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 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.

Week Twenty-six – Halfway through!

This week I reach a milestone in my quest to write a weekly blog for a year and turn it into a book, and here we are, halfway through!

First of all, I want to thank you all for continually supporting me by reading my weekly blog, the great news is that we are halfway there! And without you I would not be here. So whether you have read all 26 blogs so far or only a few (even just one) you have contributed to my commitment and dream to push myself as a writer to produce 52 bite-sizes blogs with my experiences and views in life, which in turn may have, so far, given you inspiration and ideas on how to better live your life. All 52 blogs will then form part of a self-help book which will be entitled “A pack of cards, 52 ways to raise your game” a title inspired by my son who in a conversation about my book reminded me that there are 52 cards in a pack, the same number of weeks in a year and of blogs I will write. It’s amazing how and when inspiration comes to you and everything around you gives you an idea.

So to celebrate this milestone, I thought it would be a good idea to share with you one of my first writing pieces I wrote back in 2011 when I began to blog. It is entitled “A writer’s world – Everything is an idea!” and it is appropriate in the context of how I’ve come to be here today and how my son inspired the title of the book. So enjoy it, keep on reading and once again, thank you for your support, as long as someone out there reads, I will write!

A writer’s world – Everything is an idea!

When I was a young kid, my mother worried about me. Not because I was not good at school (which by the way I was terrible) or because I hanged around a bad circle of friends (which I didn’t) or because I was perhaps into drugs or drinking (which I was either) but she worried because I had a very vivid imagination… strange thing for a mother to worry about!

But as a parent, you always worry about your children and whether they are going to be socially awkward or outgoing. If you see your child at a party, standing in a corner, not talking to other children, you’d think there is something wrong with them and so we enroll them to attend a drama class to help them come out of their shell. I was one of those kids whose mother worried about being a social outcast (I know, hard to believe hey?). She also knew that I had a very vivid imagination and her love and passion for Theater inspired her to take me with her to do theatre. And I will thank her for the rest of my life as she gave me the greatest gift any mother could give to a child, the encouragement to do what I enjoy most, using my imagination.

I grew up as a child actor, working from the age of 10 in theatre (and no, it was not child labor and I was still going to school, which I hated!) and unlike most children my age; I was doing something that let my imagination run wild. Being in the theatre and playing different characters was just what my head needed; it helped me transport myself to different worlds. You could almost say that acting was child’s play; it was for me! I was not in the yard with other kids playing; I had my own playground and an audience who appreciated what I was doing.

Now at the age of 47, I work in Human Resources and in the past I’ve facilitated training, which is like acting. As a trainer, one of my opening lines to relax the participants and introduce myself is “I was a child actor, but I was a rubbish actor” People always look at me in astonishment that I call my self a rubbish actor, so I follow by saying “and do you know how I know I was a rubbish actor?” no one ever dares to answer but I’m sure many think of a few things to say. I wait and then proclaim, “Because I am not famous today!” That always gets a laugh, and then finish by saying “If I had been any good I would be in Hollywood and you would be watching my films!” There is some truth in that, me being a rubbish actor, but a major factor for not being famous today is the fact that I never worked hard at it (I was a lazy Actor). I did continue to fulfill my need to exercise my imagination as an actor working for an amateur group but I haven’t acted now for over 10years building up my frustration and locking up my imagination.

The other great gift my mother gave me was the passion for writing; she knew that another way to get all those ideas out of my head was to channel them through pen and paper. As a child I used to write stories, which never left the scrap piece of paper upon which I wrote them, but they were out of my head! As a teenager I used to write drafts of movies I used to conjure with my childhood friend, often taking center roles as the heroes and good looking leading actors, these where often action driven adventures inspired by blockbuster Hollywood movies we would watch. We used to create different characters and occasionally we were able to bring some of these to life at my father’s social parties, in short sketches, where he enjoyed showcasing his son, the actor. And all of the time I was exercising my passion to create stories and characters that live in my head and needed to come out!

And as a young adult I worked for a theater company down in Putney, south London, where I had the tremendous opportunity to put my vivid imagination to good use. Group 64 Theatre, as it was know back then, provided me with the platform to showcase some of my work; plays that I had written and nurtured for years like a farmer nurtures his crop until it grows and he is able to harvest and share with the world. Unfortunately, I left Group 64 to pursue a more mature career in Human Resources and forgot all about my world, the world of imagination and adventures, the world of acting and writing.

And then I was given the opportunity to take a new role in training for my company, a job that consisted in traveling a lot to deliver training across Europe. This new career would take me away every week discovering new places and new adventures. Little did I know that this job would be the starting point to re-kindle myself with my old passion and help me get my head clear from all those characters asking me to put them on paper again! Traveling took a lot of my time in the working week, and this new job was all work, from the moment I left home to the moment I got back, 24 hours a day. And at home, the weekends were not mine, but my family’s, it was full on, every minute of the day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

A year went on and I loved it, but there was something missing. I had a good balance, spending good quality time with the family and giving 110% at work, so what more did I need? And then it dawned on me; what was missing was what I would call from that moment on as “me time”

I was not doing anything for me; I was doing stuff for everyone else, but not for me. And I discovered I had around 10 hours traveling time, which was dead time. Most travelers use this “dead time” to read or watch a movie or listen to music, I also did at times but that wasn’t enough, I needed to do more, something that would fulfill that “me time”. In one of the trips I opened my personal laptop and looked at it. I didn’t want to watch a movie, listen to music or play solitaire. I didn’t want to do any work either. So what else could I do? And as I stared at the blank screen I had that eureka moment; Write! After all, laptops are the modern portable versions of typewriters! And I was off!

Since then I’ve written a array of work from full-length musicals, full-length plays, comedies, several short plays, a monolog and several episodes of sitcoms and movie scripts! These are all still just drafts except for the comedy, which the first 20 minutes of it was performed at the Soho Theatre in London for “the first 20 minutes” competition.

I’ve revived my passion for writing and everything I see is an idea I want to write about: a new play, or a book or a film, a blog. The more I look the more ideas I get and my travels keep on feeding these ideas. I see so many people, different places and situations that I just have to write about it.  And I guess primarily I am a scriptwriter; I love putting dialog together for those characters in my head, although I am also working on a book. I believe in writing because someone, somewhere maybe is interested in reading my thoughts, the ideas that pop into my head, those ideas that make a good play or TV series or even a film that one day many would enjoy, ideas that come from experiences and observations from my travel, the people I meet and the different situations I find myself in every week. I want to share with everyone my world, the world in my head, the world of a writer.

I don’t know if I am any good at this, but what I know is that I love doing it. I love putting thought to paper and to me that is 90% of the job done. I’ve heard of  “writer’s block” which I guess means you run out of ideas and you inspiration stops. Well not with me! I feel that if I don’t put my ideas on paper my head will explode! And by they way I am a firm believer that writing is not just about using clever words, I don’t have many of those; writing is about painting a picture that your readers will be able to see, and some times the simplest of descriptions can paint a thousand images. If like me, you have a very vivid imagination, you need to give life to some of those stories, characters and situations for everyone else around you to enjoy!

I hope this week’s blog has inspired you to do what you believe in, with determination and passion. Getting half way through my project has not been easy and I know there are twenty-six more blogs to write. I can’t wait to continue brining you more “short bursts” of inspiration, get the rest of the cards out of the pack so you can raise your game!

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.