Welcome back to BL NK P ges, the podcast where we celebrate the unlimited potential of fresh starts. In today's episode, "Combine Your Ability + Skill," I'm diving into the essential ingredients that shape our success: ability, skill, and talent. We'll explore the innate abilities we're born with, the skills we meticulously cultivate through practice, and the synergy that creates true talent.

I'll share inspiring anecdotes, including insights on figures like Mozart and Steph Curry, and pose a thought-provoking question: What cause or purpose is worthy of your full talent? Together, we'll uncover how your unique combination of abilities and skills can make a meaningful impact and why character plays a crucial role in achieving greatness.

Get ready to challenge yourself and discover how to give 100% in everything you do!

Main Topic: Combining Ability and Skill

Framework Explanation:

• Ability: The foundational, innate potential one is born with.
• Skill: The shaping force developed through practice and dedication.
• Talent: The synergy emerging from the combination of ability and skill.

Detailed Discussion

Ability (Foundation):

Definition:

• Innate potential and raw material one is born with.
• Often genetic or influenced by early development.

Characteristics:

• Examples of natural aptitudes such as music or spatial reasoning.
• The innate ability observed in prodigies (e.g., Mozart).

Message:

• Embrace and identify your unique abilities without envying others.

Skill (Shaping Force):

Definition:

• Hard-earned through deliberate practice and learning.

Contrasts:

• Skill vs. Ability: Skill is within one's control to improve and shape through effort.

Illustrations:

• Stories of individuals who surpassed their peers through consistent effort (e.g., athletes, musicians).

Advice:

• Consistent practice and dedication can elevate one to world-class performance.

Talent (Synergy):

Definition:

• The combination of innate abilities and developed skills.
• Emerging as a polished and refined form.

Importance of Character:

• World-class performance also requires strong character.
• Responsibility to elevate and support teammates (e.g., Steph Curry's influence).

Warning:

• Talent alone is insufficient without the diligence and commitment to apply it effectively.

Self-Reflection Questions

Identifying Purpose:

• What causes or purposes are worthy of your full talent?
• What issues deeply move you?
• Where could your abilities and skills make the biggest difference?
• Where you can create significant impact.

Conclusion

Legacy and Impact:

• What legacy do you want to leave?
• Evaluate how others will perceive your commitment and efforts.

World-Class Efforts:

• Aim for excellence, and don't settle for mediocrity.

The Challenge to Listeners:

• Identify a purpose greater than yourself and commit fully with your abilities and skills.
• Emphasize giving 100% effort, not more, not less.

Final Thoughts

Willingness to Improve:

• Encouraging listeners to not only identify their abilities but also to sharpen their skills continuously.
• Embracing character development alongside ability and skill improvement.

Welcome to Blank Pages, the podcast. It's a podcast for people who appreciate the new beginnings of a clean slate, but strive for the courage, willingness, and curiosity and creativity available only on the blank pages of new possibility, the potential to move beyond and move forward, where people are willing to make new decisions from fresh perspectives and are ready to write in a much better way. The world is waiting and nothing listens better than a blank piece of paper. So I'm glad that you are here today. I'm so excited to have you here as a guest. I am in my office studio today. Pretty fun place to be. I like being here, have all my fun stuff around and wanted to have to give you a tour and share what I got going on in this place.

So hey, welcome to the show. How have you been? What's been going on in your world? Hopefully lots of good and wonderful things. I've got a lot of cool stuff going on. I am finally at this point where I have released the initial email that's going out to a group of folks that I'm taking through a course that I've been putting together for some time now in my online community that I'm building. It's called the Uphill community. So that is something I've been working on for a while. I can't wait to get it out and to push it out into the world. It's going to be fun.

It's going to be fun. And for those who are walking with me through it, I'm just man, we're going to have a good time together. We're going to really, really good time. So if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, I hope that you're following the show. If you're on Spotify podcasts, hopefully you're following the show. And if not, go ahead and click that button and follow it. If you're on Amazon music or if you're on Spotify. No, I already said Spotify.

