Should #Talent be shared?

a video song of Maestro Sergio Snyder, Pianist

A tribute to a very talented man, he shared this joy with thousands in his life!

When you listen to Beethoven’s 5^th symphony it’s hard to imagine how could anyone write such a magnificent piece. And when you look at a Picasso or Monett, makes you think of the hours they spent with every single stroke of a brush trying to bring life into their pictures. The inspirational performances of actors, dancers, musicians and singers make us stand for five minutes clapping our hearts out in admiration for their craft. Enjoying a carefully crafted meal from an award-winning chef and it's delights in our taste butts and leaves us wanting more. A beautiful pair of custom made shoes, a designer dinning table, a high performance sports car, are all personal possessions people seek and desire to own because of it’s unique craftsmanship. All of these are made or produced by very talented individuals who are masters in their craft and bring joy to people through their art. Whether it is in the form of a song or a piece of clothing, all are representations of someone’s talent that have enriched our lives.

Now imagine a world without Beethoven’s 5^th symphony? I guess if he hadn’t exist we wouldn’t know any better and probably life would have gone on, but how tragic it would be not to have the joy of listening to such master piece! I guess everything around us, if it hadn’t been written, produced or invented, we wouldn’t know we were missing out on such magnificent things, and perhaps others would be available to us.

But what does it all mean to us? And why is it important to know that talents should be shared? A few months ago I wrote a blog called “talent, gift or ability” in which I debated that you cannot learn talent, it is something you cannot teach and you are born with it. We all have talents, and they range from writing a master piece to managing a team or even driving a car or cooking a meal, whatever your talents are, these are the things you are good at and makes you who you are.

But talent’s worst enemy is lack of self-confidence and fear of failure. These stop even the greatest from bringing their talent to the world. If Mozart thought his music was rubbish and he was not good at it, we would not have the pleasure of enjoying his work today. Yet he knew he had a talent and wanted to share this with others, but was there another “Mozart” out there, just as talented but with a lack of self-confidence; I guess well we will never know and perhaps we have all be deprived of the joy of enjoying his/her work.

The real debate here is - if you have someone who has a real talent and enjoys his or her gift but lacks self confidence and does not wish to share it with others because of fear of rejection or failing, is that ok?

Everything we have and enjoy today is because a talented person wanted to share their gift with the world. If Michael Jackson had decided he loved signing but would confine it to the shower, the pop world would be very different today and non of us would have made a fool of ourselves dancing to Thriller pretending to be a corps!

We all have different talents, and as long as we are aware of these, it is our duty to share these with the world.

If you know you have a talent, but doubt yourselves I implore you to go out there and don’t let fear kill your gift, and share with the world what you are good at. We all have a role to play in life and after all talent is a gift we have been given, a gift we have to share with the world.

Week Seven 2015 – The power of a Smile

There is nothing more powerful and more contagious than a smile, so give generously!

 They say that love makes the world go round, and I also say that a smile is the fuel of that engine that make the world go round. Have you ever stop to think how powerful a smile is? And how easy is to give a smile? It takes 37 muscles of your face to frown and only 17 to smile, so it’s even easier than you think. And giving a smile to someone can mean so many things; it can give comfort to someone in distress, it can make you feel safe in times of trouble, it can make you feel welcome in strange places and most of all, it gives you that magic energy every time you smile at someone; it gives the receiver that much needed positive energy.

And a smile always produces a smile (at the right time and right place) but without a doubt and failure, if you smile at someone they will smile back. They don’t know why, it just happens. I have conducted this social phenomenon several times in my life but I got a chance to demonstrate this to a group of people this week. And if you have never tried it before, I beg you to try it as soon as you are done reading this blog, it’s magical and it works every time. And most of all it always makes you feel better, as you have just given something to someone that will help them through their day.

The idea is very simple – when you see someone without a smile, smile at them! And I can guarantee, under normal circumstances, they will smile back. As I sat having dinner with a group of people this week we were served by a young girl who looked so miserable and with a long face. She was not angry or upset; she just simply didn’t smile. Perhaps she didn’t like her job, or something bad had happened that day, but she was defiantly not going to give us more than what she was required to do. At one point she dropped something and said in her native language “this is not my day” and then I knew why she was not smiling and I needed to do something. You can’t be so miserable when you are that young, you still have a lifetime ahead of you to suffer!

