Sometimes Talent can mislead you and trap into inaction mode. Of course, there are Talented people who with think are God gifted. However, those talented people will be left behind if they do not work hard.
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard,” Tim Notke, a high school basketball coach.
After completing academic education with very good marks, I realized I was almost incompetent in real life skills generally known as soft skills, people skill or interpersonal skills. It did cost me lot of time, energy and money.
However, once I did unbiased introspection, I realized that I had been misinterpreting encouragement by my support system that I was Talented for not working hard. I thought I was Talented. Maybe I may need to need to work hard.
This resulted lot of frictions with self and others when working in corporate years for 10 years. Once I realized the importance of these skills, I put all my soul and heart into it to develop and master it.
This included lot of investment in practical learning, asking feedback from everyone I worked with and taking myself very lightly when things do not go the way you planned.
These skills gave me all that I wanted for 10 years in just last 4 years. Mainly I got my self-confidence back. I realized that I was not Talented. I was average human being with extra ordinary passion for my hard working.
This realization was in-line with my performance in academics. More I worked hard, more success I got.
Less I worked (thinking my Talent will take care of my marks), I even failed. Failed in some subjects twice.
Take for example:
Looking at below chart, it looks like I am really good at Maths.
but if I take average of all 3 years in Highschool, clearly, I see that I reached cent percent marks in Maths by sheer hard work.
Same is true for other subjects (e.g. Kannada). This also explained me why I am still fond of History, International relationships and happenings, why I like War movies, why I am passionate about our ancient culture. Average for 3 years is highest for Social Studies-The subject I loved and enjoyed the most.
This also showed us that we too comfortable with ourself, our belief that we may not easily get any new point of view alone. Instead, we need some fresh perespective to our life. Be it friend, parents or life & career coach – all provide that new perspective to your life.
