The best definition of talent
A short time ago, in a Forbes España article that spoke about The 10 most attractive countries for talented people I found the definition I have liked the most until today about what talent is. According to that article, the definition comes from the Spanish philosopher José Antonio Marina.
“Talent is intelligence in action, that is to say, the effective implementation of our ability to face problems, to invent socially and economically valuable projects, and to mobilize feelings, manage emotions and to apply the necessary executive roles to solve them”.
José Antonio Marina
From this definition a series of very valuable attitudes associated with talent can be deduced. To be pointed out:
- Pro-activity, directly related to our predisposition to action.
- Problem solving, how we face them and solve them.
- Creativity and innovation, our pillars to invent socially and economically valuable projects.
- Emotional intelligence, our ability to appreciate and express our emotions, to understand emotions of others and to use that information to guide our thoughts and actions.
- Capacity for synthesis to collect all of the ideas, simplify them, give them an order and lead them to the achievement of the final objective.
- Ability to lead, to delegate the tasks to the right person and to provoke change and movement in them
Talent and action
The connection made in this definition between talent and action (ours and the one we are able to generate in others) seems masterful to me.
Certainly it comes to mind to all of you people in which you have recognized a great gift (something they do exceptionally good, something in which they stand out from the rest) and they, nevertheless, due to bad vital decisions never got to develop all the potential they had. There are other people however, that can stand out less at first but, due to their work, to their focus on specific objectives and determination, get incredible things.
Charles Chaplin also agreed
There is a Spanish bank that created an advertising campaign based on small talks. Even though the bank itself, the campaign or what they were selling passed unnoticed by me, one of those conversations did specially call my attention. One that was precisely about this, about talent and about action. In her father’s words, Charles Chaplin’s daughter, Geraldine Chaplin, tells us:
“…my father used to tell me talent is nothing, there’s too much talent everywhere. Work, work, kill yourself working…”
Geraldine Chaplin
It seems that Charles Chaplin was also supportive of that great union between talent and action (work). And you?