Wisdom, Mastery, and Talent

Most likely there are certain skill sets you lack which will hinder your progress. Discover what these are and start today in gaining the necessary insights you need to succeed. You might ask yourself, how is this not the same as the lack of knowledge?

There is similarity between the two. With knowledge, you can hire individuals that have it, as you can with skills and tools. On the other hand, with skills, to be able to have at least a meaningful appreciation, you need a basis for yourself. Most of the knowledge you can buy or hire someone for, you probably don’t need yourself. For the skills, it’s a little different. A skill and the tools used to exercise the skill can also be called a talent.

Perhaps you need to learn how to effectively use a computer and the Internet. Maybe you need to up-level your communication or time management proficiency. Even a good attitude is a skill. Enhancing your skills is a lifelong investment that will pay you big dividends. The aspect of a life-long investment is also the parameter you need to use to judge if and how much effort you want to invest into a new skill.

Perhaps you find that something you need as a skill seems to be a talent you hadn’t discovered yet. It may come easy to you and you actually enjoy it.  You will probably find that you want to move forward and keep developing this skill.

On the other hand, when you realize that the skill in need is not a passion, talent, or an easy thing for you, you may want to learn the basics and then hire more talented people to work for you where the skill is needed. Learning the basics is not so much a matter of trust, but rather a matter of appreciating the complexity of the skill.

Another minor but important difference between a skill and knowledge is that knowledge gets applied and can be, and often is, a solution that can be achieved quickly. It does not matter how complex it was or how much time it took to acquire the knowledge. On the other hand, with the skill, you actually have to use the tools, the talent, and all the experience to create a great result.

Having some appreciation of the complexity of the skill will help you determine if a proposal by someone you hire for a talent or skill you need, is reasonable or not. I don’t want to say that a basic understanding of knowledge wouldn’t help as well (often times it does), but it is more pronounced and important to have when we talk about skills.

For you to determine if it is worth spending a lot of time acquiring a skill yourself, independent of your natural talent, you should try to figure out if this will be a life-long skill you will use over and over, or just something you will need for a limited amount of time. Anything that isn’t for the long haul should be hired.

That also leads me to a distinction that you might be interested in:

Combining knowledge and experience leads to wisdom!

Combining skills and experience leads to mastery!

As in every business, passion, endeavor or approach, you can’t be an expert or a master in everything you need for success. That’s why you want to focus on your own existing strength and not your weaknesses. Areas that are not your strength can be supplemented by hiring skills and knowledge.

In applying this information it becomes obvious that one of the most important aspects of self improvement is self-esteem. It is pretty easy to know what you are good at. It is much harder to admit your weaknesses. It is equally difficult to be humble, learn the basics, and get more talented people to help you.
Confidence allows you to actually ask for help. People who aren’t confident and have a low level of self-esteem find it difficult to ask and therefore get stuck with the problems they face. When they try to learn all the skills they need, they will take a lot of time and often still fail because they don’t have the natural talent to become masters. It’s much better to be really good at a few things then mediocre at many things.

Here are the parameters you need to be aware of when addressing self-esteem and your success:

• You need to know what you are good at
• You need to know where you still require improvements
• You need to be willing to ask for help after you know about the basic skill required for part of your solution or service
• You need to know the basic complexities of the skill you attempt to hire someone for, so you don’t get fooled by offers

With these aspects in mind and your awareness for the roadblock clearly in view, you should have no problem overcoming any lack of skill or tools required to achieve your goals and vision.

Be aware that the skills, as defined, are not just physical skills but also mental skills. There is a difference between knowing about math and applying math. The same applies to knowing about creating things made out of wood and actually doing it, using all the fancy tools.

As always, we want to strive for balance in mind and body, and that also applies for skills, talent, and knowledge. The advanced reader can elect to differentiate between the level of mastery and wisdom in the areas of skill and knowledge.

Axel Meierhoefer, AMC LLC