So I told the group about my theory and that I would make her smile. Some did not believe me and were skeptical (she really had a long miserable face which looked hard to crack!) but I knew she was not angry; she just simply needed some positive energy and what better way to give it to her than through a smile. I sat there, observing her, waiting for my moment to strike. And as she went around taking people’s orders I knew that would be my chance to make her smile. When it was my turn I looked at her as she held her pen and paper and rapidly dropped her eyes avoiding eye contact. So I paused and waited for her to look at me. There was a very short, awkward silence and everyone waited to see what would happen. And then she looked up, I guess she didn’t know what was coming her way and as she looked at me I smiled. And then, as if by magic, she could not resist and smiled back at me! Everyone erupted with laughter and I placed my order.

She walked away and I had proven my point and theory to everyone at the table and they were all so exited by it. Some were still skeptical and we debated the phenomenon for a while and what made someone smile back at you, so I challenged all my companions to give generously and I asked each and everyone at the table to give her one smile. This would give her enough fuel to get through her shift. And one by one, taking it in turns, gave her a powerful smile. And every time she smiled back, and may I add, more enthusiastic than the previous smile.

As the night came to a close, she had moved from a miserable young girl probably hating her job to a more pleasant woman who enjoyed serving our table but still probably hating her job!

In the end, the social experiment had been a success and my theory once more had triumph.

I am sure she went back to work the next day with the same long face, but at least I know we made her life a little bit better that night. But just think what her job would be like If everyone of her customers gave her a smile; not matter how much she hates her job she would enjoy coming into work to get showered with that tremendous amount of energy that would keep her going for the rest of the day.

I don’t understand why we don’t do this more, its great and helps the world go round.

So don’t just sit there not smiling, give it a go, you will enjoy it and if we all do it, it means that someone will do it to you too! Then we will all benefit from the positive fuel that a smile gives to your life.

Week Forty-one – Mind over Matter

In an arm wrestling match who would win, your mind or your body? It depends on what your mind tells your body!

#bournemouthmarathon

 I promise that after this week I will not to talk about fitness and running for a while but I have to share with you all my experience running my first half marathon. And I want to share this with you not to inspire you to run a marathon yourselves, but to understand how powerful your mind can be. I have spoken about this subject before in previous blogs and I have shared some amazing insights on this fascinating subject, but this week I will share with you first hand experience of my mind doing a half marathon and not me!

The 12 weeks training I endured leading up to the marathon was more of a metal training than a physical one. I was preparing myself mentally to believe I can run 21 kilometres and get there in one piece. This training required me to build my distance gradually every Saturday achieving 2k more every week and finally reaching the 21k two weeks before the actual event. When I reached this I was happy, not too exhausted and mentally prepared, or so I thought! The last two weeks leading to the day were gentle to avoid injury and be physically ready for run.

Two days before the big day I went for the last 6k run and at the end I felt my knee was not right. It was slightly soar and I began to worry. I have a knee injury, which comes on and off but now, two day before judgement day it was playing up. I don’t need to tell you that all day Saturday it hurt like hell and I was convinced I was not going to be able to make the finishing line. However, I was determined to do this so I told myself I would go, start off and if I didn’t make it to the end at least I didn’t give up that easily. Next morning I woke up, got ready and guess what? My knee felt better! My mind had won over matter!

I got there early and at the starting line I began to warm up and physic myself up to the challenge. Remember only two weeks before I had done this, with no problems at all, so I told myself I would be ok.

All runners gathered, we set off into our journey of 21 kilometres to Bournemouth Pier. I had a rough idea which way we would go and I just followed the crowd of people as we ran through the streets of Bournemouth. I was so exited to be there, in the middle of an ocean of athletes, that suddenly I heard my running app indicating we had reached the first kilometre, and now there were only 20 left to go! I was so distracted I hadn’t realised we had already been running that long. If I kept that way I would cruse this little challenge, no problem!

