LAM FACIAL PLASTICS

Great entry about our talents, our strenght zones and how those must work synergically with our passion.

I loved this comment in particular:

> How do you know your strength zone? It would help to get feedback from those around you. Perhaps you think you are good at something, but that is not the consensus out there.

I think that is a great piece of advice.
Looking back at my life and the energy I spent in different activities, and then comparing both the energy and time spent on those "things" versus the passion I felt for them, I realize I sometimes worked hard for stuff I *assumed* was or would become a passion of mine only because I had the talent for it, and, the opposite, sometimes I worked hard at doing something because I was passionate about it, yet I spent too much time and energy for not so good results because... well, I obviously had the passion but not the talent for those "things".

We all grow up with an image of ourselves that facts over time seem to reinforce or not. The funny thing is that not all of our talents are evident "from day one"... some are developed/"gained" over time, some others were always "there" but undiscovered until some events brought those talents up, others were/are used without our even being aware of it!

Other times we just have a "script" in our head based on something we told ourselves in the past, or that someone (sometimes just one person!) said, in the past, after some sort of failure of ours. Sometimes, the memory of those negative comments or judgements from someone or from ourselves (based in maybe just one little experience or thing we failed at!), lead us to believe or assume we are not gifted for something we might be gifted for, yes!!
Our prejudgements and even the influence of a specific person who for whatever reason downplayed some of our talents or played up some others that were not actually "there" can make us have a skewed vision of what our skills and strenghts REALLY are.

That's why trying to find out what *others* think are our strenghts and weaknesses can be really eye-opening.
What is important, then, is to make sure we seek for that info among true friends and not among people who will want to either say whatever we want to hear or, the opposite, will belittle our capability to do "things".

All this reminds me of a previous subject in this board, one that was about how the people we choose to have around us reflect who and how we really are. I think that that is something really important to keep in mind when trying to figure out our real abilities, skills and weaknesses: to think of how and why some people in particular became our friends and why and how we "cilck" and help each other. What is that others love (or dislike) in us.

Another way I think we can get an idea of what we are passionate AND talented about is to stop and think of situations in which we accomplished something and that we felt great afterwards. Usually, the successes that get stuck in our memory are those that mattered the most to us... and it's usually what we are passionate about what we remember more vividly.

I think that whenever we use our talents in doing something we are passionate about or that is close to whatever our passion is, we are left with a strong "I feel good" sensation that lingers and lingers. If we remember something we did or participated in and where our role fills us with memories of joy and pride (as in being proud of ourselves, not as in being conceited) , we will probably discover or confirm that those events were linked to whatever is a real passion of ours, for which we have shown to have talents for!

"You must marry your passion with your talents. You can’t just have one or the other. Passion without talent will not lead to success. Talent without passion won’t get you very far".

True.
I find the semantics of that first sentence really interesting and like they say it all just with the word "marriage". A marriage implies an alliance, a "covenant", where two people "click" and, together, achieve more than alone, as they help each other by one bringing up the best in the other in a never ending "virtous" circle.

Sometimes people use their *talents-without-passion* long enough or consistently enough as to get "somewhere", say, get a degree, earn money, etc. Yet, it still will not have gotten people far in terms of making them happier. When talents are used with passion, even the smallest accomplishment adds to our happiness and to having further motivation to improve.

I remember clearly how, maybe because I come from a family of architects and people gifted for arts, I "excelled" at drawing. Everyone assumed I would get a degree on architecture or arts, because I was talented for it. And yes, I was. I was really good at it. But I felt no passion for it. I enjoyed drawing and I still enjoy it. I still enjoy arts. But they are more like "interests" and hobbies than passions. That's why I would not get particularly happy after getting great grades in art classes. I knew I was supposed to feel super good, but I just felt happy I had worked well... I did not feel the tingle of "yeah! I love this and one day I will use this talent to ____ (fill in the blank)".

I was blessed in the sense that I had parents who always cared for me and my sisters to do our best in whatever endeavor we would start but while they would always encourage us to *not* be mediocre, they wouldn't, neither, pretend us to excel at x or y specific thing or attain x or y specific goal. They thought we had to follow our heart in terms of what to do in life, and then, yes, put our heart and efforts fully into it. And that was a great thing, because had they been different, I probably would have been influenced by them to pursue arts-related studies, which was what most other people pressured me to follow.

My parents did not even suggest I had to study this or that, nor spoke of "wasting" or using my talents when following any specific sort of studies. I am so grateful for that, because it gave me more mental freedom to risk to take a path for which my talents were not "that" obvious.

I still love drawing and arts: I just happen to enjoy them as hobbies or matters to read about, and am content with it. I would probably have had the talent to become an architect or have some other arts-related occupation, but would have ended up lacking of motivation to work and strive in my field of work.

