Talent - Either You Have It Or Not

[stelhrse]

I was reading a post not too far back under the Marketing and Advertising thread about starting your business. One of the comments made was "Talent and what you do with what you have is where it's at" caused me to ponder this statement a bit and the reason for this post. I have often wondered if "talent" is a case where either you have it or you don't at least in the world of leather crafting. Is a drive and passion to learn the craft enough to make up for any lack of talent is or talent something that is fine tuned as you use any skills you may have? It seems some folks have a natural ability to do certain things but can talent be a learned attribute or is it just merely developing your skills without a "natural talent"?

Is talent something that comes from developing your skills? I have always felt that if you want to learn something and have drive to do it, you can make up for any lack of talent this way. Am I wrong? Thanks.

[DavidL]

To be an "Expert" (top .1 percent) there is a popular theory that it takes 10,000 hours to master a task. If you don't plateau and continue to improve gradually you could become top 1 percent without a doubt and a shot at top .1+ percent. Some can go for many years and still wont become a master because they plateau (lack of guidance or lack of passion) or neglect the fundamentals. They could become better than 97 percent of people with just the time they put in but the last few percent is 10x harder than the first 97 percent.

In my opinion any one who dedicates 10 thousand hours into a task has a strong mind set and that in itself is a mastery of your own mind. A person without that mindset/passion and stops at 1000 thousand hours could be better than 90 percent.

There are also many variables like physical (less so in leather rather than sports), mindset/passion (also have to master the way you think as well as leatherwork).

Could someone with less natural ability out beat someone with natural ability? I say yes as long as they spend more time in areas the person with natural ability don't need to.

At a VERY high level, top .000001 percent are usually those with unusually great natural talent, unusual genetics and unusual drive/mind like NBA players or top scientists. Unfortunately those without amazing natural ability can make it to top .01 but very slim of .000001.

Edited February 16, 2015 by DavidL

[MonicaJacobson]

I've often heard the 10,000 hours theory, and I thought it made sense as well.

I think observation has a lot to do with ability, and can be trained. If you can't observe where your own work falls short, you won't know how to proceed. If you can't observe what is good about great work, you won't see what to work towards. The longer you do something, the more you are able to see what is good work and what isn't. Sometimes getting good at something might mean ditching something you're obviously bad at, and creatively redirecting yourself towards your own strengths.

David might disagree with me here, but I think almost anyone, given enough time and dedication, can get to the level of a Hermes worker. They've got the tools, they've got the mentors, and they push you to be excellent. (Granted, you have to provide your own persistence and dexterity, and I do think some people might not have the dexterity or the desire to pay that much attention to detail). While I admire their skill, I admire individual creativity and inventiveness more.

So no, I don't think you either have talent or you don't. I don't think talent is a mystical quality. To me, it's passion, creativity, and observation. Some people pay better attention, I think.

[TwinOaks]

I think talent is also describable as 'raw ability', and frankly some folks just don't have it. I'm a decent artist but I'm not an inspired artist. It's incredibly rare that I sit down and just draw something from my head that turns out wonderfully. For example: I'm technically proficient enough to look at something and reproduce it- a still life, a live model posing, etc., but if I just start drawing something, it's like I have too many versions in my head to get the details of only one, and there's little bits and pieces of other things in the image. The result is something that cavemen would scoff at. I believe it IS possible to take a modicum of talent and hone it into a skill, which is more or less what I've done. But if you don't have a base level of talent, it's very hard to ever develop it or replace it with skill.

One of the members of my FB group posted some pics done by her 15yo brother. They looked like black and white photographs. I call his ability "talent" because of the quality of his work vs. his age. I've seen professional artists 3 times his age that had skill....but not his natural ability.

[lightingale]

In art class, one of my teachers' mantra was "art is 10% talent and 90% hard work".

Talent is only a small part of the equation. It's a matter of doing, learning, practice, and experience. And inspiration, as Twin said.

[DavidL]

I agree with monica how everyone if exposed long enough and has the want to become a hermes work can become one it may take 4 years maybe 10 but nothing is given to you, it has to be earned. Hermes workers are among the top 1 percent. If we are talking the most top of the food chain only 1 out of 100 of those hermes worker will be .01 percentile which is in most likely hood the instructor. In that regard its a never ending path, you can improve even in your 20th year.

