Just One Thing
Just One Thing
Not Everyone Shares Your Talents
Everyone has a different set of talents and recognizing that fact can go a long way in improving your relationships. This week, Lisa and Brad explore exactly what talents are, and provide examples that you can use to understand why unrecognized talent disparity can cause so many relationship problems.
Ever marveled at someone's effortless charisma or envied another's punctuality? This week's episode peels back the layers of human talents, examining the rich variety that makes each of us extraordinary. I unravel the tapestry of attributes, from the way Lisa masterfully sidesteps procrastination to why some struggle with the concept of 'time blindness.' It's an exploration into acknowledging that the talents we admire in others may not come as naturally to us, and that's perfectly okay.
Venture with me into the often overlooked corners of innate abilities and their undeniable influence on our personal and professional interactions. We're not all cut from the same cloth when it comes to skills like communication and empathy, and that's a game-changer in how we approach success. Without a guest to distract us, we get down to the nitty-gritty of managing expectations and fostering growth by embracing the unique talents each of us brings to the table. Join me, and together let's sculpt a life that not only celebrates our distinct gifts but also forges stronger, more empathetic connections with the people in our lives.
Hello and welcome to Just One Thing. I'm Brad Stearns, here with Lisa Stearns, and we're your hosts on this weekly exploration of simple ways to enhance your relationships, improve your health, manage your stress and just be happier. Now settle in while we discuss Just One Thing. Good day, good morning and welcome to the next episode of Just One Thing. Just One Thing is the podcast of Mindful Living Today. You can find us on Facebook at the Mindful Couple. We have a great Facebook group, mindful Living Today, with Lisa and Brad. We're also on Instagram. Today's episode is entitled Not Everyone Shares your Talents, and we'll sort of elaborate on what that means and why I decided to talk about this as we go. But I think it's something that's very important to bear in mind as you go through life, because when I talk about not everybody shares your talents, usually people think of talents like I can tap dance, I'm really fast, etc. But when I'm talking about talents, I'm just talking about basically human attributes. So how tall you are, I'm talking about that as a talent.
Speaker 1:Some people are very talented. They're seven feet tall. Some people are I don't know what the opposite of a genius is, but they're that. They're four foot two, so every attribute that a human being has I'm calling a talent. Some of these things are somewhat innate, like how tall you are, as we just talked about. Some of these things are very Like the empathy.
Speaker 1:You might be called, yeah, mundane or just. You might not even think of a talent, but it's an attribute, like how much empathy I have, how much I can focus those kinds of things. And the reason that I wanted to talk about this is because I think it has a big impact on how you evaluate and judge other people, because things that you think, oh, that's just natural, I just do that. Well, you might be a genius with that particular attribute and the other person might just lack it altogether. And so what got me thinking about this was two things. One was, like you, because something needs to be done, you can just sit down and do it. And I'm like how can you just do that? How can you just like I got to get this done and you sit down and do it. I'll procrastinate, I'll think about it for days, and then they'll finally do it. It might be late, and so you have a lot of talent in that attribute and I just like don't.
Speaker 1:And so the other thing about any talent is, as I said, some of it is just innate. You're born with it. And the other thing is, every attribute has some degree of trainability. Like you talk about how tall you are can't probably do much to change what your genetic predisposition is. But if you don't eat right you might not reach your full potential. You know, if you eat right, do all the things right, you'll reach your full potential with that particular attribute. So when I talk about trainability, that's sort of the environment, how you're raised, how much you actually practice things that you're exposed to. Awareness is how much that sort of innate ability to focus and get things done can be, can be changed by practice and those yes, yeah, I often think of Mother Teresa and you know she's known for just being and hugely giving giving person and her to me.
Speaker 2:her gift was giving, she just naturally Gave just and it's just hours and hours doing that was her thing and I think a lot of people are like that. A lot of people can give naturally, I think other people it doesn't come naturally to them and it doesn't make, I think, it very easy to look at that person say, well, they're selfish, they're self centered, right, they're not kind, they're not whatever, but for them that's just not they're, they're just born and wired differently.
Speaker 2:They have that attribute and they lead to a lesser degree right, right and as soon as if they choose to give, if they choose to become aware of that, then they can say oh, I get it. That's a good thing.
Speaker 1:I would like to aspire to that, so maybe I'll mark my calendar every 30th of the month I'll give something to something that they're very trainable for right, so they can actually become a huge altruist if they practice right. Other people may have that I'll just call it that selfish feeling or the lack of right empathy and giving right, and they may not be susceptible to as much training and awareness and they just can't make themselves feel like that no matter what they do. And here's an interesting thing that I always see all these posts on on social media says well, you don't have to have much talent to show up on time, you know to focus when you work, etc.