Funny enough, I am not nearly as good in a lot of the "stuff" that make for my real passions, yet is is thrilling and motivating to develop new abilities and skills in those fields, find out what my strenghts are, and make the most of them. Trying to find what my talents are in what is linked with my passions might seem like something silly to others: I still encounter people who show disapppointment in my not having done x or y thing they thought I was ready or good for. But I know I would not have found happiness in that, and that, eventually, I will be far better at doing those other things I might not be so "obviously" talented for, but that I still have some talents for that I truly, truly work at improving and shaping.

We just must keep in mind that sometimes people, and well intentioned people oftentimes!, might not encourage us to follow the path/s we have chosen. But if deep inside we listen to ourselves and "lead" ourselves in that path, we will be far happier than if we had done what others assumed was best for us.

Golly! This should go in the guinness book of records, mysteryagain!!

Great insight as always!

Charms!

I am glad you found it interesting, but you know, you can always tell me what you didn't like or what you disagree... as Dr Lam said in a previous entry of the blog, not taking things personally is an important lesson. I am generally not offended by corrections to my English nor by people stating that they disagree with me (I say generally because some people use a "tone" that really is meant to sound derogative, but it is not the case with the people here... you all are great people with good manners and no ill intentions).
So feel free to teach me or correct me.
Hugs!

M/A--very interesting that you love art and are artistically inclined! It shows in the way you write, as of course verbal/written expression IS art, too. I very much appreciate the way you think. I learn new vocabulary from you all the time. I know a lot--and there's a LOT I don't know! We are blessed with your presence, voice, and influence.

Your thoughts on your upbringing are especially useful to me. I want to push my child, really do anything I can to help her find her way, her passion in life. It's a fine line! Your parents, well, the proof is in the pudding in your case. Kudos to them on you.

My dad (here I go, lol, he's just a good source, frame of reference for me) should have amounted to nothing, might have expected nothing from life. His own father died when he was two, leaving a wife alone with six children in the 1940's. Life was beyond difficult for them. The children nearly starved to death. They all had to work young, the kind of young that anyone finds incredible, hard to believe. Those kids were teased mercilessly at school for having foul clothing and being dirty. My dad had no more than appr. 5th grade education. (That's about 10 yrs. old in U.S. schools.) I really don't know how he survived or what he did. He won't ever tell or talk about the hardships. I have only learned what I know from aunties who married his brothers.

To the point. He married his passion with his (then) only talent. Making things run. Engines/big trucks. We had little $$ when I was little. I learned the word 'broke' very young. He was always convinced he could be a success, could give us all a better life. He DID! (yeah dad) He set up his own business and made it grow and thrive. He worked all hours, took calls to go do any work at any hour. Always happy and glad to go to work. Many people in his circle, less motivated and hardworking, would say, "He's SO LUCKY." This made me angry, always. He was not lucky primarily. He was hardworking and very, very motivated. He married his talent with his passion and completely changed many futures as a result.

Thanks for letting me put all this here on your bandwidth. I know what you are teaching is TRUE!

Wow, Memento, you make me blush! Thanks.

The funny thing is that I have such a hard time believing it! I mean, I believe you, you are not a liar!!, but it's hard for me to see my writing the way you do. For once, because it is not my own language and I always feel like I lack of enough "words" with the exact nuances I need in order to express more precisely my ideas.

I also have the bad habit (well, I know it bothers some people ) of writing in English using basically a Spanish or Portuguese-based type of writing.
Which means, in short, that I make long sentences with tons of commentaries ( "( )", "- -").
That might be the normal way to write in these latitudes: people are used (expect, even) to have observations and comments "falling" here and there in the sentence, before or while the idea is being developed. As if you expected others to talk to you following their line of thinking as it happens in real life.

Back to the topic...

I would have never thought of writing as way to show one's inclination for arts. Well, sure I did, but when thinking of the big names in literature, not of me when writing about "my normal stuff" *LOL*.
(Well.. if "normal" applies to me *ROFLMAO* at all!).

> We are blessed with your presence, voice, and influence.

It's rather the other way around, but I am happy if you feel that way. As long as we feel blessed by each other's presence here, no matter how good or bad we are at writing or how good or bad our comments are, we will always learn from each other big time. Yeah!

It was amazing reading about your father. I can't even imagine the life he had! And I am deeply admired by the way he handled that hardship. As opposed to what so many people do, he refused to assume the role of the "poor me, I am a victim" and went on with life taking it as a battle toward something good, that he would win step by step, bit by bit. His perseverance and positive attitude, along with a lack of self-compassion made all the difference. It certainly was not "luck" and I would have been really mad if I had heard that. It was not luck. It was having his goals clear in his mind, going for them, and going for them with a positive attitude, and not scared of working hard for it. Yeah!!!!!!!!
What an example, what a role model!!!!! And he did not just change his life, but those of others, of many! It's incredible.
God bless him!