The one thing I see most often is people find an excuse how its not possible (there are 1000 different excuses) and once you believe in an excuse its game over. Its better to give it a shot if its feasible and possibly fail instead of not doing it at all. If at any point you tell your self you can't do it for X or Y your right. if you say you can do it your also right although. its harder to fight through it than it is for the instant gratification of quitting. At the moment where you are unsure if you will keep improving or wont succeed is where greatness comes from, the ability to work past the plateau.

Now that I hashed together my thoughts talent = small amount of natural talent + mindset + passion + time + evaluation + controlled madness (Which pushes people to need to be improving)

Some what related. Video where a podcaster talks about the how elite athletes have similar mindsets and the drive it takes for them to be where they are at.

Edited February 16, 2015 by DavidL

[thefanninator]

Several pieces have to come together... Everyone has potential... for some people finding the "thing" is one of the hardest things... For others, like Michael Phelps it seems like he was born to swim and he found it very early and found a coach and stuck with it.

I've quit many things that I was good at probably for no other reason than I got bored or plateaued.

When I was a kid my dad did a little leatherwork and I always wanted that mini saddle from Tandy but I never got it.

Somewhere around 2005 I made an archery arm guard out of some scrap leather someone gave me. I found my father's old leather stamps and swivel knife and with no idea what I was doing scratched around on this piece of leather that wasn't even the right kind of leather. I thought "I can't do this" and put it all away.

Then in 2013 I started doing leatherwork for real to make my own arm guards. In this photo the left one is the scrap leather from 2005 and the one on the right is the first one I made when I really started. They suck! But I kept telling myself "Don't quit." The last arm guard is one I made several months ago.

I like Arnold's motivational speech.

Edited February 17, 2015 by thefanninator

[MonicaJacobson]

LOL, "sleep faster".

[Ingrid H]

The Arnold video was really good. I'm coming to appreciate him more and more except for his infidelities. He really worked his ass off and achieved more than I could ever dream of.

Working hard isn't all there is to getting good at something though. I can't buy into the 10,000 hours theory. As a carpenter for 25+ years, I've seen years where I didn't learn a single thing even when I was exposed to people who tried to tell me how to get better. I remember the day about 5 years after I was told how to scribe and it finally sunk in. I was like, "Oh! So that's what he was talking about!" You've got to be ready to absorb some knowledge. You've also got to be exposed to different things to put them all together in your brain. Good teachers help, but experience helps even more.

When I think of someone who lacked the knowledge but got good at something through practice, I think of Steve Martin and his banjo playing. Steve was not a natural musician, but he took lessons and practiced until he was good. Is he a talented musician? I don't think so. But is he a good banjo player? Yes!

[snubbyfan]

I've always made stuff. Sculpting, mask making, airbrushing, woodcraft, jewelry making, leathercrafting, stuff like that. I've also been a rollerblader, mountain biker, backpacker, rock climber and stuff like that.

In the last coupla years, I've developed a peripheral motor nerve condition which has really reduced my physical abilities.

I'm not able to do a lot of the stuff that I could do before.

However with a little experimenting, I've found ways to still do leathercrafting and my doctor says it's good therapy for my hands.

It just seems like I gotta be doing or making something.

[jfdavis58]

Nonsense.

A fellow once told me "You do what you want to do". Want here being equal to Like.

Another said "if you want to make money, make something".

So, I say it follows then that Talent, wherever it comes from is simply being able to find something you like to do that makes money.

Edited February 17, 2015 by jfdavis58

[stelhrse]

Thanks very much to all who offered comments. All good advise and thoughts for sure. This is why this is such an awesome forum. I will take the motivation received from the insight here and march ahead. Thanks again.

[Dwight]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, . . . I think it needs to be said that talent is first and foremost: an inherent trait / attitude / ability / or edge of some kind that one person has, . . . and not everyone else does, . . . nor can they all ever get it.

There is a young man in England who can hear a tune, . . . play it on the piano letter perfect, . . . in any of a multitude of different styles, . . . has been on 60 minutes several times, . . . but cannot remember to eat, shower, or change clothes. Music he has, . . . social order he does not.

So are ALL other talents to one degree or another.

I have no talent for decorating, tooling, stamping leather, . . . nada, zero, zilch, none whatsoever. I can fake it enough to get a piece passed, . . . because I can do the mechanical part of making, lacing, sewing, stitching, dyeing, finishing, etc.