Speaker 2:But those are talents to tell us absolutely no.
Speaker 1:I just was read an interesting article in terms of just like showing up on time, right? You think, well, everybody can do that.
Speaker 1:No, they know they can't there are people that I love this term. They have a study. There's people that are called time blind. Yes, they just have no awareness of how time is passing, they just how it works and they, just, they, just. It is not a part of it's almost like they're truly blind. The passage of time is not something that they, their brain processes in is aware of. Now they can do certain things to practice, set alarms, become aware of it, and they might be able to train that to some degree, but they're never going to be like me, like I'm just like.
Speaker 1:I mean, I wake, I can wake up, I can wake up in the middle of the night. I think it's 413am and I look at it's like 413am. I mean, that's just, that's a, that's a, that's a super power talent that I have. Other people have the opposite of that. They just, they just can't do. We have a friend, a couple, who are truly time blind. No matter what they do, that passage of time just does not register in their head. So they, all of a sudden, they look at the clock like oh, it's six o'clock and we're supposed to be there six o'clock, yeah, or sleep, and so it's not something that everybody can do.
Speaker 1:And all of these attributes and I don't know if I'm not going to go into the statistics, but every attribute is distributed along a bell curve, or most of the people are closer than the middle, they have average amount of talent. Some people are either in their geniuses when it comes to telling time or not telling time, being time blind, some people are super tall, some people are really short, and every attribute is distributed along this. Now we have another friend who is a genius at. I'm gonna let you tell the story, because you wanted somebody to teach other people how to be a great salesperson.
Speaker 2:I think that was it. Yeah, so I have a person that I know who is just gifted at creating connections and getting new business startups.
Speaker 1:She is probably the world's greatest multi-level marketing person and she's done dozens of them.
Speaker 2:And everyone within the first year, she's at the top of their sales, and so I and running a. I used to run a mastermind group to help women grow their businesses and I thought she would be a great person to come in and talk about. Okay, this is how you build a team. This is how you create this dynamic, strong team that makes your business grow, and I just assumed that, because she was so naturally good at this, this was something she could talk about. She really could not talk about it, because that's made up of several attributes, you know.
Speaker 1:It's a friendliness and approachability, it's a communication skill, it's the knowing, the product, it's the reading, the emotions of the people you're talking to. So she just has a lot of this, just naturally, and she just like, she can just like, within a month she's got like 42 teams and 62 levels and she's pulling in a million dollars a month, you know, but she's not aware that she is a genius. She's a genius and this is a gift, and that other people need to figure out. What are all those distinct pieces that go into this and they may.
Speaker 2:Some of them are teachable and some of them are not much less teachable, you know.
Speaker 1:and then they may be just the, whatever the opposite of a genius is. They may not have that and or be able to train it, and so no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard they work, they'll just never have what she has.
Speaker 2:Right, and I think you see that a lot in a lot of and I don't want to disparage motivational speakers, but but I think a lot of the motivational speakers that I see, there is this assumption, like you say, if you work hard, if you do X, y and Z, you can be as successful as me. And I think there is a lack of understanding that, yes, you worked hard, I got it. You worked hard, you grew your business from nothing and now you're a millionaire, but you have all these component pieces that made you this superstar in this area. And other people are going to work really, really hard, but they're going to be missing the time management piece.
Speaker 2:They're going to be missing the how to read people piece. They're going to be missing the connection.
Speaker 1:Well, here's an interesting component to that too. You know, I'll just call this a talent and that's. It's probably differs from culture to culture, but everybody has a degree of attractiveness in their particular culture, and if you're, you know sales is a good one, because there's a whole bunch of attributes and talents that go into being sales. If you and I are equal, and I'm a more attractive person than you, my sales are going to be 10 times what yours are, and there's not much you can do about that.
Speaker 1:People just respond to you in that culture because you're just attracted to that person in terms of the if you're, if you're rated as more attractive, you're perceived as more trustworthy, more knowledgeable, all of those things. And I mean you can do things to make yourself more attractive, but some people just have a greater degree of talent in that area and you need to acknowledge and be aware of that and the person who's extremely attractive they can't just expect any you know, joe or Jane to be able to emulate what they're doing, because that person lacks that particular talent. That's part of this amalgam of multiple talents that go into this particular, you know, career.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep. Well, and again, I think it's just really important to recognize, for many reasons, what are your innate talents, that you do naturally, that maybe you have an expectation of? I think this is particularly important in relationships. What are?
Speaker 1:your relationships, relationships or raising kids too.
Speaker 2:Raising kids and at work. I think you know there's all areas that this is important, but I think if you don't understand that, you naturally have make connections. So here's a good example in my son.
