Skilled vs talented

I don’t like being called talented.

And neither should you.

Here’s why:

Talented means you came out of the box with skills you didn’t have to work for.

Skilled means you came out of the box like the rest of us, and worked for those skills.

Talented is also restricted to things people can see, like copywriting or animation.

But there are so many more skills worthy of our attention:

The skill of showing honour: appreciating others even when you disagree with them.

The skill of seeing possibility: seeing that things could be better without skepticism.

The skill of empathy: recognising that people don’t know what you know & that’s okay.

The skill of learning how to learn: making the whole world of skills available to you.

The skill of decision-making: the ability to forgo sunk-costs in favour of what’s best for us.

The skill of saying no: knowing that something may be good, but there’s something better.

I’m very skilful. Talented, not so much.