If you're on Odyssey, go ahead and check out Odyssey. And also on Substack, you can find me there, audible and on YouTube, you can find it there. And I believe we're going to start putting the videos up and out on, on YouTube for you to check it out and be able to see me in my space where I am right here, which is always pretty cool because it is a cool, fun space. And again, I have to show you around. So I'm in here, I'm drinking from my Patriots cup, some nespresso coffee. And what's cool about this coffee is it is so potent and strong, which if you're going to drink coffee, it needs to be strong. Don't put all that frou frou stuff in it. Just good old fashioned in black coffee.

But I'm here and I'm going to lead off with my show and tell here in a sec. But remember, I would love it if you would follow also what I'm building and the things that I'm doing. Not just the podcast, but some of the future offerings that I have by way of courses and free resources, things that I'm getting involved in. And that's just via the monthly newsletter that goes out, the uphill newsletter. And it has blank pages recap of the episodes that are happening here. Again, all the fun stuff that's coming, it'll be once a month. You will not be bombarded in your inbox. I will respect that space.

And I'm not one that just, I can't stand people bombarding mine. I'm always hitting unsubscribe. Unsubscribe, like, you just wanted one thing and next thing you know that, like, gave permission for 20 other things to come your way. No fun, don't want it. And so I stop. I unsubscribe. So hopefully I'm not going to be a person to do that. It'll be stuff that is useful and has purpose and value for you.

So, yeah. And also if you want to follow me on social media, please do so at Tempecararo. That is an Instagram. You can find me there in Pecoraro. And if you go into my bio section, you can find the newsletter there, click there and we will get you on the list. But you also can see me on LinkedIn. I'll be doing more stuff there. I'm actually going to be putting together some, some, some free courses and things that I'm going to just put on there to just give away.

Because again, there's enough out there in the world. It was trying to sell something, which of course, I believe in enterprising, I believe in making money. But we also need to be benevolent. We need to learn to share and resource one another. So, yeah, and you can share signature things with people. That's a cool idea. Try to do that. Give some stuff away.

Be extravagant in your giving. Give away some of your best stuff. There's an idea. Don't be afraid of that. Don't be afraid. So my show and tell, I'm holding in my hand two bobbleheads. So I'm a big Alexander Hamilton fan. And so when that play first was put out.

I said, I want a bobblehead. I want a Hamilton bobblehead. So I found one, and then I found another, which is Lincoln. And then I have Washington and I have James Adams. So I began collecting them, and they're over here on my shelf to my right and your left left on a ledge out here by my other desk. And that's where my bobbleheads are. So I bought these suckers on Amazon. I just looked up bobbleheads, President bobbleheads.

And so I'm looking for other bobbleheads. So if you have a bobblehead that you would like to share and say where I can get them quality bobbleheads like this, though, I want to quite want some cheap plastic thing. Excuse me, I want a good bobblehead. So if you know a good place to get a bobblehead, please help me find that bobblehead. I'm looking for. I'm looking for people like, you know, just good figures. I'd love a James Earl Jones bobblehead. Not Darth Vader, just James Earl Jones.

You know, he passed away, but his voice, you know, and his story was amazing. Maybe that's one of the things I'm going to do, is talk about people who had those beginnings that no one ever thought that they would have do anything spectacular in his. He had a speech impediment, but he surpassed that and became one of the most iconic, recognizable voices and voice talents that you would ever hear. And it's memorable, just there's no other voice like him, in my opinion. So anyways, I like things like that. So if you do know, you can find me on instagram dm me and go, hey, Tim, send me a link to some bobbleheads that I think that would be pretty cool. Anything musician. I mean, Jimi Hendrix, it could be bono.

I don't know. I mean, just something. Something cool. Just some real good figures, some good people that, you know, made a mark in the earth. Made a good mark. Not bad marks. Good marks. That's what I'm looking for.

So today's topic I'm so excited about, and I don't know what I'm going to title it, but it's. It's around your ability, which is your foundation, your skill, which is a shaping force, and then talent, which is the synergy of those things. What brings those together. It's the combination. Okay? So it's real simple. And I'm gonna have one big question for you at the end of it. And the reason I'm bringing it up is because, you know, in my studies and going through in the Bible, and that's what I love to learn from. And so in the Bible, I've been reading a lot about, you know, just the building of this temple that Moses was working on and the talented people that needed to be brought together and they had ability and they had skill.

