Self-Recognition: Identifying Your Talent (Hidden Treasures) and Discovering Your Potentials

Life begins when we start utilizing our talents and hidden potentials. Utilizing our talents adds more beauty to life as only then can meaning be read through our life.

What is Talent?

Talent is that ability which you possess naturally but still open for development. It is that thing which brings out the genius In you.

If talent is so important and all humans have some deposit of them within, it make one ask a big question of how these talents can be recognized to prompt their utilization, helping man live a better life?
Let me share my story with you.

Growing up as a child, I struggled severally with getting to know what my talent was and if they were more than one, I couldn’t tell. My parents, siblings and friends didn’t help me out in recognizing my talent. It was like though I was left in life all alone.

The ignorance of my talent made me start living a wasted life from childhood. Yes, I call it wasted for I wasn’t living according to my purpose. Life was given to me for a purpose and there I was, not working in line with that purpose.

Little did I know that I wasn’t alone in this box. At age fifteen, I concluded that millions of youth were in same box with me, as they were ignorant of life purpose for them. I took a little survey, asking friends one after another what their talent was. And to my greatest surprise, they all gave a confuse look, before confessing they know not.
Yes, all we did was to get into school and learn what was thought. No one cared to help us discover our talents, not even the schools our parents pay so much money in. so we all lived this wasted life for years.

After I recognized how even the school couldn’t help me out in getting to know my talent, I saw the mess I was in at the age of fifteen pretty clear. I came to a conclusion that only I could help myself and it was a fact . no one can help me do that, just myself alone.

I started thinking about what I may have as a talent, I also started asking friends what they knew I could do best and what they thought my talent to be. This action I took yielded a positive result that has placed my life on a smooth run. Indeed, when you seek, you shall find.

After thinking for days, I found out only one thing I knew about myself. And that was – my ability to teach anyone whatsoever I understood well, for them to get it in the simplest way. I could simplify things for better understanding once I have successfully understood them.

Then the feedback I got from friends was that I talk a lot. Back then in primary school, I was always tagged a noise maker, and whenever a list was made for noise making, I ranked such list.

I knew I loved talking. I never got tired of talking. Whenever mom gets home after work and find me so quite, she immediately sensed there was a problem somewhere. Probably someone got me angry or something else. She would often make effort to find out what the problem was.

At this point, I started thinking of how I could make something positive out of talking and also maybe how I could link talking to my teaching ability.

Then considering my teaching skill, I told myself I was going to become a priest in the nearest future, shunning gradually the idea of becoming a mechanical engineer.

I started to act and behave more like a priest. I stopped playing roughly and became calm like never before. Then, since I knew I was too shy, I started asking myself how I would preach the gospel facing the crowd at all times. This time, an idea struck me, which was, “write your sermon, memorize it and tell it to them”.
That was how I started writing.

I would get a sheet from my jotter, write my sermon on it then give to friends to read, allowing them to say what they feel about the piece. John and Ebube, two of my friends always enjoy my piece and wondered if I was truly the one who wrote them, for the write-ups was sensed to be excellent.

This reaction I triggered in them made me even stick to writing. I wrote more and more piece. I found out it was a better way of getting my ideas out to the world.

The bad side of my writing journey back then in secondary school was that I got no collection of my piece. I was new to the writing world. I wrote and discarded them after my friends were done reading. That was really a bad and dangerous habit. Hardly can I recall the ideas I wrote then to help me rewrite same.

At seventeen, I knew three things I could do well, which were; teaching what I knew, talking and writing. I recall the words of a friend after coaching him a course he had difficulty in understanding. At the end, he said to me, ‘Joseph, if you don’t go into teaching or lecturing, you must have wasted your life’. I guessed he spotted a talent in me.

My dream of going into the seminary to become a priest all crashed, when I found out that it was required to have a credit in CRS (Christian Religious Studies) in my O’level result. I didn’t, so I kept up with the picture of becoming a mechanical engineer.