>Your thoughts on your upbringing are especially useful to me. I want to push my child, really do anything I can to help her find her way, her passion in life. It's a fine line!

That's such a wonderful attitude of yours! Most parents, yes, nowadays too (I see that around among people my age -35 or so-) pressure their kids into using their talents in one given way only... or pressure them to use some of their talents only and not develop others... or pressure them to develop talents they really have no real interest or skills to develop. I find that sad.

My parents' philosophy when raising us was simple. Not that they said it to me that way, but I guess it from their actions: "all that deserves to be done, must be done as well as you can" AND "in the end, what matters is that in your dying bed you will look back at life and feel you have used what God gave you in the way YOU thought He wanted you to use it".

In more practical terms, they would often ask me how interested I was in some subject I seemed talented for and also why I did this or that I was lousy at . Not to discourage me. I think they were only trying to understand me and see if by watching me and my actions, and then my own opinions on how much I liked this or that, they could suggest ways of developing those talents more, or developing new ones by making me attend courses or situations where I would explore those skills or abilities they wonder if I could and wanted to develop more and more.

I thought it was clever from them to basically "watch" me and suggest activities without pushing me. They pushed me, yes, about doing my best at school. They did not care for grades, they cared about my learning the discipline of having perseverance and responsiblity when it came to studies. If I was lousy at maths or not, it was not really important. What mattered is that I dedicated enough time to it as to be sure that if I was not doing ok at it, it was NOT out of irresponsibility or laziness.
But regarding everything else, they just suggested activities, and something I will always be thankful for: they made me try activities that interested me in fields that were apparently totally unrelated. That gave me a taste of different sorts of activities and made me explore my talents or lack of thereof for different "stuff".

But the key element behind their attitudes, and this, yes, I heard from them often, was to always be motivated in life to be someone better. Doing what? How? It didn't matter. I had a calling, or many callings that only I could understand and figure out, but once I would find them, I had to answer to those callings the best I could. That regardless of the social status of whatever activity I chose, that it would make me feel like I was really contributing to the world to be a better place, even if doing just very simple stuff that did not represent a "wow" contribution to humanity.

Motivation was key to them, and they judged my actions over how I had acted regarding my own standards and my own goals/objectives. They cared for me to do the things for the right reason, regardless of the result.
An explanation. Something that might sound silly, but that really, really had an impact in me when I was a child. Something that took me a while to understand but once I did... well... I realized what an important lesson they had taught me.

I was in school and a teacher suggested us to work further on a science project we had already started and being evaluated for. By doing that extra work, she said we would earn a good grade. In other words, I was indirectly offered a way to finish that year of school with a higher grade and more positive evaluation than if I didn't.
I went home and was excited about getting an even better grade (I had done well already with the project as it was!) and asked Dad for some help with starting it. I was so excited about getting that grade (let's call it an A+, which I assume would be the equivalent there), that I candidly told my Dad about it. Dad stared at me and asked me, with a serious face: "why are you doing this, then? will you work on this project because you really want to? or will you work on it only because you want to get the highest possible grade in your class?". I candidly said: "well, I really would love to have that A+!". Dad, then, to my surprise, told me: "then, I am sorry. You will be on your own because I won't help you. I am all for helping you when you really want to do something because you think it is good and useful and that it motivates you to learn more. I won't help you if what moves you is the doing it to satisfy some silly vanity of being the "top of the class"". I was flabbergasted. I had assumed that getting the best possible grades was always good, regardless of the motivation. I had judged everything, until then, by the results, and not necessarily by the how's and when's and because's. Not by my motivation behind it. In this case, indeed, I was moved by sheer vanity. The vanity of standing out in the class as the best student (since I already had good grades). My father had found that something he should never encourage. My hard work? My desire to do my best and even push myself to do things even better than I had done them before? yes. He would encourage that. But he would not encourage my setting myself goals and objectives based on selfish, passing, mediocre motivations like those linked to sheer vanity.

It took me a while to fully understand (I was 8!) what he meant, but ever since, it is something that has "haunted" my decisions in life (and I mean haunted in a good way). At times of doubt I have asked myself: "why am I doing this? Is it to please myself and better myself? Or am I just trying to be nice, to earn "points" in the eyes of the others? Am I just really interested in this or am I interested in it because what I really want is to flatter my vanity if I do well at it? Am I choosing that job because I really like the idea of doing it? or because I will gain more money and have, in the eyes of others, a better life... while putting behind more important dreams?" Other times, the same teaching made me question myself: "if I take this job, will I like the person I will likely become like by working in this environment? Will the salary or benefits or prestige I would get be bonuses? or would they be the sole things I would get from this job... while I would likely get other influences by working there that would likely not help me at being any better of a person?". And trust me... by asking myself that, I discovered many times that I should not take those jobs because I would then fall into the trap of the inertia and of doing what *seems* more logical or like the key to my success in the eyes of "everyone"... but not really in mine!

