The Sunday Mail
To be talented and lazy is as good as self-mutilation.
It has been many years since my grandmother, my heroine, passed on. Yet, to this day I cannot shake off the many stories and fables that she shared with me.
She did not read to me; she connected with me in a language and style that I could relate with easily. She was a living semi-mobile library that had comedy, memoirs, social commentary, history, biography, music, fiction and non-fiction genres. When she died, I was devastated. Her death was like the reckless burning of a library that had a rare collection. I wish I had the wherewithal to record her performance and jewels of wisdom.
Your opportunities to do good, touch someone, make a difference in a special way are your talents. Use them well. I remember grandma saying that in her experience as a midwife she never witnessed a child born with open palms.
That, in her world, would have been a black swan event. She said that you come into this world with clenched fists, grasping tightly your talents and ready to box with life. She was right. Life is a boxing match and you have to fight with yourself to unleash your talents. To die with clenched fists and unreleased talents is a choice that you make.
You cannot blame your time, ancestry or circumstance. No one is so poor that he has nothing to work with. So long as you are willing to fight the right fight, your talents will be expressed. Talent alone is not enough. You have to be willing to work on your talent, shape your gifting and follow it to the sweaty places where it will lead. If you are not willing to work on your talents, you will forever be complaining that you were doled an inferior lot in life’s sweep stakes.
Make the right choices
The choices you make determine the direction you go. Make the right choices and life becomes easier. Do not allow your fears to choose for you and to call you to the safe place of doing nothing, disturbing nothing and affecting nothing. The biggest risk you can take with your talent is to risk nothing.
Doing nothing is ultimate cowardice. Complaining without doing anything is ultimate nausea. Determine that as you fight and work on your talent you will leave a dent on the universe. To be born and then die without living a trace that you ever existed is to curse your ancestry.
Choose the narrow path that will demand your effort, hard-work and commitment. To expect greatness while doing nothing to be great is criminal. Success that comes by luck is sometimes suspect. It is not the luck that you get that matters, but what you do with the luck that you get.
It is not the number of talents that you have that matters, but the ones you work on. Choose to let your light shine and your talent bloom.
Choose to use the talents and spare no moment in doubt and idle contemplation.
Make the most of the talents you were given. Burying the talent in the safe sands of time is an unwise choice.
Using age as an excuse is to give age the credibility it does not deserve.
Life is a journey
Bob Marley once said: “Though the road’s been rocky it sure feels good to me.”
As you ride your way through life, the journey can sometimes be bumpy, dangerous and challenging. The journey is usually the reward in itself. Life is not designed to be a sedentary easy affair, it is just designed to be possible. It is a boxing match and you have to have the tenacity and courage to survive your allotted rounds.
You will get your share of punches, but that comes with the game. Being knocked down is not being knocked out. Failing is not fatal. It is one of the few journey landmarks. To be knocked out without having punched is to disappoint your forebears.
Never let a rough patch on the journey tempt you to believe that the journey has ended and there no road ahead. Keep searching for ways to grow and express your talents. Talent is only a starting point but never a destination.
You are born for greatness, engineered for success and endowed with talents and gifts that if used will make the journey an ultimate pleasure.
Wake up daily determined to walk your paces, tap into your talents and improve your life. Work and improve daily.
What you do daily determines what you will become ultimately. Take one step at a time. Never let the baton of opportunity find you sleeping, fearful, discouraged, despondent and retired.
You may not see the whole road, but move in the light that you can see. Serve with your talent in humility. Work on the gifts you have and the talents you see. Each step you take will open the next door. You will be shown the path to take as you walk along the way and use your talents.
Do not be impatient and avoid comparing yourself with others. Be the best you were born to be.
You are not wired like everyone else and you were not born clutching their talents. Long journeys tempt you to wish for an early terminus. Stay the course and work your journey. Every journey of talent calls for patience and fortitude. Do not give up and stop trying because some people do not appreciate you or even pay attention to your talent. Value your prized talent pearls.
Come to the stage
Do not hide your talents, use them. Your talents were never meant for you. Talents are like children. You have the responsibility to develop them and they are meant to be a vehicle for you to be useful to other people. Every hidden talent is a missed opportunity. Do not let fear tempt you to run and hide. Choose to come to the stage and share your talent. Do not wait for the grand and decorated stage. Bloom where you are planted. Use your gifts in the contexts you find yourself in. Your happiness manifests as you use your gifts. There is opportunity beyond your wildest dreams.
Every animal has its sound. Sound your talent because the night would be dark if only the brightest stars shine. It would also be quiet if only the loudest animals sang.
Use what you have with confidence and faith. Adorn ordinary talent with extra-ordinary determination and work and you will manifest greatness. Your greatness is already there, waiting for you to reach for it as you express your talents and serve.
Heed the intense desires that throb in you. Follow your heart with passion. Work hard, with diligence and focus. Soon people will be calling you talented. If you have identified a talent use it in every way you can. Do not just sit on your talent, you will break it. Do not hide it, you will dent it. Do not dole your talent like a miserable miser. Share it lavishly. Seek to be a blessing and to make a difference for many. Hard work without talent is a personal burden.
Talent with laziness is a national burden and personal tragedy. You have work to do, it is too early to be obsessed with dying, when there is so much to live for.
Milton Kamwendo is a cutting-edge international transformational and inspirational speaker, author and coach. He is a strategy, innovation, leadership and management consultant. His life purpose is to inspire people to release the greatness trapped in them. He can be reached at: [email protected] and on WhatsApp at: 0772422634.