I kept on writing on topics that interest me and growing my collection. Do you know I even went into writing songs and poems? After recognizing these talents, I thought to myself, how I can use them to make money.
I thought to myself, ‘oh teachers are too poor, I can’t do that for the rest of my life, I don’t want to be poor’, ‘how can I make money talking or writing?’

I became confused once more but what i noticed was, the more you keep asking the how? How can you do this or that, the more your mind gets opened to new things and you can learn a lot.
During the early months of year 2017, I came across a blog post online, of how one can make money blogging. Initially, I didn’t even know what blogging was and what a blog mean.

I got into a wonderful platform known as Problogger (www.problogger.com) owned by Darren. Darren’s post on how to own and get started with blogging changed my life. I read lot of his posts. He explained to the best of his knowledge, which won my interest.

I started to see blogging as an opportunity to get my piece in front of the world and make money from them. Finally, I thought to myself, ‘blogging could help me utilize my writing skill’. I also started learning how to write a blog post, to better my writing skill.

Then came Anabuike Joshua (Schwiz Josh).

He was my class mate back then in school, we had a WhatsApp group he kept posting links of certain post in his website. Since I knew he was into what I intend doing, I started asking questions to learn, topping up knowledge.
When he thought the questions was much and unusual, he asked if I intend owning a blog. I gave a positive reply, while he gave me an offer.

“why don’t you join me, let’s grow this website, instead of creating a new one from scratch”

That was an offer that changed my life. I took it and got so serious with it, for I had understood the basics of blogging. Most importantly, knowing it wasn’t a get rich quick scheme.
Yes, that was it.

With the little knowledge I had gathered about blogging, Joshua game me a ground to practice. This happened toward the end of year 2017, August to be precise.

I never joked with this opportunity, taking it seriously. Tasks were coming my way and so were corrections too. I know myself to be an easy going person but I couldn’t tell if that was what made I and Joshua able to make a team. I can’t really tell what he saw in me, but I felt he wanted me to sail along.

Few months later, around early months of 2018, he made me an admin in his website, Millitime (www.millitime.com). I guessed it was based on efforts I had put in but something kept telling me there was more to it.

Just like promotions we get at our various jobs, which came with higher pay, mine came with no pay but still made me very happy and to be frank, I wasn’t bored and neither was I complaining. I just had this fulfillment that Millitime helps in making my voice heard. Secondly, my heart knew we were at our growth stage and that someday, things would get better.

Towards mid month of year 2018, another promotion came my way. I was announced a co-founder of Millitime by the CEO himself. Of course, that was indeed a great feet I had achieved and appreciated but yet I’ve got no idea of the action that merited me that promotion. I’ve since then continue to work for Millitime, earning as well.

You can’t earn or gain money without first giving. And the best thing you can give to the world to make money easily and quickly is your talent.

How would you give out your talent when you don’t know it is?

Recognizing your talent therefore is the first step to making money quicker in the nearest future.

CORNER WORDS

In the quest for money, we meet challenges we must overcome. These challenges sometimes would prove frustrating, pushing you so hard to quit. You are more likely to overcome them if what you do to make money is in line with your talent.

Also when growing any form of business, there’s a level of patience required during the growth stage, when money isn’t coming as expected, when the business is still struggling to take ground. You can tolerate the growth stage very well if you really love what you do. And you are more likely to love only those things backed up by your talent.

The first step to success Is recognizing your talent.

You can recognize your talent in no time. All you need do is to find time to try to understand yourself more to ascertain what you are good at. You can also explore, ask friends and those around you to know what they think. They are certain things those around you see in you that you don’t get to see them yourself.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF
DO I KNOW MY TALENT?
WHAT AM I GOOD AT?
WHAT DO PEOPLE FEEL I’M GOOD AT?
HOW OFTEN DO I MAKE EFFORTS TO GET BETTER WITH MY TALENT?
WHAT ARE MY DOING TO EARN FROM MY TALENT

ASSIGNMENT
HOW CAN YOU USE YOUR TALENT IN SOLVING PROBLEMS?