Inform Yourself

The Genius Project: Natural versus Acquired Talents

Here is another very important finding from my good friend Jay Niblick’s Genius Project.

There are really only two kinds of talent: natural and acquired. Lots of people toss about words like skill, knowledge, competency, aptitude and a hundred other descriptors for someone’s ability to do something well, but in the end they all fall into one of these two categories.

Natural Talents: are your innate ability to do something, your natural endowment or aptitude. The key word here is natural. These talents can be physical, as in Lance Armstrong’s remarkable lung capacity (a physical talent due to his anatomy and physiology) or they can be mental as in Anthony Robbins’ ability for speaking and engaging people through words (a mental talent due to his incredibly high empathetic ability to sense other’s emotions and needs). The natural talents he was concerned with in this study are only those mental ones. Natural (mental) talents are patterns of thinking and decision-making that you were either born with or that you developed very early on in your formative years. Natural talents are the result of your own unique neural networks and how your brain works. Based on your genetics and the way your brain is structured you are naturally good at seeing certain things, while you may be completely blind to other aspects of reality. Those things you see clearly are your natural talents and those things that you do not see clearly are your non-talents. We all have our own unique mix of these two.

The differences in how our brains perceive reality are what cause one person to have a natural talent for strategic thinking and long range planning, while another person might be horrible at thinking that far in advance. Conversely, that person who isn’t good at long-range planning may be great at seeing the details of the moment and so both people are equally talented in life, just for different aspects of life. Your set of natural talents is unique to just you. In the entire world, no two people possess the exact same set or level of natural talents.

Your natural talents are also fixed and do not change much over the course of your life, so it is important to understand the ones you have very clearly because you will not be developing any more. This permanence aspect is very important because it makes the old “nature versus nurture” argument over where these talents come from somewhat irrelevant. Regardless of which side of the argument you fall on, the end is the same. Your natural talents are what they are and they aren’t going to change very much anytime soon.

If you believe the nature theory, which argues that your genetics controlled these kinds of talents, then the point is moot because you can’t change your genes; you were destined to think and make decisions the way you do before you were even born. If you believe the nurture camp, which argues that the social and environmental influences you experienced in your childhood controlled the development of these talents, the point is equally as moot because you can’t go back and change your upbringing.

The point is this; natural talents are very stable patterns that your brain has developed for thinking and making decisions, and whether these patterns have been with you for your entire life, or just most of your life, we know from research and experience that they are not something you can easily develop through conscious effort (e.g., reading a book, or training or meditation).

Acquired Talents: unlike natural talents, are those talents that we can acquire or develop. These are the knowledge and experience we gain throughout life. The person who doesn’t possess a natural talent for empathy may become, through lots of reading and training, quite competent at being sensitive to other’s needs. The person who isn’t naturally good at seeing the big strategic view may have taken classes on strategic planning and through life experience has become somewhat proficient in long-range planning. The key is that while someone might improve their ability, or augment it, through acquiring knowledge and experience, if it isn’t a natural talent for them, they will never be a genius at it.

The sales person who learns the technical steps of the sale and the features, functions and benefits of the product they sell has one form of an acquired talent for selling. The accountant who has the knowledge of math and accounting principles has an acquired talent for her work. The airline pilot who has learned the principles of flight and aerodynamics and how to master the physical aspects of piloting a plane has an acquired talent for flying. The differences between acquired and natural talents, however, are significant, and having one without the other will never deliver 5th level performance.

The sales person who has acquired knowledge and experience only has one half of the picture, but if he doesn’t possess the natural talents for being aggressive, persistent or empathetic than all that acquired talent is for naught. Because he isn’t aggressive enough he won’t apply the steps of the sale when he needs to. Because he isn’t persistent enough he is likely to not get past the gatekeeper to talk to the key decision maker in the first place. And because he lacks empathy he isn’t able to innately sense when the prospect is ready for the close and he might either push for the close to early or wait too long and miss the window or opportunity.

Without the natural talents to support him, all of his acquired talents will not take him to the 5th level of performance, the genius level. What success he does achieve will be like that of the student in that difficult class who struggles to get results. He may get them, but not easily, not passionately, not consistently and not without feeling like he has to put in a lot more effort than he gets out in results.

Sometimes the acquired talents play a large role in success, sometimes not, but the natural talents, in my experience, are always a significant factor. Every role is different, as is every person who fills it, but the one thing we’ve learned in this study is that without both natural and acquired talents being fully present, performance will be hindered. Every role, performed at genius levels, requires that the right natural talent be present.

The 5th level of performance (genius) is impossible to attain without being aware of your natural and acquired talents and relying on your natural talents for your success.