The other important lesson I remember now they taught me was: "if you are not being totally irrational or irresponsible and yet your guts tell you to do/not do something and that everyone disagrees, don't listen to them. Sometimes what seems to be giving up on something means choosing something else. Even if that something else seems like a non reality (yet). Even if it seems like what you gave up is something that would have made your life better (but deep inside you didn't feel like it was right to do it, anyway). Life will find a way to put you in the right path to find what you really needed and wanted... but precisely IF AND ONLY you will have left room for life to give you that opportunity you really look for... by not having chosen that other path, a path where that one opportunity would probably not have had the occasion to raise!".
Each time I gave up on something based on that line of thinking, hardships or not in between, eventually things worked for the better. Each time, life/God sent some other opportunity, let me notice something "else" that shaped new decisions that eventually lead me to better places Not always financially, sometimes just in terms of my persona. But that's what matters, right?

Sorry for the loooooooooooong message. I just think that if we all shared a bit more what we learned from our parents, good and bad, we would learn to identify better and faster patterns of thinking that either hurt us or made us a great good, and that those in turn can be used by others to learn new things or evaluate their own life nad their impact in others1.

Thanks for sharing your father's story again!!!!! How inspiring!

man, i love all of your stories. remembering my blogs about Gladwell's The Outliers, we truly are a product of where we come. our parents shape and develop us in profound ways that we do and do not recognize. M/M, thanks for your honesty. I like M/A what you said about grades. Interestingly, I was always focused on grades because it made me "better" than my peers. I am off for a long weekend in Marble Falls, TX, with my EO group and we just did an exercise about values. I may put that into a blog in the future. It was really interesting because all of the values I picked were no longer about competition with my peers but competition with myself. i have really only come to realize that more in the past year. as i have said, these blogs are extremely cathartic for me. we all can grow and sharing in this forum helps our tight community do so. heather, M/A, and M/M have become my triumvirate. maybe i'll just refer to you guys as T/V!
good night,
sml

Triumvirate? What if there are four!? (If there is such word I trust you'll know it. ) Shout out to Datayers!
There are some other regulars we all want to see/read more from, too!

oh, sorry datayers. forgot. okay, how about the Fantastic Four! i'll come up with a name for 5 if someone else responds here. more the merrier!

Triunvirates, Fantastic Four's, Quintuplets... the more, the merrier!!!

You all have such a great sense of humor!

Dr Lam, what a good way to put it: compete with ourselves instead of competing with our peers . Love that.
Of course I will have to remind myself that competing with myself does not mean getting too mad at myself when I fail or do not live up to my own expectations. That's one hard balance to reach: to compete with oneself as to not settle for what and how we are if we can be "more" and better (by our own standards and not comparing ourselves to others, nor other people's lives), yet not do so in a way that could get us very discouraged each time we would/will fail (because there is no way we won't fail a thousand times!).

I read not too long ago here something that reminded me of another article, in a women's magazine, that I found good: it was all about confronting our fear of failure and de-dramatizing it by choosing to do "stuff" knowing we will fail, or could fail, and embracing the idea that we likely will fail. Take something (say, a hobby, a sport) we want to practice but know we will basically be bad at and "enjoy the ride" (this reminds me of another entry of the blog!) all while having fun at our shortcomings, developing our talents so that we won't be as bad *LOL* at doing that as we used to... and, who knows? maybe even get a great surprise by finding out that we were much better at doing that thing than we ever dreamed of.

I have tried that a couple of times and I never thought I could have so much fun trying something while sucking at it. It was extremely liberating to enjoy myself while doing something, yet enjoy myself even more precisely because of how funny I looked like or was like when trying to do those things.
Who could have thought failing, if we accept it and take it as a game (well, and if it's about stuff that won't hurt anyone) could be really fun? and teach us lessons on taking things less seriously?

Because I have the bad tendency to have high expectations for myself when it comes to the matters I care for, I plan on trying some "I will likely fail"- activities related to my passions. That way, I think that, personally, it will be easier for me to keep on working on my passions all while not forgetting that I can have fun while competing with myself. If I get better at what I want, soon, great, if I don't... well, I will have had a good laugh and will likely have more patience and understanding with myself.
I must really focus on that because I have a tendency to suffer from low self-esteem, and when we feel bad about ourselves, we only keep on failing at what we do.. IF we dare to keep on doing anything at all.

Have a nice weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

remember the four agreements that i wrote about. the contract for self-renewal is DAILY!
best,
sml