Your Talents Don’t Equal Your Purpose

Every time I see it portrayed in the media it makes me want to throw up a little in my mouth. Whether it’s movies, radio shows, commercials or tv shows, I cringe when I see it happening.

I guess that explains why I don’t watch tv and I’m incredibly picky as to what I’ll spend my time watching.

How often in schools (like career day when you’re 14 years old) or other places do you see children being encouraged to pursue a career based on what they’re good at?

The movie Goodwill Hunting is a perfect example of this and to a lesser degree it happens every single day all over the world. In case you haven’t seen Goodwill Hunting, the main character Will Hunting is a genius of epic proportions. He’s a wizard at math, science, history and just about every single subject. He routinely makes his mentors look like idiots because of just how smart he is.

But the “problem” is that he works as a janitor and hangs out with the wrong group of friends who aren’t encouraging him to “give back to the world”.

The entire movie is about the struggle between what Will really wants to do with his life vs what everybody else thinks he should be doing.

I realize we’re not all like Will in that respect but we are all geniuses. We all have passions and want to express them in creative ways that will help the world.

The problem is that because of authority figures and people who we think are influential, we follow their advice instead of listening to ourselves.

We might be talented at something but that doesn’t mean that’s what we should do for a career. On the flip side just because you love something doesn’t mean it should be your career either.

But in today’s digital age it’s just about possible to monetize ANYTHING.

Here’s a great video from Gary Vaynerchuk from a few years ago that you might find interesting.

My wife Kate is a very talented hair stylist and right now that is helping to pay our bills. Does she like doing it? No. Does she actually hate it? Yes. She makes a lot of money and is very successful at it but not only does she dislike it very much, but the stress and chemicals are actually killing her.

She’s very talented at building her business and clientele but this should not be her contribution to the world. She kind of got forced into this at a young age and because she was pretty good at it, she kept doing it.

I feel like this happens to a lot of kids coming out of high school or college. Instead of knowing exactly what they want to do, they feel like they’re in limbo. They might have a degree but they have no idea who they are or how they want to contribute to the world. Because of this they simply take the first semi decent opportunity that comes their way.

A friend might tell them that there’s an opportunity for some pretty good pay at a job they really don’t care about. It kills me when I hear of this happening to people. Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean this is what you’re supposed to be doing in the world.

It might be. But it also might not be. If you’re in a job right now that’s sucking the life out of you, stop doing it. Immediately. If you can’t, sit down right now and develop a strategy to find a way out.

If you’re stuck in quick sand and are sinking quick, you need to figure out something in a couple minutes to save your butt or you’re a dead man. That job you have, it’s making you sink to your grave. It’s killing you. Stop reading this article right now and get a piece of paper and a pencil out and come up with a plan to get out and figure out what it is you love to do so you can spend your time on that.

Every day you spend working a job you hate is a day you’ll never get back again. It’s a day that’s lost forever.

Don’t spend one more day like that if you can help it.