|
Offering Your Giftsby Patti L. Auber, published July 2014
|
When I learned that the focus for this month was Marketing, I wondered what possible direction I could take with it. Marketing is the concern of those in business with something to sell. I didn’t really see how I could possibly relate that to my life now as a retired person. Even when I was working, I was not involved in the marketing or sales side of the business.
I share my house at present with an artist who is very talented at creating art out of found and recycled materials. He’s not particularly good at getting his art out there for people to see and possibly purchase. Over the past year, we have been working together to get him some local gallery exposure, and now his art is starting to sell. For him, that’s merely a plus. While he enjoys it when people appreciate his gifts, and are even willing to pay him for his work, he creates art because he must. It’s like breathing to him. It’s one of his gifts.
He recently said to me, “Marketing is just finding the people who appreciate your gifts.” What a concept! Of course! If you look at it like that, marketing may be a concept that applies to all our lives.
No matter what our gifts are, part of our satisfaction in life will be in finding others who appreciate or can benefit from what we have to offer. Sometimes we can find those people through our work, if we’re lucky enough to have a job that uses our gifts. Sometimes we have to go down other paths to find ways to use our gifts.
The first challenge, though, is to identify what your gifts are. One way to do that is to listen to what others have to say about you. Someone may tell you, for example, that you are a good listener. You may be surprised at that because you never really considered yourself a good listener—and that’s because it comes so naturally to you that you don’t even realize it. It’s one of your gifts! Some talents are more obvious. They are ones we develop after years of study, or practice, or work. Those are gifts too.
I think of a time when I was interviewing a man who had applied for a position of delivery driver. He was working as part-time pastor for a small church and needed a full-time job to supplement what he earned there. I asked him what he saw as his strength, and he said he was great at fixing things. He always fixed broken electronics around the house, and his family just naturally came to him when they had a need. Well, we also needed a field service technician to repair copiers, and when I told him about that job, his eyes lit up. I knew I had tapped into one of his gifts! We hired him as a technician and he has been very successful in that role. He stopped in to see me about a year after he was hired. He wanted to thank me for steering him away from the delivery job into something he loved. He was using his gift!
The second challenge we face is to silence the messages we send ourselves that our gift is not all that important or necessary or valuable. We may feel that way because it’s something that’s easy for us, so we feel it couldn’t possibly be valuable. All the really important talents are hard, aren’t they? Or it may mean that most of the time we find ourselves in a situation that doesn’t demand our talents. You may be in a job that’s necessary to pay the bills, but where your gifts are not rewarded. You may be surrounded by family or friends who don’t encourage your talents or see them as worthy of your time. They may have the best of intentions, but may be judging you based on their own set of gifts.
Remember that there are no small gifts. Whatever you have to offer the world is needed somewhere. Finding where that is…is marketing!
“…you have a unique talent and a unique way of expressing it. There is something that you can do better than anyone else in the whole world--and for every unique talent and unique expression of that talent, there are also unique needs. When these needs are matched with the creative expression of your talent, that is the spark that creates affluence. Expressing your talents to fulfill needs creates unlimited wealth and abundance.”
― Deepak Chopra
So then, the final and most daunting challenge is to have to courage to put your gifts out there. Erica Jong said, “Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.” Be warned however; most of the world will probably ignore you (because they probably don’t need what you have to offer). But, when you put yourself out there often enough, eventually the person or people who need what you have to offer will be found—or find you.
You must be steadfast in your commitment to your talent. Never stop looking for that special niche that needs what you bring to the world. It’s your unique purpose for being here, dear reader. Finding your gift, nurturing it, and offering it to the world will give you more satisfaction than anything else you can do with your life.
I share my house at present with an artist who is very talented at creating art out of found and recycled materials. He’s not particularly good at getting his art out there for people to see and possibly purchase. Over the past year, we have been working together to get him some local gallery exposure, and now his art is starting to sell. For him, that’s merely a plus. While he enjoys it when people appreciate his gifts, and are even willing to pay him for his work, he creates art because he must. It’s like breathing to him. It’s one of his gifts.
He recently said to me, “Marketing is just finding the people who appreciate your gifts.” What a concept! Of course! If you look at it like that, marketing may be a concept that applies to all our lives.
No matter what our gifts are, part of our satisfaction in life will be in finding others who appreciate or can benefit from what we have to offer. Sometimes we can find those people through our work, if we’re lucky enough to have a job that uses our gifts. Sometimes we have to go down other paths to find ways to use our gifts.
The first challenge, though, is to identify what your gifts are. One way to do that is to listen to what others have to say about you. Someone may tell you, for example, that you are a good listener. You may be surprised at that because you never really considered yourself a good listener—and that’s because it comes so naturally to you that you don’t even realize it. It’s one of your gifts! Some talents are more obvious. They are ones we develop after years of study, or practice, or work. Those are gifts too.
I think of a time when I was interviewing a man who had applied for a position of delivery driver. He was working as part-time pastor for a small church and needed a full-time job to supplement what he earned there. I asked him what he saw as his strength, and he said he was great at fixing things. He always fixed broken electronics around the house, and his family just naturally came to him when they had a need. Well, we also needed a field service technician to repair copiers, and when I told him about that job, his eyes lit up. I knew I had tapped into one of his gifts! We hired him as a technician and he has been very successful in that role. He stopped in to see me about a year after he was hired. He wanted to thank me for steering him away from the delivery job into something he loved. He was using his gift!
The second challenge we face is to silence the messages we send ourselves that our gift is not all that important or necessary or valuable. We may feel that way because it’s something that’s easy for us, so we feel it couldn’t possibly be valuable. All the really important talents are hard, aren’t they? Or it may mean that most of the time we find ourselves in a situation that doesn’t demand our talents. You may be in a job that’s necessary to pay the bills, but where your gifts are not rewarded. You may be surrounded by family or friends who don’t encourage your talents or see them as worthy of your time. They may have the best of intentions, but may be judging you based on their own set of gifts.
Remember that there are no small gifts. Whatever you have to offer the world is needed somewhere. Finding where that is…is marketing!
“…you have a unique talent and a unique way of expressing it. There is something that you can do better than anyone else in the whole world--and for every unique talent and unique expression of that talent, there are also unique needs. When these needs are matched with the creative expression of your talent, that is the spark that creates affluence. Expressing your talents to fulfill needs creates unlimited wealth and abundance.”
― Deepak Chopra
So then, the final and most daunting challenge is to have to courage to put your gifts out there. Erica Jong said, “Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.” Be warned however; most of the world will probably ignore you (because they probably don’t need what you have to offer). But, when you put yourself out there often enough, eventually the person or people who need what you have to offer will be found—or find you.
You must be steadfast in your commitment to your talent. Never stop looking for that special niche that needs what you bring to the world. It’s your unique purpose for being here, dear reader. Finding your gift, nurturing it, and offering it to the world will give you more satisfaction than anything else you can do with your life.