Eyal Danon’s Blog

A key activity you need to engage in as a dreamer is to discover your natural talents.  Are you good with mechanical objects?  Do you enjoy analyzing data?  Are you quite good at striking up a conversation with almost anyone?  These natural talents, whatever they turn out to be, will become your road map for success. 

I believe in finding and nurturing your natural talents rather than trying to improve on your weak spots.  Work with what you have, not with what you wish you had.  It’s much easier to work with your natural gifts, making them stronger and stronger each and every day.  What you need to do is make your natural talents shine. 

I have been practicing Tae Kwon Do for years, and one competition in which I participated illustrated this principle beautifully.  The person who won the tournament was not the strongest, fastest or most flexible.  Actually, it was a young person who had lost a hand in a car accident.  To compensate for the loss, he developed an amazingly effective and powerful side kick.  All he used in the tournament was his powerful side kick, over and over again.  At the end of the competition, he was able to beat all his rivals and win the trophy.  He didn’t try to improve his punching technique, nor did he try fancy kicks.  He found one kick that particularly suited him and used it to maximum advantage.  That’s what you should do with your natural talents.  We all have natural gifts.  Find out what yours are and just keep on working them.

Your Natural Talents Finder

Answering the following three questions will help you to find your natural talents, regardless of which stage of your life you’re in right now.

1. How would you describe yourself?  Please supply specific examples for each talent that you have.  If for instance you describe yourself as “courageous,” supply at least five examples of a situation in which you displayed courage. Feel free to list as many attributes and examples as you wish.
2. How would others describe you?  Write down any praise or positive feedback you have ever received.  Take your time doing this exercise, as quite often it’s difficult for most of us to remember these positive moments.
3. Which of the natural talents you’ve identified do you use the most?  I believe that you need to work only on your key strengths and maximize the natural talents you already have instead of worrying about your weaknesses!

We all intuitively feel that timing is important to everything that we do, yet very few are able to capture the essence of timing as a long term process vs. an opportunistic attempt to take advantage of a current situation, such as the ups and downs of the stock market or the “best” time to start a new job.

What if we could take a long term approach to timing our life for success on all fronts?  What if we allowed ourselves enough time to spend with our kids and not feel guilty about it?

Last week a friend forwarded me an article from the Financial Times on Ynon Kreiz, someone that I grew up with 30 years ago.  Turns out he is now CEO of a $5B media company in the UK.  The real fascinating thing for me is that he pretty much followed the “18 Principle” to the letter, exploring the world as a wind surfer until the age of 30, learning about different cultures, different people and more importantly about himself. 

In his words, “I got to the age of 30 and my longest work experience was one year”.  He dedicated the next 6 years, from 30 to 36 to prepare himself for the “Empire Builder” stage, getting a business degree at UCLA and then the breakthrough came when he met Haim saban, a media mogul that made his fortune with the Power Rangers.  Saban turned out to be the mentor that every empire builder needs in order to grow and develop.

It’s important to note that this mentoring relationship is beneficial to both sides.  As Saban notes in the article ““I did take a bet on Ynon, and it paid off… big time”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/05/25/ccprof125.xml

Good luck Ynon!

I have been reading Haruki Murakami “Wind Up Chronicles”, and it prompted me to buy his new memoir, “What I think about when I think about running”.  Interstingly enough, I have found out that Murakami is riding a bike with the inscription of “18 Till I Die” – a song by Bryan Adams.  Bryan refers to the time when he will be 55 by saying Someday I’ll be 18 goin’ on 55!  Well, he is 49 now, I wonder if he still feels the same way…