Summary
- Know yourself. Know your talents and what you are good at.
- Develop your talents and skills. Putting effort and resources on activities you are passionate about produces the best outcomes in life.
- Success is to have balance in all aspects of life. You do not want to be a one category champion.
Related Topics
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- My Name is Mr. Globalization PhD, and I Just Took Your Job!
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- The 4 D&Cs: How To Live a Happier Life
Nature
A vast majority of people often say that they are what they are because of their genetic makeup. To a certain extent, this is true because genes is a big part of our identity. I do believe, however, that much of what and who we are is the product of the choices we make in life and how much effort we put into it!
Nurture
I read an article many years ago that talked about how our existence on earth is similar to a person going to work out at a gym. The gym provides plenty of options for anyone looking to develop their mental (overcoming the pain) and physical muscles. If you want to develop your heart muscles you, get on the treadmill or elliptical. If you want to develop your biceps, you can use dumb bells and/or do bench presses. Developing these muscles or talents require work and time, and more importantly, pain. I read from a book before that says, “…there is no such thing as glamorous growth, only painful ones.”
The Paragons of Nature and Nurture
All of us are endowed with natural abilities. The question is, do we take the time to think about developing them? Michael Jordan was given a raw talent and an excellent body build. Yet, during his prime years, he exercised and practiced more than any other NBA player in history. A vast majority agree that Michael Jordan could not have won so many championships had he not made the choice to practice every day. In one of the documentaries I watched, I remember that one of his coaches said something like “…you really have to dynamite him out of the court, otherwise, he will just stay there for hours practicing.”
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are also known for their natural talents which are their brains and laser focus attention, respectively. At a really young age of 9 to 16 years old, Both Gates and Buffet spent countless hours programming or analyzing companies. Gates often coded until 2am. Buffet often joked that some men would spend hours flipping through the pages of Men’s Health magazines. He, on the other hand, would spend so many hours in the local library digging through the pages of companies’ financial reports. According to his biography Snowball, he would read at least 3 newspapers and reports from 5am until 11pm – yes, close to midnight! Now, a simple math calculation would put that number to 18 hours a day (granted that he took breaks). Even if you put that to just 12 hours a day, that is still a lot of hours invested.
When it comes to intelligence, I do believe that no one is born dumb and everyone is endowed with a functioning brain that is capable of being developed. Unlike physical maturity that stops in our early 20s, learning development continues until we die. And just like physical muscles, brain muscles can be developed through reading, solving problems, thinking through puzzles, analyzing situations, etc. I am not a neurologist, but I do believe that brain capacity continually creates space as they are needed.
What Are You Naturally Good At?
It is really important to figure out what you are naturally good at and assess what your raw talents are. For some, this may not be too obvious and so it is helpful you seek feedback from people you trust and have known for some time. Your parents, teachers, or people who have known you a long time should be able to provide you with an assessment. Introspectively, you can ask yourself: what are the things you enjoy doing that even though it is hard, you still find pleasure (this should be different from things you find interesting. For example, I find astrology interesting, but it is not where my passion is)?
Personally, I love or enjoy solving business problems and entrepreneurial pursuits. I think I am just wired that way. In fact, it’s hard for me to sleep at night if a problem is still unresolved. I find it exhilarating to be able to diagnose and get to the cause of the problem. So, I knew this was my strength!
Once you have figured out what you are naturally inclined in doing, the next step is to focus on developing them.
Importance of Hard Work
In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell provided research studies on how virtuosos become experts at what they do. They spend so much time learning and training themselves, and for a vast majority of these experts they spent about 10,000 hours to become such experts.
Depending on how many hours you work each day, 10,000 hours equate to anywhere from 5 to 10 years depending on how many hours each week you work. On top of work, there are what I call attachments or tools you can acquire to further enhance your capabilities like taking classes in the field you are good at, or being a “padawan” to someone you admire. Let me take you back to Warren Buffet’s life story. He was gifted. Then he enrolled in Columbia Business School where he became a student of Ben Graham who is widely considered the father of Value Investing. There, he acquired the skill/tools and experience/apprenticeship. He continued this practice. People who channel their energy and time in pursuing things they are passionate about, in large measure, become very successful at what they do.
The Balancing Act
I am not advocating that you work solely on one endeavor that you neglect the other important aspects of your life. In fact, I am advocating that you should have a balanced approach to achieving your goals. A well-balanced life should focus on six aspects: Physical, Spiritual, Intellectual, Social, Emotional, and Financial. An imbalanced life produces many regrets, frustration, and broken relationships. What is a $100 million if your children are all estranged from you? What is a $20 million yacht with no real friends on it? In short, wealth, past a certain point, becomes less important. The key is finding the right balance in achieving your goals. Now, will there be times that your life will be imbalanced? Yes. But over time, as you pay attention and monitor your activities, you should be able to determine gaps and excesses and address them.
Time is A Precious Commodity
We are given 24 hours each day. For the sake of argument, we all need 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, and 8 hours of discretionary time (we can all also re-balance this time where some people would sleep less so they could work a little more or have more discretionary time).
How you spend this discretionary 8 hours should be given much thought. You do not want to waste this precious time on activities that do not add much value or a long lasting impact on your life. You don’t want to be consuming media items that will become irrelevant after one or two years. Instead, you can probably read some time-tested books because when you read them, you learn valuable principles that you can apply in your life (I avoid reading fad books where after 2 to 3 years they no longer matter or they just become obsolete). These learnings will add value to yourself, relationships, work, and other life aspects (books like Harvard Classics, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Value Investing, biographies of leaders are good examples). Focus on using time on things that would significantly matter to you in the next 10 to 30 years.
You also want to make sure that your social, emotional, and physical conditions are well maintained. For example, when you are in your 20s, you will most likely spend more time with friends and work. But as you age or you get married, you need to spend more time with your family. You also need more time to exercise as our muscles atrophy as we age. You get what I am saying here. Personally, I don’t get this schedule 100% all the time, but I try to get to it as close as I can to make it optimally balance.
The Seasoned Human Being
To close, I would like to share two separate quotes from US President Teddy Roosevelt:
“We must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal…. “
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly … who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.”
Successful and seasoned individuals are those who have figured out what they are passionate about, have gone through the toils of life – battle scarred, fatigued, yet have fought valiantly, and endured well to the end.
Your body is gifted to you. Value it. Cherish it. Ennoble it!
Action Item
I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts and opinions or your experiences that made you successful in life.