guys who use at least 30% of their time in improving their social skills and
talents have less hard time adapting to the new environment after school. Think
about it. Apply it.
d)
Eventually, you’ll realize that a
man's fulfillment is not in the accumulation of wealth, things or education but
in servant-hood. It will do
you more good to improve your social skills and talents than to know more
mathematical formulas that are useless in real life. People will save you after
failure, but that education you are seeking so brutally won’t give a damn when you are suffering out here. So care
more about people, then go on and cram/learn your formulas. It is called
balancing your life.
e)
If you sit down waiting for
employment, it is likely that you're gonna wait forever, but if you keep yourself busy by
utilizing your talents and abilities well, opportunities and favor can arise
from any side and overtake you.
f)
In anything you do, seek to stand out and create a brand out of
yourself.
g) Believe
in possibilities. Believe in God. Believe in the power of God to make you into
anything great. Believe that you can become anything you put your eyes on. Then
drive all you have towards achieving it. After all has been said and done, tell
a testimony of how you became what you are through God’s faithfulness.
Till
next time,
God
bless.
Bonface Morris.
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