Talent is a hoax

At what point can someone rely on talent to go places? More importantly, what does that mean in your field? We hear about it as having an interesting look for models, perfect pitch as a musician, an eye for it as a photographer. But at the same time, there are people out there doing the same things as us but succeeding, so what is it?

“Talent—when I use the word, I mean it as the rate at which you get better with effort. The rate at which you get better at soccer is your soccer talent. The rate at which you get better at math is your math talent. You know, given that you are putting forth a certain amount of effort. And I believe—and not everyone does, but I think most people do—that there are differences in talent among us: that we are not all equally talented” (Duckworth, 2016).

So if it’s a rate we improve when we perform a task, at what point does talent become unimportant?

I believe it becomes unimportant the moment you start creating goals that feel out of reach.

The more we reach, the more we will fail, but the further we are going to go, the only real difference between the people with talent and yourself is how many times you’re going to get back up after you fail.

If you pause and give up for days at a time after every setback, you’re likely never to make it as far as you want to. You’re likely to plateau, give up, and use the excuse “I just don’t have the talent for it”.

I make this argument because my father ran a studio, my grandfather was a fashion photographer; that makes me third generation; I’ve been around it most of my life.

I’ve improved so slowly that the word talent definitely could not be used to describe me. I take ages to learn new lessons, I have aimed for such incremental improvements; it takes a year to see the difference in the quality of my work.

But build that over ten years, and you’ll see that I’ve evolved, changed and grown as a person and a photographer.

I write this as words of encouragement, you’ve got to fail forward, set goals, and reach, or else you’ll never get to where you want to be.

My goal is to be making an absolute killing off the sort of work I love. I’m not yet, but I’m not ready to give up, and I know what needs to improve next.

Do you?