Discover Your Talents

Thinking of yourself passively -- as being employed and, therefore, subject to the dictates of someone else -- can be fatal to your long-term success. In reality, you're the president of your own personal-services corporation. You're completely in charge of production, quality control, training and development, marketing, finance, and promotion.

Seeing yourself as self-employed forces you to recognize that you are also self-responsible and self-determining. That everything that happens to you happens because of your conduct and your behavior. You're in the driver's seat. You're behind the steering wheel of your life. It's up to you to decide how to utilize your talents and abilities in such a way as to bring you the very highest return on the investment of your time and energy.

No one else is going to do it for you. Others can help you, guide you, direct you, channel you, point you in the right direction, and even give you opportunities.

But in the final analysis, you're the boss. No one else can make the critical decisions that will determine your future and your fortune. To that end, here are four questions that you need to ask yourself on a regular basis:

1. What do I most enjoy doing?
2. How would I describe my ideal job?
3. If I could have any job at all, anywhere, what would it be?
4. If I won a million dollars in the lottery and I had to pick something to work at indefinitely, what would I choose to do?

To uncover your strengths and determine your unique talents and abilities, ask yourself:

• What have I been good at in the past?
• What things do I do easily that seem to be difficult for other people?
• In what areas of work do I seem to get the best results... and derive the most pleasure?

The answers to all of these questions will give you a good idea as to how you might increase your return on the energy you invest.

Then look at your current job, and ask yourself:

• Where do I want to be in three to five years?
• What kind of work do I want to be doing?
• What kind of people do I want to be working with?
• What level of responsibility do I desire?
• What kind of money do I want to be earning?
• What part of the country do I want to be living in?

Look at your work and at your life in general, and ask yourself:

• What kind of people do I admire and most want to be like?

• Who do I know, or know about, who is doing the kind of work that I want to do and is
  living the kind of life that I want to live?

• What changes would I have to make in my life to be like that person?

Remember: Whatever anyone has done, someone else can do as well. You'll never be exactly the same as another person, but you don't need to be. You can use the successes and achievements of other people as guidelines to help you decide where you want to arrive at the end of your particular journey. But you can be unique and different and successful in your own way.

As a result of your genetic structure, your education, your experiences, your background, your interests and proclivities, you're a unique and rare combination of talents and abilities. You can be extremely good at something. And it's your responsibility to find out what that something is.

Whatever you're doing today, it's nowhere near what you're really capable of doing. The key to a happy and prosperous life is for you to regularly evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, to become very good in the areas you most enjoy, and then to throw your whole heart into what you're doing.