…”if all the hands that reach could touch”….

We all cannot become anything we want to be if we just work hard. If we can become whatever we want to be, then we all have the same potential. And if we all have the same potential, then we lose our individuality; we are not uniquely talented, expressing ourselves through unique goals, unique capabilities, and unique accomplishments. We are all blank sheets of canvas, ready, waiting, but featureless.

However, we should not be troubled by the fact that there is a limit to how much we can rewire our brains. Instead, we should view it as a happy confirmation that people are different. There is no point wishing away this individuality. It is better to nurture it. It is better for us to understand our filter and then channel it towards productive behaviour. So if you can’t carve out new talents for yourself, what, if anything, can you change about yourself?

First, you can discover your hidden talents. The greatest people are adept at spotting a glimpse of a talent in themselves and then repositioning so that they can play to that talent more effectively.
Second, you can teach yourself or get taught new skills and new knowledge.

This is the most profound insight shared by most great men that ever lived; skills, knowledge and talents are distinct elements of a person’s performance. The distinction is that skills and knowledge can be taught while talent can’t be taught. Combined in the same person, they create an enormously potent compound. Trying to learn a talent may result to a waste of time and money trying to teach what is fundamentally unteachable.

Skills are how-to’s of a role. They are capabilities that can be transferred from one person to another. For accountants, arithmetic is a skill. If for some reasons, the neophyte accountant does not know how to do arithmetic, he can still be taught. The best way to teach a skill is to break down the total performance into steps, which the student then reassembles. And naturally, the best way to learn is to practice.

Knowledge is simply “what you are aware of”. There are two kinds of knowledge: factual knowledge - things you know; and experiential knowledge - understandings you have picked up along the way. Factual knowledge for an accountant would be knowing the rules of double entry, and for sales people, it would be their products’ features and benefits. Experiential knowledge is a little quiet different. It is less tangible and therefore much harder to teach. Acquiring it is your responsibility. You must discipline yourself to stop and look back on your past experiences. And try to make sense out of them. Through this kind of musing or reflection, you can start to see connections and patterns. You can start to understand.

Some of these understandings are practical. For example, over a number of years, an accountant comes to know a number of ways to shield a client’s asset from excessive taxation. Some understandings are more conceptual. Your awareness of who you are and how you come across to others is experiential knowledge. It comes with time, if you’re listening. In the same way, your values, -- those aspects you hold dear-are experiential knowledge. As you make your choices, sometimes compromising, sometimes holding firm, you come to realize that certain aspects of your life are more important than others. These critical aspects become your values, guiding the choices you make in the future. Some of these values will remain constant throughout your life. Others will change with time and reflection.

Talents are different phenomena altogether.
A talent is a recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behaviour that can be productively applied. It is what keeps us going when skills and knowledge fail us. In some instances, our relevant and intelligently acquired knowledge and skills require something grander for a qualitative decision to be made; talent makes the difference.
In accountancy, the talent required is an innate love for precision. For example, ask a great accountant - not any accountant, but a great accountant --- when he smiles and he will tell you, “when the books balance”. When the books balance, his world his perfect. He may not show it but inside, he is aglow. All he can think about is, oh, when can I do that again! This might seem rather too odd for you. But if you think about it, for the person blessed with the innate love of precision, accountancy must be a wonderful job. Every time his books balance, he experiences absolute perfection in his work. How many of us can claim that?

A love for precision is not a skill nor is it knowledge; it is a talent. If you don’t possess it, you will never progress as an accountant. If someone does not have this talent as part of his filter, there is very little a manager can do to inject it.

Talents are very important to success. However, they may be grouped into three classes: Striving talents, Thinking talents and Relating talents.

Striving talents explain the why of a person. Why he is motivated to push and push just that little bit harder. Is he driven by his desire to stand out or is good enough good enough for him?

Thinking talents explain the how of a person. They explain how he thinks, how he weighs up alternatives, and how he comes to his decisions.

Relating talents explain the whom of a person. They explain whom he trusts, whom he builds relationships with, whom he confronts and whom he ignores. Does he think that trust must be earned or does he extend trust to every one in the belief that most will prove worthy of it? Is he drawn to win over strangers or he is at ease only with close friends.

However, there is a myth that talents are rare and special but as a matter of fact, there is nothing special about talent. If talents are simply recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behaviour, then talents are somewhat commonplace. Everyone has certain recurring patterns of behaviour; no one can take credit for these talents. They are an accident of birth, “a clash of chromosomes”. However, each person can and should take credit for cultivating his unique set of talents.

If you are a dark-sider, find a role in life where skepticism is the key to success. Regardless, it won’t be that bad.