And then there's another part which I'll introduce in a moment, but I, I think that we need to remember that there's always a call in the world, there's a call out and about where people are saying, who is able, who has this ability and then who has skill, right? Who will come? But then there's these other components that I kind of want to walk into today. So what I'm really going to do is just walk you through this foundation, a shaping force, the synergy. And then I want to give you a big question or some question for you to answer. Okay, so let me get started with this, because I was talking with some young, young folks the other day, and I do some mentoring and, and I'm going to do a discussion on this one day. So this is where I'm doing some mentoring and it's not me coaching. So that's a different hat. And so a lot of people think they're the same. And I'm going to give you the buzzer sound.

If you think mentoring and coaching are the same, you are wrong and you need to stop using them interchangeably like that. They're not the same. Okay. So I'm going to do a podcast one day completely on that to help fix the mess and noise out there because everyone will say that they're a coach, and really what they're doing is mentoring. Okay. Or they're there. Yeah, that's pretty much most of the problem. It's not the other way around.

Most people that are coaching the way coaching should be done are not confusing coaching and mentoring. It's people that are mentoring that and do mentoring that are confusing that with coaching. So it's, it's typically in that direction. So when I was talking with these young men and just kind of, you know, about, around their, what they're wanting to do, and both of them are artists, and I'm a leader, a communicator and an artist. And so I was like, man, let me ask him this question. I said, hey, which one of these do you have control over? I said, do you have control over the ability or your skill? Which one do you, and which one have you had influence over ability or skill. And, of course, there's some head scratching, but they landed on the right answer, which is, well, it would be the skill that I have control over, because the ability is basically what I'm born with. And that's correct.

And the answer is, that is right, because the ability is. Is. It's. It's our innate potential. It's that raw material we're born with, okay? It's. It's like the clay a sculptor starts with. That's literally. It's the clay.

It's the dirt. Everything from the dirt. So the abilities are what they're. They're largely genetic, right? And I'm just going to give you some points. Here's some things about ability, which is the foundation of this talk and the foundation of all your life. I believe God is the one who gives you the ability. It's the ability you were born with. That's my belief.

Okay? You can have your own belief. That's my belief. And so the abilities are largely genetic, or they're influenced by early development. Okay? So it's like, it's. Here's an example of natural aptitude for music or spatial reasoning or empathy. These are things that we have in us that are our abilities, right? We don't choose our abilities, but we get to choose how we use them. So, I mean, think about Mozart, who started extraordinary. Like, he was extraordinary.

He had this great. He showed this incredible music ability, right? He was extraordinary from a very young age. But this wasn't something he developed. It was a gift he was born with. And that is the difference a lot of people. You know, Mozart, he, of course, he got better and he refined it, but that was in him. He showed it from an early age. There are athletes that.

That are. That you see them and you go, whoa. From an early age, like, I hear stories of, I think it was Caleb Williams, who is a. He's a quarterback for. I think it's the Houston Texans. And his mom gave the story. It's either him or CJ stroud. They played against each other the other night, but one of them was climbing out of the crib at the age of two, just getting out of the bed already.

There's just that natural thing that people are born with. It's a gift. It's a gift. Okay? And, of course, sometimes we look at people and go, man, look at their ability, and we're envious and we're jealous and all that stuff. And. And that's where. Which, one day, this, when I finished this book about being dangerous, I'm wanting people to understand. It's.

It's not about what the. It's not being ability envious. We don't need to envy the ability of other people. Okay? We need to look at the ability that we've, we have and then take the next step for ourselves with it, which is that next part. So the ability is the foundation, but what is the skill? So we know the skill is the shaping force. So while ability is given, skill is earned through practice and dedication. So if I want to take my ability to the next level, I need to practice. I need to dedicate myself to working on something to advance it.

Now, there are people who have less ability, but because they do the hard work and practice, I see them outshine, outperform and out succeed. People who have that born talent, that ability, that's natural, that natural born ability, and because they think that's enough, they don't go any further. They don't, they don't practice it, they don't sharpen it, they don't improve it. And therefore they run into this real problem that's now out here in the world, especially with YouTube. People can learn things and people can practice and practice and practice and practice and practice. And now what they can do is surpass the person who was born with it because they worked on developing the little they had. So if you have much ability and you don't develop it, you develop it little. You need to be prepared to be passed up sooner rather than later.

