You Don’t Need To Be Talented At Everything To Succeed. One Thing Is Enough.

You Don't Need To Be Talented At Everything To Succeed. One Thing Is Enough.
You Don’t Need To Be Talented At Everything To Succeed. One Thing Is Enough.

 

By Anubhav Srivastava. (Register For His Workshop – Super Confidence For Super Success)

You don’t need to be talented at everything to succeed. You just need to have one skill you are good at and that’s it, you can make a living off that one skill. And I am pretty sure almost everyone in the world has at least one skill they are good at, even if they are not aware of it. It doesn’t even matter how old you are, unless you are in a physically demanding activity and even then there have been so many examples of famous people taking on strenuous physical activities at a later age and still succeeding with them!

When I was young, I had low self esteem because there were a lot of things I wasn’t good at compared to everyone else. I wasn’t particularly good at sports, I wasn’t good at arts, I was super thin and obviously that wasn’t attractive to girls.

Then I went through a period where I became really fat and that only made me sort of ugly.  Because of this I went through a phase where I used to doubt myself a lot.  After losing weight I managed to improve the way I looked but I still do suck at the other things. But guess what, it doesn’t even bother me now, because I am grateful for all the things I am good at instead of whining about my weak points.

It’s sad how so many of us go through low self esteem because we don’t have a particular set of skills or talent that everyone else seems to have. We seem to think just because we don’t know what others know, we are lagging behind them and have no chance of success in life. Look, unless the skill you are lacking is directly related to the work you want to accomplish, then it doesn’t matter whether you are good at something or not. Stop having a low self confidence for these petty reasons.

Warren Buffet the billionaire  is famous for being so technologically challenged that he doesn’t even use email or even have a mobile phone. But does he care? No because he still gets all the information he needs through the people who work under him.

Henry Ford the car maker was called an idiot by someone. So Henry Ford was offended and took him to court. So the guy who was sued tried to prove Ford was ignorant and the whole case basically became a general knowledge examination for Ford. The opposing lawyer kept asking one GK question after another to Ford many of which Ford could not answer. Finally Ford grew increasingly frustrated and told the lawyer. Look, I just need to press one button in my office and I can get experts on virtually every single subject on earth who can give me whatever advice I need, there and then. Why should I then fill up my mind with information that’s not relevant to my work.

The court ruled in the favor of Ford.

Now I am not saying ignorance is bliss, sure it is a good idea to be knowledgeable, but just because you are not knowledgeable about something everyone knows about, doesn’t mean you can’t succeed. It’s just a limiting belief. The only thing you real practical knowledge about the work you are doing, a single minded determination to keep going no matter what and a supreme belief in your ability to succeed.

And frankly, sometimes not knowing things actually works in your favor. When you know what everybody else knows anyway, you have a million competitors, all of whom who have the same skills as you. But when you don’t know what everybody else knows but still have the determination to succeed, you are forced to think creatively and as a result you may head on a path that is waaaay better!

I recently read a story I loved, I don’t recall the exact words so let me try and narrate my own slightly different version of it.

So there was a guy who applied for the position of an office boy at a very big tech company, let’s say it was Google. So the Human Resources person interviewed him and watched him do his job. He liked what the guy did and told him he was appointed. He then asked him for his Email address to send some forms to fill.

The guy responded “I am technologically challenged, I don’t know how to use email, I don’t even know how to use a computer!”

The HR guy was surprised and said, “Look, this is Google and over here everyone needs to be tech savvy.” If you don’t have an email address you might as well be living in the stone age. We have no use of you, I am sorry”

So the man was disappointed and left. He only had 10 dollars in his pocket. He decided to go to the market and buy  a bag of tomatoes. He then went to a posh neighborhood where people had more money than time and was able to sell the tomatoes for double the price for the convenience of having brought the tomatoes to their door step. He spent $10 and made $20

He repeated the process this time buying $20 worth of tomatoes an ending up with $40. He repeated the process a one more time and ended up with $80 dollars.

He quickly realized this was a great business model and then kept repeating the process everyday, doubling his profit and saving up money. As the business grew he realized there was only so much he could carry himself and deliver to the households. So he then used the money he saved up to buy a delivery van. He also identified other neighborhoods that would like such a service. With this investment, his profit skyrocketed.

He made tons of money, saved up the money and then invested it back in the business.  He then invested in a truck and hired a couple of employees and started delivering to nearby cities as well. He  Within ten years he had a fleet of trucks across several cities delivering groceries to neighborhoods everyday. The man built a multi million dollar empire.

The man  become somewhat of a celebrity because of his meteoric success. One evening was invited to a business leaders awards ceremony where he met CEOs of top companies. Incidentally, the CEO of Google was also a part of the event and was very impressed with the man. He came to the man and asked him for his business card. The man took out the card and gave it to him.

The CEO of Google looked at his card and saw there was still no email address mentioned on it. He asked the man, “You still have no email address?” The man said he did not. The CEO looked at him and said, “Are you crazy? You are so talented and yet you are shooting yourself in the foot! You became a multi-millionaire without an email address? Do you realize what you could become if you knew about technology and had an email address? You would probably become a multi billionaire!

The man looked at the CEO, smiled and said, “No, I would become an Office Boy at Google!”

I rest my case!

About the Author

Anubhav Srivastava is an author, speaker and the director of Carve Your Destiny, a first of its kind inspirational documentary featuring some of the most famous personalities from diverse fields. It has been seen by over 1 Million People on Youtube. Anubhav has also been featured in numerous International and India Media outlets such as BBC , The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Rediff.com, Leicester Mercury and many others.

For one on one consulting or a motivational workshop at your organization please email anubhav101@gmail.com . If you would like to write a guest blog post on Anubhavsrivastava.com you contact me on the same email address.

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