It’s insulting to call a professional talented.
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Notes
Talent is what we’re born with.
Skill is earned, learned, practiced, hard-won, available to anyone who cares enough. It is more rare than talent.
A professional is above all skilled.
“If you put effort into your practice, you will be rewarded with better. Better taste, better judgment, and better capabilities.”
Thoughts
I’m not sure what to say here other than, “Yes, I believe this.” I’ve seen people with talent fall behind people who simply work harder (though “fall behind” implies a problematic sense of competition). Doing the work is more important.
Dweck’s concept of mindsets might deepen this, as well. Dweck notes that a person with a fixed mindset might avoid work because they believe they have an innate and limited talent. Work would expose them to the possibility that their talent is less than they believed, that they’d reach a limit and be done.
On the other hand, a person with the growth mindset would see talent as, at best, a starting point from which to grow—but not even necessary as a starting point.
Don’t rely on talent. And even if you believe you don’t have talent, start where you are.
This series is meant to capture my thoughts as I work through Seth Godin’s The Practice. It’s a book with over 200 (very short) chapters, which I hope to work through and, I further hope, to implement over time.
If you’re interested in more of Godin’s ideas, or my thoughts about them, you can check out this collection of posts. Note that if you’re more interested in the former, you should probably get Godin’s book and read it yourself; my notes will be both incomplete and idiosyncratic, and my thoughts will relate to my own experience.
But if my thoughts resonate with you, or if you think I’m just silly, I welcome your comments.