I used to believe that if I had certain natural/God-given talents life would be easier and I could get things that I wanted faster. I also believed that we better focus on maximizing on our strengths. So my old approach was that I wanted to know my strength or God-given talent or areas where I am a natural-genius.

 

I focused on (in no particular order):

Writing

Basic Business Skills(Sales, Marketing, Branding, Strategies and Simplicity.)

Martial Arts and Batman like skills(Aikido, Yaw-Yan, Arnis, Parkour and Self-taught Ninjutsu)

 

Then I pretty much believed I sucked at everything else and limited myself to that.

 

Here’s what I learned:

1.  To reach Top Level and be called a Talented Genius in whatever skill/discipline it requires 10,000 hours. (People who reached top level include the Following: Michael Jordan (Basketball), Michael Jackson (Music), Michael Schumacher (Racing), Steve Jobs (business) and a whole bunch of people everybody considers to be Talented Geniuses, No you don’t have to be named Michael). 10,000 hours is the minimum then you’re an expert already. Master level. Every challenge is now puny for you because you know every bit about it.

2.  An expert is someone who has made every mistake in a very narrow field. Yesterday’s Failures are Today’s Tools for Tomorrows Victories. Deal with it. Stop regretting your past mistakes and learn from it. You had a bad performance, high school, love-life, business, work record, etc.? Don’t just sweep things under a rug. Try it until you learn to do it right. Remember 10,000 hours? Did you know that 10,000 hours is just 6 hours a week for 7 years. It doesn’t have to be a full time job. Don’t frustrate yourself. Fail and fail often by trying often.

3.  The world pays a premium for investing 10,000 hours in your skill and pays next to nothing for everything else because not everybody is willing to invest 10,000 hours to learn a skill. Let’s face it I sucked at singing and playing the guitar because I haven’t invested more than 10,000 hours in it. If you research biographies of Master Performers, you’ll conclude that after 10,000 hours nothing you do will be short of spectacular.

4.  Being a genius is simply the ability to spend more time working/practicing something more than most people. 10,000 hours indeed is a lot of time and not everybody is willing to invest it but everybody who invests 10,000 hours gets talented, genius and master level abilities.

5.  Being talented or gifted at something simply means you were willing to spend a lot of time on something. Nothing more and nothing less. You were not born with and there’s no way to verify if you were born with it. We can only verify by putting in a lot of time and your willingness to do so.

So there you have it. I’m a Master Level talented genius because I’m willing to spend a lot of time to learn my craft. So will you if you do the same?

 


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