Speaker 2:When I meet somebody, I have an automatic thing in my head. If they're telling me they have a need, like they're launching a new business, they're got a child of special needs, whatever it is, if there is, if I suspect a need there, my head automatically starts going through my tickle file of who do I know that I can connect this person with that can make their journey better, their business grow their.
Speaker 1:So you have a talent as a connector and bringing people together.
Speaker 2:And I don't have to do anything to do that. It's just the way my head works. But I think you need to recognize again that not everybody can do that.
Speaker 1:No, and I you know. So, for example, I have some sort of innate talents that probably are at the extreme end, Like when I focus.
Speaker 1:I can focus and the house can fall down. And if I'm focused and you know, I think we told a story in earlier podcasts where a dog literally chewed through a chair I was sitting on while I was focused on I think it was balancing a checkbook or studying or something like that and then you know, I can't expect other people to be able to focus like that and in fact a lot of people can't focus at all and so to expect them to do something, they need to be trained, they need a special environment, they need other things to enable them to take their smaller talent and be able to come up with a fairly equal outcome.
Speaker 2:Right. So if you're in, let's go back to relationships and expectations. So if you're in a relationship and you have this expectation that let's say somebody else, like your partner's never on time, you have to understand that your understanding of time, your innate ability to navigate time easily, is not there.
Speaker 1:Well, I may be upset, thinking they're just like they don't respect me why don't you just not recognizing that they just don't have this talent, they don't have a clock in their head.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that goes for anything that can be. That can be social connections.
Speaker 1:Like why can't you pay attention in class Jimmy?
Speaker 2:Right, because Jimmy can't pay attention in class.
Speaker 1:There needs to be other things to help him deal with what is a lack of talent to be able to focus and do what he needs to do in school Instead of being frustrated, you need to say wait a minute.
Speaker 2:if this is something that I'm consistently annoyed with, consistently frustrated with, consistently let down or whatever, or I it's the same issue, and I feel like somebody doesn't care for me because they're not showing up this way, then maybe that's the time to say okay, wait a minute, maybe this is a gift, maybe this is a gift in my area, but they need some. So and then reach out and say okay, I noticed that we're always having this problem with time. Is there something that I can do to help you navigate time better when it's important to me? You know?
Speaker 1:when we're doing something together and in some cases you just may have to acknowledge this person can't do this. They just don't, they're. They're up four foot two. I can't expect them to be six foot three, I can't expect them to be taller Exactly, and then there's nothing they can do to change that.
Speaker 1:So you need to adapt or realize I guess this relationship won't work because I can't adapt to that. They can't change, so that's no. I'm not saying that's always going to be the case. That's extreme Right Right. And some things can be trained, can be learned, but many things you're kind of stuck.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going back to your thing about being offended. You know, if you're constantly offended because you think someone is disrespecting you because they don't show up on time, then then look at well and and well, that sort of begs the question how easily are you offended?
Speaker 1:is a talent Right? Yeah, oh my gosh, because you whether it's a good or bad thing like I am never offended. I don't even see it, you don't even know that somebody is doing something and you are the opposite. Every little thing, like oh, they're dissing me or they're dissing you or whatever that case may be, and so that causes friction between us Because we're basically two extremes of that talent or attribute. Like I never see offense, you always see offense. And that's difficult because I can't understand. Why are you upset?
Speaker 2:What are you seeing?
Speaker 1:And Cindy said that to you, or you're mad at me, like, like Joe said that to you, like, why aren't you upset Right, right? And that causes friction because we have a very different extreme on that attribute or that talent.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yeah, I anyway, yes, I agree, and so I just think, in terms of relationships, it's really important to look at. Okay, maybe this is a thing about me that I need to stop and say well, wait a minute, this person is always doing this thing, and we've had these conversations and they just don't seem to be different than that's not a disrespect thing, it's not an unkindness thing, it's not a lack of love. It's just something they can't do and we need to look at another path. Either I need to make another choice or we need to navigate this situation differently.
Speaker 1:So, as we're winding down here on this topic, I find this just fascinating, because it's rare to think of all of these attributes as a talent that we share differently, that we have an sort of an innate amount of this talent, and then each of the talents is trainable or not trainable to a certain degree. So if you would offer somebody just one thing, as it relates to this, what would you just pass along?
Speaker 2:I think judgment, you know, judgment is a big one just in terms of just not recognizing that this is a talent of yours and other people are not operating with the same deck of cards.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, and mine is I don't think people think of all of these attributes as talent or not talent, and I think if you start thinking of all of the things that you're good at, or part of what you're good at, as talents and not recognizing that not everybody has that, that goes a long way towards sort of helping you build a better life for yourself, but also in terms of your relationships with other people. I love these kinds of topics.
Speaker 2:So until next time.
Speaker 1:This has been Just One Thing.