But soon after reality hit me! I became aware of my breathing and my heart rate as I checked it on my watch; it was high at 160, higher than normal for the first 5k considering my pace was not that fast. During the training my heart rate would have been 150 max at this stage. I also became aware of my knee; it was bothering me and began to worry me. I began to see the “elite” runners pass me by on the other side of the track; this really put me off as they looked as fresh as a cucumber! I was only a quarter of the way and my mind playing games!

I was running for charity and people began to shout my name; this lifted my sprits and I pressed on, I didn’t want to let anyone down specially myself! This helped me and I was back on track, I was not going to give up and I would make it to the end even if my knee would collapse! For the next 5k I increased my speed, I remained focused and pressed on.

As my app announced I was half way in my mind I began the countdown. During the training every time I got pass the half waypoint it became easier and always got there in good shape, so I was on a winning streak!

At kilometre 15 something unexpected happen that would test me even further on the power of my mind. At this point the way the race was laid you could see Bournemouth Pier, the finishing point of the marathon. That meant we would go back again to account for the 6k left. Cruelly but I am sure not done on purpose, we had to pass by the finishing line; this played a massive trick on my mind. I felt really tired and all I wanted to do was to stop, jump the fence and cross the line! My legs were hurting and my heart rate was almost 170, I was ready to give up, my knee was killing me! Was it matter winning over mind? Actually it was my mind telling my body to give up; I had seen the end and all I wanted to do was to finish and my body was shutting down. We passed a drink and energy gel station and I grabbed a bottle of water and a gel and almost stopped.  I didn’t, I drank and threw the bottle on the side (I always wanted to do that!!! Seen it on the telly!) and held onto my energy gel. I looked up and someone had collapsed in front of me! Was that going to be me soon? I looked at the energy gel and I said to myself “this thing must work, but I’ll take it 3k before the finishing line” Why did I do that? I knew that if I drank it then, 2k down the road I would be thinking “I’m running out of energy” and who knows if I’d would have made it. Remember last week’s blog? G’s & T’s? I need a goal, a target; something to focus on and 3k was the halfway point from here; that would be my reward.

One, two and three kilometres went by and when my app said “3 kilometres to go” I opened my energy gel and sucked it up, threw the package onto the side and raised my eyes, seeing Bournemouth pier in the distance, calling me!

I don’t know if those energy things work, never had one before, but all I know is that as ran the last 3k of my half marathon I never felt so good. I was back on track, I was ready to do this and do it in good time. Women and older runners where taking me over, I didn’t care, at this point I had one thing on my mind; I was close to the finishing line! And your knee Sergio I hear you say? What knee? I felt like Usain Bolt, fit as a fiddle and nothing was going to stop me from getting there!

I was so in the zone when I crossed the finishing line that I didn’t hear or see my family cheer me. I did hear the commentator shout my name, which made me lift my arms and cross the finishing line like I was number one! My mind had conquered over matter!

I was excused and my body ached, I struggled during the run and my pace, although good, was slower than during my training. It really shows that the pressure of being there and seeing people fail really has an influence on your performance on the day. The experience of running this half marathon really taught me how powerful our mind is and what it can do to our bodies. It’s so powerful that it can make you give up and it makes your body physically tired, it can crush your spirits and bring you down like a led balloon. Everything that was happening around me was influencing my mind, which in turn was telling my body to react accordingly. External factors affect the way we think, what we believe and how we think we can cope; our body, our sprit will just do what they are told. Mind over matter is the art of being able to block all those external influences that affect you, and turn it around focusing on what you want and not what is happening around you.

Never give up, ever! Your mind is stronger than your body; your spirit will never crush if your mind holds it high.

Week Twenty-eight – Keep on going!

When I wrote this phrase some time ago, I had entered a Facebook competition from a page called Authors Publish, which encourages up and coming writers to focus on publishing their work. They had asked for submissions on what inspired you to write in one sentence and after some time thinking why I write I realised that I never get tired of writing. It’s like a drug, I need to do it, even if it is something short, but I have to get my thoughts on paper. This is where I also thought of my saying “I write because someone out there reads” and I still firmly believe that these two sentences are the biases of my passion for writing.

