The Purpose of Talent

Everyone has talent. One of my talents happens to be quite obvious because I practice every day trying to get better at it, and also because I throw it in your face on this blog all the time. But what I've been most concerned with lately concerning the talents we are given, is their purpose. It is not accident, coincidence, or chance that I happen to do something better than 99.9% of people in this world. I want to be acutely aware of that, not just so that I can try and minimize that .01% gap, but also so I can be confident that I am fulfilling the purpose behind why I was given it in the first place.

Here's the tricky thing… sometimes the goals we set for ourselves in regards to the talent we have, don't necessarily line up with the purpose of our talent. It's not a bad thing to strive to be the best at something, or to simply strive to be your very best at whatever you're doing. But the success aspect of it is more likely a byproduct or a stepping stone of sorts. Maybe this doesn't ring as true to you if your talent happens to be saving lives or teaching children, but if you're like me and your talents include running fast, jumping in sand, being a phenomenal Scrabble player, and finding the best restaurants a city has to offer, you might want to take a closer look at why you were created the way you were.

Like I said, it wasn't a coincidence. I know without a shadow of a doubt that most of you could try your hardest to be better than me at the talents I was blessed with and you would fail (and vice versa…unless your talent is Scrabble or any other word games). We can all try to be better at a lot of things, but we still are purposefully created to be talented in specific things. Now, the question is "Why?" Sometimes I like to tell the story about how I started running track by accident in high school -- that it basically was because I didn't make the varsity softball team and I was a little bitter so I figured I would go see what the track team was about instead. But I didn't just happen to be good at track, or work really hard and then develop into a person that was a decent athlete. It is my talent. And not just the actual running and jumping attributes, the mindset of a track athlete is imbedded in me. I am in competition mode nearly every minute of every day because I am just wired to be that way.

We are all unique in this way. I am positive that everyone is talented in their own way, some obvious and some not so in your face. Some of us have it figured out and are dialed in to the purpose of who they are and what they're about, and maybe some of us are still making sure we make the most of our talent. Here's to that journey...