Last time, we discussed how to create value from your talent by meeting the needs of people and solving problems. And we said that when you create value for people, it comes back to you in the form of wealth. The definition of wealth here includes financial riches, fulfillment, significance, and peace of mind.
When you start to express your talent, you may immediately get the other components of wealth, but financial riches may take some extra time coming. Let me explain: Money doesn’t necessarily answer to talent. It answers to skillfully-applied talent. This means that even though you are talented, you must also become skillful.
Your talent is like a muscle. The more you use a muscle, the better and stronger that muscle gets, and the better you get at using it. Talent is awesome, but it is raw material. Before you can gain something tangible from it, you must use it and keep using it until you become very skillful at using it. Problems are solved by skillfully-applied talent, and talent doesn’t become skillful immediately. You must hone it.
Create opportunities to hone your talent and hone it every chance you get. When the right time comes, and you’ve become so skillful, you will be able to demand any price for the application of your talent. Then you wouldn’t just be talented, you would be skillful, and only skillful people stand before great people who can pay any price.
So, how do you hone your talent? Without making a huge change to your life, you can follow these four easy steps:
- Identify one talent of yours that you would like to express and master.
- Identify one or more needs that your talent can meet (you may choose to focus on one need per time).
- Approach one person or group of people that have this identified need. Offer to meet that need. Don’t go and offer your talent to the President just yet. You have family, friends and colleagues; start with them. Offer to cook or bake for a family gathering; sing, speak or perform at a friend’s event; write a piece for someone; teach people something; help with someone’s kids; style or design someone’s outfit; counsel someone, or whatever your talent is.
- Start and keep using these platforms to hone your talent. The more you do it, the better and more skillful you’ll get.
Everyone is talented, but only the skillful will be rewarded for their talent and become wealthy.
You are God’s masterpiece created to do awesome things!