This is also where my personal challenge of writing a weekly blog comes form, I want to push myself and explore my abilities as a writer. This year I want to know if I can sustain a blog every week finding the inspiration to write continuously about different subjects. Although I am now halfway through my life (I want to live to 90 with all my abilities in good shape) I began my writing careers very young, doing short stories. Then my passion for the performing arts pushed me to become a scriptwriter and I shifted to writing those tales in dialog, visualising it on the stage. For years I have focused on writing scripts and about a year ago I had the opportunity to participate on a writing club called Shakespeare’s Monkeys, a group inspired by a friend of mine who wanted to get a few of us together, literally, and write short stories. This was a great challenge for me as I had not written short stories in a long time and I wanted to go back to see if I could still do it. The group dissolved after a year, many where too busy to dedicate time to write the short stories, but I had learned that my ability was still there.

Two weeks ago I finished the second draft of my 4^th Musical called “Another day in Paradise” and if you are a Phil Collins die-hard fan you would have identified that this musical is using his songs. My first musical, written in Spanish took me almost 3 years to write and this latest project has been the subject of my attention for the last 12 months.  At the same time a few weeks ago I began to think about a new project. I have never written a book, a story longer than 5000 words and in conversation with someone about my family background, a story extremely complex and intriguing, they said I should write a book about it. But what I realised as I began to put this idea together is that I am not sure I am a book writer. I have never suffered from writer’s block, as you all know from previous blogs I have a very vivid imagination and not enough hours in the day to write, but yet I could not get started writing this story. I tried, I began with an introduction and then I stopped. I could not get pass this. So I left it for a couple of days and want back to it, but nothing! I wrote, I deleted, I then wrote again and trashed it and all of the sudden I was stuck! I went to bed feeling down, I wanted to write, I wanted to get the story on the computer but the more I tried the harder in became. Had I dried out? Had I got tired of writing? I hoped not, otherwise I would be tired of life!

And then it downed on me, I am a writer, but I am a scriptwriter, that’s what I do, and that’s what I love doing. Yes I can also write short stories and blog away, but if I want to tell a story, I have to write the dialog. I guess is like being a sports person, you can’t be good at all sports!

This revelation felt good, and help me re-focus my energy and what I love doing. So often we find pushing ourselves in the wrong direction, just because that’s what we should do. I always felt that if I wanted to be an accomplish writer I should publish a book; this seems to be the right thing. I see people in the train reading great novels and I aspire to have those people reading my stories, so it is only natural that I think I need to write them on a great novel, or an epic book that everyone loves, buys and becomes number one reading book of the year. I guess that’s not where my abilities to write lay and I will never be the next JK Rowling but my stories can still make the silver screen like Harry Potter, I just skip the book and go straight to the film!

I called this blog keep on going because I want to share with you all why it’s important to keep on going on what we believe, on what our passion is but more importantly where our abilities lay. Yes it has taken me 3 years to written my first musical and it will take me many more to write others, I spend endless hours every week writing my blog and scripts, short stories and most of my work has never seen the light of day, it’s not like a book that you write and publish and then it gets read. To achieve my dream as a writer doesn’t mean I have to write a book; to achieve my dream means I have to focus on what my ability as a writer is. Every word that I write, ever letter I use to share my thoughts and idea, has to be done through short stories, blogs and dialog, not the next war and peace!

This is a principle we should all apply to our lives; at work, in our hobbies, in our personal life, if you love what you do, then focus on it and do it well, know your limitation and don’t feel you have to do it all, don’t be a Jack of all Trades and a Master of None. You don’t have to run marathons like everyone else to enjoy keeping fit, you don’t have to be able to play all instruments to be a great musician, you don’t have to have the top job to be the best as what you do. If you are going to invest the time and effort on something, you might as well do it on the one thing you know that every time you do it, you are getting closer to your dream.

The power of belief

Do you believe in fairies? Or perhaps in Father Christmas? Or do you believe that UFOs exist? Do you believe in anything? The holiday season brings back home the power of belief to millions of people at the same time. Whether it is children writing letters to Father Christmas, people going to church to celebrate the birth of Christ or just believing that there is something good at Christmas, the powerful message for me is that we all have to believe in something to keep our spirits alive.