I make holsters, belts, knife sheaths, and an occasional purse or billfold, . . . and they are Aunt Jemima plain, . . . nuttin' fancy.

I said all that to get to this point: everyone has talents, . . . the real trick is finding where they are, . . . unlocking them, . . . using them. As an example, . . . I have 3 brothers, . . . all raised in the same household, . . . ate the same food, . . . drank the same water, . . . got whooped with the same switch from time to time.

Two of us are very comfortable working on anything mechanical. Myself and another are comfortable working on plumbing and electric. The youngest can do numbers in his head like it is a 40 column spreadsheet, . . . us other three can forget our house numbers. We've all taken different paths because we found out long ago what our talents were, . . . and were not. And that is a shout out to our mother, . . . who encouraged us to try all sorts of things, . . . find out what we could or could not do.

Bottom line, . . . find out where your inherent, God given talents lay, . . . business, mechanical, people skills (where would Odufus be if he could not manipulate people????), . . . maybe in the outdoors with animals, or creating things. Nourish them as you find them, . . . encourage them, . . . stretch them to their limits. You'll be glad you did.

May God bless,

Dwight

[Calait]

We are all given some talent, while there may be no artist in many of us. We all do have the capacity to learn, and make the life of those around us better is something we all can do. Just my humble opinion. I am learning to stamp leather myself at this time, Using my swivel knife is almost a laughable effort, but I am practicing and trying. However, continue to learn and see were you can go.

[NavyVet]

Art, talent, ability, capability, qualification. When looking directly at artistic talent as a mode of expression it denotes a means of expression that no one else has done EXACTLY what you have in the way that you have expressed it.

If you do a "Sheridan Style" anything. You have copied someone else. All you have shown is GREAT SKILL, even if your work is flawless.

We copy and emulate the best in others to develop ourselves. Then we can differentiate from the rest by making something unique.

Tim

[MonicaJacobson]

Except for people who draw their own Sheridan Style designs. Blows my mind.

[JAZZMAN]

For those who are interested in the 10,000 hour rule, there is a very interesting book by Malcolm Gladwell called outliers where he sudies many of the high achievers in the world(Beatles, Bill Gates, etc). It really is an interesting book and i highly recommend it to any one interested in what makes some achieve more than others.This is a subject i have spent a lot of time researching, i have been a musician /jazz guitar player since i was eight years old , i have been very dedicated to this to the point that when i was still working i would get up at five in the morning so as to be able to get a couple of hours practice in before work, when i got home from work i would try to get another four hours of study on the evening, i did this for over forty years. What always used to make me smile to myself was when people have said to me they would love to play guitar like i could but they do not have any natural musical ability, well i believe i also do not posess any inbuilt ability or special talent , i have merely put in more work than a lot of other people, in fact i think considering how hard i have had to work at it just to reach a level of competent musician i might actually be a bit slower in learning than some other people. So to sum up i believe that most high level talent is as i think Edison said is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, in my own opinion of course. Due to a disability i am now unable to play guitar in a group and hae recently taken up leatherworking to fulfill my inbuilt urge to create, and i hope to apply the same dedication to my new found craft as i have to music.

Edited March 6, 2015 by JAZZMAN

[Calait]

Great point Jazzman. Sorry for the forced change. I pray yoou grow to love your leather work and surpass yoour. Musical ability.

[NavyVet]

Due to a disability i am now unable to play guitar in a group and hae recently taken up leatherworking to fulfill my inbuilt urge to create, and i hope to apply the same dedication to my new found craft as i have to music.

Creativity is an inspiration of the heart and can never be lost. Changing your focus only moves you to make new connections from the visual (SEEN) to the hands of creation. Tim

[JAZZMAN]

Thank you for your kind words calait and navyvet, i belive that creating things is a basic human instinct which might even come from a survival point of viewi, i also think it is in danger of being lost as many of the handcraft type skills are slowly dissapearing ,Take care my friends.Peace.

[terrypen]

This is definitely a subject that cannot be put into a particular shaped box.

