How Natural Talents Get Lost in the Shuffle
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Why We Overlook Our Natural Talents
In our businesses and careers as in life, each of us has a unique Talent Advantage. But all too often, we fail to develop our natural talents. Why? Call it unintended consequences. Call it “least common denominator syndrome.” The simple truth is, many of the institutions we move through in our lives focus more on bringing everyone up to the same (average) level than they do on nurturing our exceptional talents and abilities.
And that's a shame because those natural talents of yours – those things you're naturally good at – very often signal your areas of potential brilliance.
Human beings naturally gravitate toward the things they're good at because those are the things we tend to enjoy doing. So how, exactly, do we fail to develop the areas where we have the most potential to succeed?
The Animal School: A Lesson About Natural Strengths
A fable commonly attributed to George Reavis, dating to the 1940s, is The Animal School. Retold here with some contemporary details, it describes a time when the animals of the Great Forest decided to organize a school. The school adopted a curriculum consisting of swimming, running, flying, and climbing. All the animals were required to take every subject.
As you might expect, the ducks were excellent in swimming, but they made only passing grades in flying and all of them were very poor in running. Since they were slow in running, they had to stay after school for remedial running practice, and they had to drop swimming in order to practice running during their swimming class time. This was kept up until all the ducks’ webbed feet were very sore and they were only average in swimming. But average was acceptable, so nobody worried.
The rabbits started at the top of the class in running but did not do so well in swimming, so they had to come in early every day for special practice. The teachers were concerned about the rabbits’ high activity levels, so they were made to walk everywhere instead of running or hopping.
The squirrels were excellent in climbing and running, but when it came to flying, the teacher made them learn the standardized way of starting from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. Every day the squirrels had therapy where a flying therapist took them into the gym and made them do front-paw exercises to strengthen their muscles so they could learn to fly the right way. The squirrels’ paws hurt so much from this overexertion that some of them barely passed in climbing and running and some failed altogether.
The eagles were definitely problem students. In climbing, the eagles beat all the others to the top of the tree, but they insisted on using their own way to get there and were quite stubborn about it. The eagles said that clearly, it was the goal that mattered and that it was quite right for eagles to get to the treetop by flying. They were diagnosed as having an oppositional-defiant disorder and put on a strict behavior modification plan.
The prairie dogs, badgers, groundhogs, and gophers were not allowed to dig and burrow because it was not part of the standard curriculum. They tried their best in running, climbing, swimming, and flying, but soon got frustrated and dropped out.
When Being Average Becomes the Goal
At the end of the year, one odd eel that could swim well – and also run, climb, and fly a little – had the highest average and was valedictorian.
Because the animals described in the story were not practicing and utilizing their natural skills, they lost their talent advantage. The story makes us laugh because we recognize the absurdity of a duck giving up on swimming in order to learn to run, or a rabbit who tries to walk rather than hop and jump. Giving up natural skills in order to acquire other skills is clearly a silly pursuit for the animals.
How We Lose Sight of Our Natural Strengths
Yet there are times when many of us do just that and, as a consequence, we lose sight of our Talent Advantage.
Like the ducks, we are sometimes forced to focus on what we do poorly and, in the process, we forget what we are really good at doing. Like the rabbits, we stop developing our natural skills so that we can fit in with others. Like the squirrels, we become so focused on developing acquired skills to meet others' expectations that our natural abilities begin to weaken from lack of use.
Like the eagles, we don’t always understand the environments where our natural skills shine, so we appear contrary. Like the prairie dogs, our natural skills are sometimes ignored and we just give up on them.
And like the eel, we’ve all probably accepted praise for average behavior a time or two.
Reclaim Your Natural Talent Advantage
Every one of us has talents and skills that comprise our natural gifts. When you apply and capitalize on them, you are using your Talent Advantage.
Perceptual Style Theory™ offers another way to understand why our natural strengths differ. Each of us experiences the world through a particular Perceptual Style, bringing a distinctive combination of strengths, motivations, and ways of engaging with others. Recognizing these differences can help us appreciate what comes naturally to us rather than measuring ourselves against someone else's abilities.
Claiming your Talent Advantage begins with consciously choosing to do more of what you do best. Think about the activities you naturally excel at, genuinely enjoy, and frequently receive compliments for. Then look for opportunities to use those strengths more often—in your work, your relationships, and your everyday life.
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About Lynda-Ross
Lynda-Ross Vega is a partner at Vega Behavioral Consulting, Ltd. She specializes in helping corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and individuals with interpersonal communications, team dynamics, personal development, and navigating change. Lynda-Ross is co-creator of Perceptual Style Theory, a revolutionary behavioral psychology theory and assessment system that teaches people how to unleash their natural strengths and build the life and career they dream of.
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