And even more powerful is the strength it gives you, when you truly believe in something. My children are being brought up in 2 cultures, the English culture as we live in the UK, so Father Christmas visits our home every year. And the Spanish culture as my wife and I have Spanish roots, so we get an extra visit from the 3 Wise Men (Los Reyes Magos) on the 6^th January (this is a Latin tradition where children receive gifts brought by the 3 Wise Men) So my kids get 2 sets of presents. You can imagine this raises some questions with children at their school, “why do you get more presents and we don’t?” or “are you sure such thing exist?”

How do you deal with this as a kid? Well, with the power of belief!

Often human behaviour manifests itself in its purest form with children; through the innocence of their minds. And belief is a very powerful thing in children as they don’t know better or can’t question it. So my kids stand in front of their friends at school and reply “that’s because you are not Spanish like we are!” and that is the best answer they could ever give! This is not just believing that the 3 Wise Men exist but belief in their culture and upbringing.

This brings me back to where I started; do you believe in anything?

There are many theories on belief and the power of the mind. I am sure many of you have either attended a seminar on this or read one of the many reputable books published on this subject.  And I don’t pretend to be an expert on this or indeed hold any professional qualifications in the subject, but guess what? I do have belief and I have seen it work! May be this does not qualify me to advice anyone, but it does give me the opportunity to share my experiences with people and hopefully inspire some of you to do the same.

So what do I believe in? If I did a list, it would be as long as the river Nile, but let me tell you what I think helps me every day.

First, I do believe that anyone can do anything! In the animated Pixar film “Ratatouille”, Gusteau is a famous chef that believes “Anyone can cook” and this inspires Remy, a rat that happens to have culinary talents, to become a chef. Think of the powerful message this film is sending to kids? You can do anything you want! But does the rat become a chef just because he is talented? Of course not, it takes Remy conviction, hard work and belief!

I also believe that people have talent. And talent is paired off with belief. There is not such thing as “I am turn deaf therefore I can’t sing” Unless there is a physical impediment that stops you from listening to music or using your vocal cords to produce a sound, anyone can sing! And talent is developed, nurtured and grown. If you put the time, dedication, passion and belief, you too can become a great cook! And cooking is a good example here. I often say “I can’t cook” what I really mean to say is “I don’t like to cook” It does not interest me, I find it boring and tedious, so I can’t cook, I won’t cook. But I could if I wanted! Could I become a famous chef like Jamie Oliver? Sure I could! The only difference between him and I is that he has the passion, conviction and belief in what he does. So he works hard at it and he is a famous chef. It would never excite me to be cooking for a living, even if it has all the money attached to it like he has!

So can I become anything I want? I believe you can. You can train to do anything, you can learn to do anything and you can do anything you really want to do.

Let’s look at it from another angle. Take fear. Think of any fear you have; heights, flying, water, spiders, these fears stop you from doing anything related to them. I do not like water, I respect water as an element, and it scares me! So I don’t swim, never have. Can I swim? Yes, sort of! Now, my son was just like me, he hated water, not sure why as I don’t think fears are inherited but he hated water. And guess what? Yes he could not swim! And he was convinced about it. My wife wanted him to be able to swim, “a good skill to have if you are in a boat” she said “you never know when he will be in a situation where swimming will save his life” and I thought about what she said and she was right. I hate water and swimming because when I was a kid I got pushed into a swimming pool and I didn’t know how to swim and almost drowned. That, combined with the embarrassment of all the kids laughing, made me hate water and swimming.

So she pushed my son to take lessons and now he is a like duck in water. Will he ever be an Olympic swimmer? Well, he could, if he had a passion for it, but I don’t think swimming is his thing. But now he can swim very well so it proves that anyone can do anything.

I guess then that leaves the question how good can you become at doing things? And the answer lays in the passion you have for something. If you really want to be the best at your field, at what you do, you will work hard to achieve this. And your level of skills and talent will be determined by the amount of work you put into mastering your skills, your area of expertise. Have you ever look at someone with an MBA and thought, “how do they do it? I don’t have the brains for it!” Again, unless you have a physical impairment, your brain is just as good as the person who did the MBA, the difference is they wanted to spent hundreds of hours studying while you would have been doing something else.

So belief is a very powerful tool we have as humans. And we can apply it to anything in our lives; belief in yourself (you can do anything) belief in someone else (there is good in everyone) belief in the system (things will get better) belief in faith (there is something superior to us) and belief in anything that will make our lives better.