As far as having talent, we are all born with no talent except to fill a diaper and squawk when we are hungry! I'm fairly certain not one person on this forum came out of the womb with pencil and paper or a stamp and leather! It is ALL learned! Now, there are some people that have an ability to learn very rapidly, either they get "it" or that circuit in their brains are short wired. It is what I call God given talent, but it is something that even they have worked at probably with zeal that you didn't see all the crappy stuff that was thrown away.

I don't think any of this can't be learned in time, whether it is 10,000 hours or 1,000 hours or 100,000 hours you can learn it. It all depends on how much it will hold your interest which will directly influence the waking hours spent learning. As an example, I am a computer tech by trade, but in 1992 you could put all my knowledge about computers in a thimble. In 1994, I was in the Army and became a Training NCO for a company that had a network engineer. The exiting Training NCO told me that we had to add all PT scores using a calculator and divide by the number of PT tests to get the company average. I asked why he didn't use the computer, his answer was "we can't, we have to add them this way!" Ummmm, OK... I asked the network guy how to do it with the computer, he gave me the DBase IV books and said "when you get to a point you can't figure out come back and tell me!" I studied those books so I could do that one task that "couldn't be done on the computer!" One week later, while the Training NCO was improving his calculator skills, I ran my program and in 15 seconds had the printed output of the information he needed. To his bewilderment, after double-checking my math, he asked how I did that and I told him for the last week I've spent ALL my hours figuring out HOW to do it.

To make a long story short, if it is something that truly interests and/or captures your interest you WILL devote the time needed to learn the trade no matter what it is. But YOU WILL have to devote as many hours as it takes to get where you want, some people never stop striving. Some will think "that's good enough!." or I don't really want to learn it, I just want to do it.

Back to my computer knowledge, I do not have a degree but have hands on knowledge from spending every waking moment working on computers and just doing it. It did not happen over night it took a couple years before I landed a job as a computer tech and even then kept eating, sleeping and breathing computers. I have had people ask me to teach them how to do what I do on computers... ++blank stare++ It has taken me almost 20 years to gain the knowledge that I have, I can't "teach" you to do what I do. I can give you tips and pointers, but in the end YOU MUST DEVOTE THE TIME to learn your trade.

Now relating to learning art and/or leather crafts, all the guys and gals that have been doing it for a few years can give you tips and pointers but in the end it is still up to you and whether it is interesting enough for you to devote the time and continually strive to be better. Strive to be better than the Bob "hidepounder" Parks of the trade, you will probably fall short but keep trying and keep asking for critiques of your work and work on that stuff.

Also the people that learn trades in 1,000 hours are the ones that... make me sick... LOL OK Jealous! Some peoples brains are artistically wired and they immediately grasp the 3D images and how they should look. Some of us take a little longer in that department. I have also dealt with those 100,000 hour folks in other fields and at times wondered if they'd ever grasp the task.

Sorry for the long winded approach,

Terry

P.S. hopefully it is mostly coherent.. composition was my 25 hour subject... hated it.. haha

[Calait]

TERRY, Thanks for a great post, compensation for many of us is difficult, however necessary. You made a very good point. Thankfully many of the hobbies we pick up can be leaaarned only if we apply ourselves, some you may make money doing, others are pure enjoyment.

[jimcxls]

I would add the old proverb "when the student is ready the teacher will appear." After almost 70 years on this planet, I have found that desire can triumph many limitations. Answers and help are available everywhere. Especially in the internet age, wow!. I spent my adult life making a good living doing something I was not born to. I simply, as others have said, dedicated myself to tens of thousands of hours of execution and made good money doing that and really coming to enjoy it. During that time, I have done many other things as well. All of this has taught me that I can do anything I decide I want to do and then put in the time. We are all innately better at some things than others, but don't ever deny yourself the pleasure of doing something you enjoy. I believe it was Woody Allen who said “90% of success is just showing up.” You have the gift of your life, so use it for what you believe in.

[TRHLeather]

My favorite quote that covers this was actually in regards to mixed martial arts. "Hard work beats natural talent when natural talent refuses to work hard". I'm no mixed martial artist, nor am I a "professional" leather worker but I seem to have a natural talent to picture things in my head and make them exist, with a little hard work. I just enjoy the pursuit of these things. I love the feeling of solving a difficult leather assembly, or of finally, after three years of struggle, make my rescued sewing machine finally stitch like a champion. A desire to do something is a start, that's when hard work and perseverance will carry you where you want to go.