But if you have less, this is your opportunity to understand there's a shaping force that skills are developed through deliberate practice and learning. You can develop them. Anyone can improve their skills, regardless of the initial ability. That is a pleasant thought, is it not? That makes me smile. That makes me happy. Now I'm going to tell you. So we have three kids. Our firstborn is, he's very, he has a lot of ability, but he doesn't have the abilities like the second and the third that we have, their talent.

Is there a lot like myself that I had a lot of ability and a lot of things? My problem was because of it, I could get away with doing half the work. Sometimes I would do things against people in sports and I wouldn't even try hard. I didn't have to. I would literally be ahead of people. I could compete, I could win. And I was. I mean, it literally was. It was easy until it wasn't until, and I can think of times like even wrestling, when you'd have these guys want to wrestle off with you and then eventually, those guys that wanted your position, they kept working when I was lazy.

And because of that, they would push me to a limit. And that lazy transfer transferred over into some of my matches that I would do because I had it easy. I didn't invest in the ability and work on the skills sometimes, and I took it for granted, and I cost myself a lot of championship opportunities, and it was because of that. So let me come back to it. Anyone can improve their skill regardless of initial ability. And I've experienced that. I've experienced loss because I went against someone with less ability, but they had more focus on developing and being disciplined to create a pathway to improving their skill. And it's consistent effort over time can lead you to mastery.

And see, that is that shaping force. So think of this professional athlete. I'll just come back again to an athlete. So they may have natural athletic ability, but it's the thousands of hours, think of Steph Curry, thousands of hours training that turn the ability into a world class performance. Now, that's one of the things I tell athletes all the time, that you have a lot of talent, but talent's not enough. You want to become world class. You don't always have to have the gold medal, but you always want to be in the competition. Think of the Olympics when.

When they're lining up and you see the, you know, everyone loves watching the relay race. Four by 100 or four by 400, or when you look at the, sorry, four by 400, and then when you look at the 100 meters dash, well, it starts out with a big heat, you know, a heat with so many different racers. And then the qualifiers, the top two or three qualify and you reduce it down to you have your final set, and they all race. And what's interesting is when they finish the margin, how closely someone gets the win, the number one, it is unbelievable how close it is that they win. I mean, literally, they won by a hair mill. I mean, it is fractions of a second. So if we know that to be true and we know that it's. That people can be in the world, you don't win, but you're in the race.

You're in that final heat, that final race. That, to me, is what I think people need to be shooting for, is that you want to be world class. You want to be in that final heat. You don't always have to get the gold. Do you want the gold? Yes. You want the silver? Yes. Do you want the bronze? Yes. No one's talking about 4th, 5th, 6th place.

I am, though. I'm going to talk about, let's just say it was 64 runners that qualified. I'm going to applaud all 64 and say, man, you're world class, because there's thousands of other people who did not even make it into the arena. So I want to encourage you that with your ability, whatever level it is, work on that skill and make yourself world class. So the ability is your foundation and the skill is the shaping force. But now let's talk about talent. And this is where I say talent is not enough. So many people want to count on talent.

I've coached kids who, even their parents, it's ridiculous that, you know, it's not that their kid is the best, and we need that kid to do everything. What it is is we need, need that kid to inspire the other children on the team to elevate their gameplay. And how do you do that? You recognize you have the ability, you have the skill, and you realize that talent's not enough. It's not enough for you just to win with talent. You need character, right? And character is what's going to be the thing that holds these things together. So talent is the synergy, right? Talent is what emerges when we combine our innate abilities with hard earned skills. So when you take the, the ability, you have the hard earned skills, the things that you're sharpening and shaping all the time. Now we move into talent.

Talent is when you say, wow, that's a talented person, that's great. But if you still want to be successful and you're still in that race, it means, and if you're on a team, it means you have character. And you know what character will say with that talent, because talent's not enough. I'm not going to quit on you. I'm just giving you a little sidebar. I'm giving you this extra little, the little sub. This is, this is, you have, number one is ability, your foundation. Number two is skill.

That's the shaping force. Number three is the talent, which, the synergy, it brings them together. But here's three. A, okay, three, a asterisk by this character needs to be with it. You do not quit. You have values, you work hard, you support those who are less than you and not as good as you. You elevate your players. You do what Steph Curry does.

