Talent! So often do we hear the word and yet there are many definitions to it depending on who is delivering the answer. To the religious man, it is the key to fulfilling your maker’s purpose till your death. To participants in competitions such as sports, it is the root on which a very strong legacy is built upon. To scholars and leaders, a talented person signifies an epitome of pure aura and charisma. All these definitions are correct and that discovering your talents very early in life can be very key in one’s overall development as a person but is talent alone enough?
LeBron James was on the cover of very famous USA TV media, ESPN at the age of 17 as the “chosen one” due to his basketball talents. Fast forward 19 years from then and he is still one of the best players in the league and widely recognized as the second greatest player in the history of NBA. Was it only the talent he possessed that took him to these heights? Another great example is Lionel Messi who was prophesied by a lot way back in 2007 when he was still a virgin to surpass Maradona and Zidane by the time he retires. Fast forward 15 years from then and he is not just married with kids, but widely regarded as the greatest footballer ever with arguably the craziest statistics and many individual awards as well as numerous trophies. You realize from the two examples that the potential to be great was always there but to achieve the feats they and other various personalities did, they had to work very hard and factor in both the tangibles and intangibles to end up as great as they are. Thus, staying healthy, working very hard, being great for very long, competing against their own selves to do better than their previous campaigns, learning from other greats, improving on certain skillsets and many more.
Certain players, rappers and actors are being tagged as failed potentials in 2022. Thus, the talents were very clear to see and we all know what they could do but because of lack of discipline or professionalism or factoring in the necessary intangibles, they could not reach the levels they were expected to. Not a fan of rap, but someone like Beanie Sigel who gained popularity in the early 2000s clearly failed to live up to the hype that came with his potential due to various times spent in prisons. Sigel’s name will always be mentioned amongst the ‘best’ rappers because everyone knows what he can do but it will be rare to hear his name being mentioned in the talks of the greatest rappers of all time. Balotelli, Pato and Bojan are all some of the greatest talents whose names are not even in the conversation of the greatest players of their own era.
Don’t get me wrong, talent is phenomenal. It is a gift. But set goals cannot be achieved if talent, whether it is intelligence or a sporting ability, is misused or seems to have fallen in the wrong hands.
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