When HARD WORK Beats TALENT
Talent, who’s gifted with it ?
Fairly, everyone is gifted with a talent or two [or even more].
But if that statement is factual, the nagging question that befuddles us is this: why is success not achieved by everyone if everyone’s got talent ?
Genuises ? We used to adore them. We all thought they were indeed born genuises. But here's the harsh truth. Genius is 1% TALENT and 99% HARD WORK. So, there you go, you yourself can make a genius out of yourself.
Generations back and even till as we speak today, many of us still cling to the fallacy that being gifted with talent places one foot into the doors of success. That truism has been debated many times over and only a handful have been proven consistent with this notion.
DISCOVER IT
Talent is not something served on a silver platter. You gotta find out. You gotta figure it out. And once you have found that, do validate if that is the talent you are gifted. You don’t want false hopes. You don’t want to cling on a bag only to end up with an empty bag.
Here we go, we're all ensconced in our homes for four months now because of this global pandemic. By now, we earnstly hope that you have discovered and unearthed the talent that was there with you for the longest time.
DEVELOP IT
Once you have discovered your talent, hone it, harness it, work on it. Even knives were not produced as sharp as it should be. They had to be sharpened thoroughly. Honing and harnessing your talent is not a one-off, unfortunately. Flashes in the pan won’t work. What you see is what you get. We have friends and acquaintances who never get tired producing results and producing outputs arising from his talent and we end up reacting WOW and WOW over and over again.
DIMINISHING IT, PLEASE DON’T
If your talent stays there, not developed, not harnessed, trust me, that talent will diminish, dwindle and eventually take the natural path of death. What a sad ending, if it will be fated that way. Instead, what is is the antidote, it’s HARD WORK HARD WORK and HARD WORK and that’s non-negotiable.
How can many of us end up good enough while others end up outstanding and the cream of the crop end up as the great ones while the best and the brightest end up in the hall of fame ? Be it that talent for business, that knack for marketing, that craft as an artist, the opportunities to grow from good to great is just enormous and it could take a lifetime but that will be a lifetime that will be rewarding to you.
Just to single out one of the very best and one of the most-sought after NBA player today, when Kevin Durant finally bagged the maximum multi-million contract he coveted and dreamt for the longest time, he quoted basketball coach Tim Notke’s most famous one-liner, “HARD WORK BEATS TALENT WHEN TALENT DOES NOT WORK HARD”.
