Top five things you need to be considered “talented”
Many people aspire to fame, but aspiring just isn’t enough. Some people have money that allows them to pay their way into stardom. But, those without privilege need to rely on pure talent. Here are five tips every artist needs to know when all they have to relay on is talent.
1. Skill. As much as people love to think so, they are not born with skill.Some people at an early age develop a skill set which permits them block by block to lay a strong foundation of creativity that they can eventually characterize as talent. Some people struggle to lay their foundation. Regardless of whether the development seems to come naturally or through struggle, skill comes from practice, practice, and more practice. Skills should be honed until they are like second nature. Just like a healthy person’s lungs breath without a conscious command, so should as skill be integrated into the nature of a person.
2. Passion. A person could have every skill under the sun. Passion is to a skill as a soul is to a body. A dream is to a skill, as blood is to a body. Without passion or a soul, the skill one carves out for themselves would be lifeless. If they have no dream that tugs at their heart motivating them to incessantly pursue that dream, the skill will sit entombed in darkness. That is the opposite of talent. Talent is living in the light. Steven Tyler, Patti Label, Rod Stewart, and Tina Turner have at least this one career element in common. Their individual passions have allowed them each to re-invent themselves over the years so their skills continued to develop and continue to sustain their highly commercial performance art.
3. Determination. Determination is for skill to thrive, as air is necessary for lungs to breath. I happened to run into S. Epath Merkerson, who plays police chief Anita Van Buren on Law and Order. I was a law student at the time. She was picking up a few pictures from an event she had attended with then living, but now deceased Jerry Orbach who played Detective Lenny Briscoe on Law and Order. We started chatting. When she learned I was a law student she summed up her encouragement to me in one word. “Persevere.” That one word implies a person needs to have a goal in mind, and then they need to go after that goal.
4. Priorities. When a person has priorities, not only do they have a goal in sight, but they know how to put the most important goals in the order that permits them to succeed to their ultimate outcome. Fantasia, the talented American Idol Season 2 winner lead an aimless life, before she made it a priority to put singing first. Even though Fantasia Barrino was a single mother with a child to raise, for a short time, she put her singing career first. After winning American Idol, she is now she is able to give her daughter stability and security, and to make her daughter her number one priority.
5. Opportunity. One a person has a skill, passion, determination, and priorities, an opportunity becomes the bridge that takes a dreamer into reality. American Idol, The Voice, X-Factor, America’s Got Talent, are all proof of how one opportunity can pave the way from one imagined life to a performance fulfilled life.
So, here you have it. Then next time someone tells you you are so talented, you need to determine whether they are just being nice and short-sighted, or do you really have what it takes.