Develop Your Talents
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Discovering Your Talents part 2
By: Brian Tracy
Remember: Your goal is to identify your strengths so that you can deploy yourself in such a way as to increase your personal return on energy. One of the best mental techniques that you can use to accomplish this is to see yourself as a "bundle of resources" that can be applied in a variety of directions to achieve a variety of objectives. As a bundle of resources, the amount of time and energy that you have is limited; therefore, your time and energy must be put to their highest and best use. Stand back and imagine that you're looking at yourself objectively, as if through the eyes of another person, and you're thinking about how you could apply yourself to bring about the best results. See yourself as your own employer or boss. What could you do to maximize the output of which you're capable, and where could you do it?
Once you have defined your values and written out your mission statement, the next step is to do what is called a "situational analysis." Sometimes we call it a "performance audit." This is the process of analyzing yourself thoroughly before you begin setting specific goals and planning certain activities. You begin your performance audit by asking yourself some key questions.
One of those questions should be, "What are my marketable skills?" Think about it. What can you do for which someone else will pay you? What can you do particularly well? What can you do better than others? What have you done particularly well in the past? A wage or a salary is merely an amount of money that is paid to purchase a certain quality and quantity of labor or output. The results that you're able to get by applying your strengths and your energies largely determine your rewards in life. If you wish to increase the quality and quantity of your rewards, you have to increase your ability to achieve more and better results. It's very simple.
Earl Nightingale said that the amount you're paid will be determined by three things: (1) the work you do, (2) how well you do that work, and (3) the difficulty of replacing you.
The laws of supply and demand also affect the labor market, of which you are a part. Employers or customers will always seek the very most for the very least. That means that you'll always be paid the very least that is necessary to prevent you from moving to another organization.
Abraham Lincoln said that the only security a person can have is the ability to do a job uncommonly well.
The height of your income will be determined largely by how well you do your job and the difficulty of replacing you. In areas where workers can be replaced easily, the workers are paid only the minimum amount necessary to keep them. In increasing your return on energy, one of your objectives is to become so good in your chosen field that the cost of replacing you is extremely high. This is the way to assure that you will always be paid well because no one can get the kind of results that you can get for the amount that you charge, or the amount that you're paid (which are the same).
In reality, you're the president of your own personal-services corporation. You're completely in charge of production, quality control, training and development, marketing, finance, and promotion. Thinking of yourself passively, as being employed and, therefore, subject to the dictates of someone else, can be fatal to your long-term success. On the other hand, seeing yourself as self-employed forces you to see that you also are self-responsible and self-determining, that everything that happens to you happens because of your conduct and your behavior. You're in the driver's seat. You're behind the steering wheel of your life. It's up to you to decide how to utilize your talents and abilities in such a way as to bring you the very highest return on investment of your time and energy. No one else is going to do it for you. You're the boss. Others can help you, guide you, direct you, channel you, point you in the right direction and even give you opportunities, but in the final analysis, no one can make the critical decisions that will determine your future and your fortune.
Here are four questions that you need to ask yourself on a regular basis: (1) "What do I most enjoy doing?" (2) "How would I describe my ideal job?" (3) "If I could have any job at all, anywhere, what would it be?" (4) "If I won a million dollars in the lottery and I had to pick a job to work at indefinitely, what would I choose to do with my time?"
In uncovering your strengths, ask yourself, "What are my unique talents and abilities?" What have you been good at in the past? What things do you do easily that seem to be difficult for other people? In what areas of work do you seem to get the best results, and do you derive the most pleasure from? The answers to those questions all are indications of how you might deploy yourself to increase your return on energy invested.
As a result of your genetic structure, your education, your experiences, your background, your interests and proclivities, you're a unique and rare combination of talents and abilities. You can be extremely good at something. You're responsible for finding out what that something is and then throwing your whole heart into it, without reservation or holdback. Only when you discover what you really enjoy doing and then commit yourself to it wholeheartedly do you begin to feel really alive and fully engaged in life.
Look at your current job and current abilities, and ask yourself, "Where do I want to be in three to five years?" What kind of work do you want to be doing? What kind of people do you want to be working with? What level of responsibility do you desire? What kind of money do you want to be earning? What part of the country do you want to be living in?
Let your imagination flow freely for a while. Imagine that there are no limitations on what you can do or be, or where you can do it or be it. Imagine that all options are open to you.
Look at your work and at your life in general today, and ask yourself, "What kind of people do I admire and most want to be like?" Who do you know, or know about, who is doing the kind of work that you want to do and living the kind of life that you want to live? What changes would you have to make in your life to be like that person? Remember: Whatever anyone has done, someone else can do as well. You'll never be exactly the same as another person, but you don't need to be. You can use the successes and achievements of other people as examples and guidelines to help you decide where you want to arrive at the end of your particular journey, but you can be unique and different and successful in your own way.
Harold Geneen, the former CEO of ITT and one of the most powerful business executives in American history, always used to say, "Start with the goal and work back." So decide where you want to end up somewhere down the road, and then plan back to the present day to determine what you're going to have to do to get there. If you can make an honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, your threats and vulnerabilities, your areas of potential opportunity and the areas that might be holding you back, you're in a perfect position to begin looking forward to the future, to decide where you want to go and what you want to achieve.
Finally, in personal strategic planning, the aim is always to achieve leadership in your chosen market niche. Business leaders have the authority to determine the area of excellence in their business. Analogously, on a personal level, you can choose the thing at which you're going to become absolutely excellent and achieve extraordinary results. So in what areas are you going to work to achieve results that are far beyond what the average person could be expected to accomplish?
What can you-and only you-do that, if done well, will make an extraordinary difference in your life? What can you do now, or can you learn to do in the future, that will give you the biggest payoff for the amount of time that you invest in it?
Remember: You were put on this earth with a special combination of talents and abilities that make you different from anyone who has ever lived. Whatever you're doing today, it's nowhere near what you're really capable of doing. The key to a happy and prosperous life is for you to regularly evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, to become very good in the areas you most enjoy, and then to throw your whole heart into what you're doing.
Part 1
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