When your team is down, you don't sit there and go, here I go again. They're counting on me to make a three. No, you make the three. And that causes the rest of your team to rise up. You work hard, because that's what world class people do. And if you're not a world class person, you're not going to understand what I'm saying anyways. You're going to still get to where you need someone to give you the permission slip to take your super talent and all your skill and ability and to turn it on and off whenever you choose. That's not a teammate, okay? That's an individual that may need to do something by themselves.

Go find an individual thing to do all by yourself, and that's perfectly fine if that's what you want to do. But a good teammate that has that talent, that has that skill and that ability, bring it all together, is a person that says, I will elevate my team by the way I show up because I'm a world class person. So the big question now that we understand this framework, I want you to consider what cause or purpose is. Is worthy of your full talent. Is there something that is worthy of you going all in? Is there something that you'll go all in for? So, what issue in the world, what issues in the world deeply move you? Would you bring that talent in? Would you bring your skill in? Would you work on your skill? Will you take your basic ability and sharpen it and get it better and improve and put thousands of hours into it because it means something to you beyond a sport? Where could you. Where could your unique combination of abilities and skills make a big difference? Ask yourself that question. So, something that moves you deeply. Where could your skills or your abilities make the biggest difference? Ask yourself that question.

And then, how about this? When it comes to these things, when people think about you and your talent, your skills, your ability, so what you were born with, what you did with, what you were born with, how you developed it, how faithful you were with it, and then that talent and how you put that to work with something bigger than yourself, what legacy do you want to leave when it comes to that? Will people say you were world class, or will they say that you were selfish? Will they say that, well, you were good, but, I mean, what will it be? Or they didn't work hard? Like, these are the things that you want to ask yourself. Because, listen, regardless of what anyone else says, you and I know in our lives, the things that we are all in on and the things that we're not, no one can say. I mean, you, I could walk up to someone and go, man, I wish you would dedicate yourself. And they go, I am dedicated. But they could literally walk away knowing inside that they're not. I'm not there to. I'm a person who wants to unlock potential in people. So I will say the hard thing to the individual.

I will make people frustrated and angry because I will ask them that honest. To ask themselves an honest question, are you committed to what you say you're doing? And if so, can you demonstrate that? Like, that makes people uncomfortable, but it's me holding them accountable and saying, let's go. Come on and see. Right now, what we have is we have a bunch of people in life chasing individual rewards and trophies. They want to be seen, they want to be heard. Social media is exposing that tremendously in people's lives. When the best thing is, I want to be. I want to.

So, like, for instance, on a team, I want a world class team. I don't want a team of a superstar or two or three superstars. I want a team that everybody rises for the occasion. Everybody elevates with their ability, with their investment of the skill that now has been called combining that as talent and that they have the character to invest in that, to do something bigger than themselves. Like, that's what I look for. And to be honest with you, that's not welcome in a lot of arenas. People don't want that. If you challenge people in that, they don't want that.

It's too hard, it's too difficult, because we just want to. I'm just going to use my little bobblehead here. We just want to hand out trophies or we just want to win our way on our terms. So here's my conclusion. Your abilities may be, and here's a thought, your abilities may be God given, but your skills and how you apply your talent are entirely up to you. To you. So I challenge you. I challenge anyone listening to identify the bigger than your self purpose and commit to giving it 100% of what you have to offer.

Don't come up with some. I'm a thousand percent in. You don't have a thousand percent. You have 100%. You are one person that has 100% capacity. Now, you may feel like you're given 1000%, but you can only give 100%. There is no thousand. It's 100% you.

And remember, the world needs your unique talents. That's the whole thing. The world is waiting for you. Don't rob the world. There's a book in you. Give 100% of that writing. There's a song in you, give 100% of that song. There's a new company in you.

Give 100% of that. These are things that you and I have control over. I don't want you to hold back. I want you to find that thing that. Cause, that sport, that activity, that ignites your passion, and I want you to give it everything that you've got. Everything. Would you do that? Would you say, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna cheapen myself.

I'm not gonna shortchange my team. I'm not gonna shortchange my co workers. I'm gonna show up, I'm gonna be 100%. It's about character, right? That character. But here's another thing that I'm gonna give you. It's you gotta be willing. And I'm gonna pick back up with that willingness and what it means to are you willing? Because I know you're able. Are you willing and able to sharpen the skills, combine those into talent and have the character to put them to work? That's all on you.

Think about that, and until next time, we'll talk soon.