For many people, I am sure the first response they are going to have to this subject is to ask "even if antitalents really exist, why dwell on them? Why not focus on the positive? Won't this just give people another excuse for failure?"
All fair questions, and all questions I have asked myself.
The first answer I came up with, is that by understanding antitalents, we can come to understand ourselves better. The better we understand ourselves, the more successful we can be in life.
Why not just focus on the positive? I agree strongly that we should focus on the positive. But there has been a lot of focus recently on talents/strengths, most publically through the study done by the Gallup organization and laid out in "Now, Discover your Strengths." Interestingly, that book, which is excellent and which I highly recommend, did discuss weaknesses but did not go as far as dealing with antitalents, or what they would probably call antistrengths. They did a great job of focusing on the positive,and I do not feel I need to cover the area they have already handled so well.
I do think it is positive for us to recognize our antitalents, so that we realize that there is no shame in asking for help when we are asked to do a task that falls in our area of antitalent. In fact, it is vital for our success that we do so.
Won't this just give people another excuse to fail? Possibly, but I hope not. Let me go back to my own experience in this area.
As I have already mentioned, I have an antitalent in the area of repairs, fixing things, etc. Throughout my adult life, I have struggled to have any success in this area. I have tried hard, read books, worked with others more qualified, and yet over and over again I have failed. (Not always - there have been successes. But more failures than successes)
I don't need an excuse to fail in this area. I can fail with or without one. But the failures, as they add up, have taken a toll on me. Regardless of any outside expectations, I have bought into the idea that as a father and a man, I am expected to be able to fix things when they break. I have felt stupid as relatively simple tasks in this area are regularly beyond me, or when I complete a simple task only to have it break again immediately. I felt a failure long before I conceived of antitalents, and would even accuse God of having intervened against me when something unlikely derailed my efforts at even a simple fix.
Discovering the concept of antitalents was a revelation to me. I have ALWAYS believed in talents and the almost mystical way things seem to work out when we do something we are talented at. Conceiving that there could be an opposite force, which worked in the same way but in reverse, explained my experience, and without having to blame a "practical joker God." It ws theory that fit the facts as I had experienced them. It was OK for me to be bad at this. It was OK for me to ask my more talented friends for help, just as they would ask me.
For what its worth, I will continue to try to fix things, and to try to improve in this area. But when I need it, I will also try to improve at asking for help. And this is positive, because my life will be more successful as a result.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
What is an anti-talent?
The only clear way to define an anti-talent is through comparison to a talent.
A talent is an ability or area in our life that comes easily and that we are capable of becoming superior at. Tasks that use our talents (also called strengths or gifts) come easily to us. We can learn to become better at them quickly, and if we devote effort to them, we can become among the top 5% at perfoming them. Often when we are working at a task within our talent, things just "work out," almost like magic. This is true even when we may not have a lot of education, experience or training.
An antitalent is exactly the opposite. These are areas of skill or ability that we have little or no natural affinity for. We can improve in these areas, but never really become excellent at them. If it is a true antitalent, and not just a weakness, when we try to accomplish tasks within our area of antitalent, things will often go wrong in unexpected or even unlikely ways. Needless to say, trying to work in an area of anti-talents can be discouraging!
My experience with the shower is an excellent example. For even a person with average talent in home repair, the changing of two washers would be a simple task, especially if it was a task that (as in my case) had been done several times before. Because for me home repair is an antitalent, unlikely (and to me, inexplicable) things went wrong, to the point of making a ten-minute job stretch out to 2.5 hours.
The best way to understand this is to imagine a bell curve. Each of us is given a certain amount of natural ability in various areas. Most of us have an average amount of natural ability in most areas, but we have one or more areas where we are talented - we have exceptional ability in those. But it makes sense that if there are areas that we have exceptional amounts of ability(represented by the high end of the bell curve) there could also be places where we are at the low end of the bell curve. These are antitalents.
A talent is an ability or area in our life that comes easily and that we are capable of becoming superior at. Tasks that use our talents (also called strengths or gifts) come easily to us. We can learn to become better at them quickly, and if we devote effort to them, we can become among the top 5% at perfoming them. Often when we are working at a task within our talent, things just "work out," almost like magic. This is true even when we may not have a lot of education, experience or training.
An antitalent is exactly the opposite. These are areas of skill or ability that we have little or no natural affinity for. We can improve in these areas, but never really become excellent at them. If it is a true antitalent, and not just a weakness, when we try to accomplish tasks within our area of antitalent, things will often go wrong in unexpected or even unlikely ways. Needless to say, trying to work in an area of anti-talents can be discouraging!
My experience with the shower is an excellent example. For even a person with average talent in home repair, the changing of two washers would be a simple task, especially if it was a task that (as in my case) had been done several times before. Because for me home repair is an antitalent, unlikely (and to me, inexplicable) things went wrong, to the point of making a ten-minute job stretch out to 2.5 hours.
The best way to understand this is to imagine a bell curve. Each of us is given a certain amount of natural ability in various areas. Most of us have an average amount of natural ability in most areas, but we have one or more areas where we are talented - we have exceptional ability in those. But it makes sense that if there are areas that we have exceptional amounts of ability(represented by the high end of the bell curve) there could also be places where we are at the low end of the bell curve. These are antitalents.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
How I Discovered Anti-Talents
It was Sunday morning, and I had at least 20 minutes before I had to start getting ready for early Mass. The kids were up (I have 5) and it seemed to be a perfect time to both knock off a needed chore and to teach my two oldest an important life lesson.
"Laura, Malcolm, come here" I called. "I want to show you something."
"Here" was the downstairs bathroom, and "something" was how to replace a washer on a shower that had been leaking lately. Clearly, fixing a leaky faucet or shower, particularly when it is as simple as replacing a washer, is an important skill for teens to learn before they leave home. Despite my own shortcomings in the area of home repair, this was a task I had done often enough to be able to teach. Confidently, I reached for the tools and began the demonstration.
Problems began immediately when I stripped a screw needed to change the washer. From there, things escalated, as I took apart the valve stems, mixed up which stem went with which valve, sliced up the index finger on my left hand, and finally reassembled the shower, only to find that what had been a minor leak was now a shower which ran non-stop. The adventure ended 2.5 hours later, after at least a dozen tries, a trip to Menards, and two new valve stems.
As a person who aspires to being a person of faith, at one point I growled somewhat gruffly at God, asking "what exactly is the point of making this so hard?" And it was at that moment, standing in wet clothes in a dingy cinder-block shower, that I conceived my theory of "anti-talents." ...to be continued...
"Laura, Malcolm, come here" I called. "I want to show you something."
"Here" was the downstairs bathroom, and "something" was how to replace a washer on a shower that had been leaking lately. Clearly, fixing a leaky faucet or shower, particularly when it is as simple as replacing a washer, is an important skill for teens to learn before they leave home. Despite my own shortcomings in the area of home repair, this was a task I had done often enough to be able to teach. Confidently, I reached for the tools and began the demonstration.
Problems began immediately when I stripped a screw needed to change the washer. From there, things escalated, as I took apart the valve stems, mixed up which stem went with which valve, sliced up the index finger on my left hand, and finally reassembled the shower, only to find that what had been a minor leak was now a shower which ran non-stop. The adventure ended 2.5 hours later, after at least a dozen tries, a trip to Menards, and two new valve stems.
As a person who aspires to being a person of faith, at one point I growled somewhat gruffly at God, asking "what exactly is the point of making this so hard?" And it was at that moment, standing in wet clothes in a dingy cinder-block shower, that I conceived my theory of "anti-talents." ...to be continued...
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