How To Find My Talent?

What is my talent? It is a question that may appear to everyone’s mind, when a kid thinking about which club I should join in; when a young person try to figure out what major I should select for college; when people try to start my career and find a direction for myself; when a middle age wants to change the line after many years boring work, just trade my time to money; when a person try to start my own business. If I can find my talent, the thing I can do better than others, thing will work out for me. But what is my talent? How can I find it?

Here is what I find from WIKIPEDIA, talent is “Aptitude, a talent is a group of aptitudes useful for some activities; talents may refer to aptitudes themselves”. A group of aptitudes? In dictionary, the aptitude is a natural ability to do something, what natural abilities? How to find? More confusing seems likely.

May easier to see from an example? Steve Jobs. Everyone may agree Steve is talented. He brought iMac, iPod, iPhone, Apple App store, Apple music, Apple TV to our world. He found Pixar and made a series movie like 'TOY STORY', etc. He changed the way of our life. what makes him special? What cause his successful? His talent? Can we be more specific? I picked three stories from two books: 'Steve Jobs' and 'Becoming Steve Jobs'.

Must be perfect, no matter what

1. When Apple planned to open its first Apple retail Store, the layout is based on different products, like a section for laptop, another section for desktop. When everything was close to set-up, a designer, Ron Johnson, suggested Steve to change by the functions. A section to show customers how to use Apple products to film and edit their videos; another for music, for example. it mad Steve and yell to him, do you know how much we need to change for this? It took our six months to get everything setup, now you tell me you want to change everything over again?It was a dead silence on the way they drove together to the morning meeting. Steve suddenly said on the meeting, Ron just told me his new idea for our store, I think he is right, we need to start over again.
2. Former Apple developer Matt Drance recalled the experience: "I worked at one point for 72 sleepless hours for something that Steve Jobs showed on stage for 9 seconds. It didn't look any different on that screen as it did on mine, but it was the knowledge that it was good enough to be on the stage that made it suddenly look different. I'll never get that chance again, and I'm glad I had it."
3. Many people know Steve Jobs dead on cancer in 56. But mayn’t know, the cancer of Steve had with high change to heal if he listened to his doctor, to have the surgery, instead of wasting the nine crucial months. Let’s see what he did in hospital. One time after Steve had a sedative, doctor asked him to put a mask on. Steve refuse to do wear it because he thought the mask is ugly. He asked for different masks to choose. He gave suggestions to simplify the finger detector and equipment, even he is dying.
   What could we learn? if his success from his talent, what is it?

In general, the talent should like on things like singing, math, or sport, etc. Let’s dig deeper here, what drive those called “talented” person to be so special? What drive them doing same thing over and over again, day in and day out?

What drove Steve Jobs changed an Iron hundreds times, careless to drive designers and engineers all craze?

What drove him to practice his presentation over 72 hours, just for 9 second?

What drove him tried to mortify the hospital equipment, even when he was dying?

The human natures drive him. One is fear, one is satisfaction.

Steve Jobs change the iron hundred times, not because he pursuit of excellence. It is because he can’t bear with it, looking at the iron is driving his craze, he must change it to the way he likes to be satisfied, same thing as he change the mask and finger detector in hospital.

There is a book called 'The road to excellence', it indicates how people be a master on something if they will spend 10,000 hours on practicing on it. If It is a full-time job, it will cost 4.8 years (10,000 hour/8 hours a day/5 day a week/52 week a year). Be aware, it isn’t simply repeat, you must get out of your comfort zone and keep pushing your boundary. Something like a group of wolves try to catch a buffalo, it is about live or die, it is hard for both sides, the survival instinct drives them to fight.

Majority start from normal, the different is the thing to fear that keep pushing forward, or the thing constantly giving satisfaction every time done it. Looking for something that make you fear or satisfied you, it is your talent, it is something that finally make you different.