Is talent enough to start a business?

Talent is defined as “natural aptitude or skill.” It was that kid who was ALWAYS picked first in gym, or the #1 student in the class. It felt like they were constantly getting it, and it looked so easy to them.

As the fourth child, I had a talented artist brother, my other brother was good at sports (and if two brothers who were good at things wasn’t enough), my other brother who is 12 months older than me… a whiz at school.

I often compared myself to my brothers in the fact that I was good at sports like Luke, that I could color like Benj.. But School was so much harder and David was a Wiz.

And, I’ll never forget when in FOURTH GRADE (almost twenty years ago) I got a 100% on my spelling test because I spent WEEKS studying. My brother reply to my spelling test on the fridge “You cheated..” I didn’t but his fourth-grade ego couldn’t handle it.

Starting my business in 2019 was the first time that I was in the league of my own. Even working in sales, my brother Luke was selling cars. What felt like talent was a lot of hard work in the start. What looked like an effortless flow of sales, content creation and even copy was HOURS of spending time reading, learning and trying

Does natural talent breed aversion to failure?

You don’t have to be naturally talented to start a business. In fact, I would argue that people who lack the natural talent should start a business.

50% of businesses will fail in their first year, and out of the 50% left – will fail by year five. When I’m talking bout failure, I’m not talking about one launch going wrong. This is a lack of revenue, having to close your doors and walk away.

Failure feels harder when you haven’t worked at something. And the world that most business owners come from is NOT a place that allows you to fail. School doesn’t encourage you to fail and try again. It’s the mentality that if I don’t do it right, on the first try even if you are new at it… then you suck.

The fact about business is that hard work includes learning from those mistakes. Missing the sale, screwing up the pitch, and even blowing a whole launch.

Plus, the pressure to perform and now become a 7 figure business over night is OVERWHELMING.

In John C Maxwell’s, Talent is Never Enough – it’s the resounding message that talent gets you in the door and that is it. Being talented doesn’t get the job done, and if anything that easy you feel when you are talent can create an aversion to failure. You are used to things being SO easy, that when they get hard you give up. You lack grit.

As Angela Duckworth defines grit as “sticking with things over the very long term until you master them“ . If you have never hard to stick with things, of course it is going to feel hard.

Perfectionism and Talent go hand and hand

When I started my business in 2019, I was a perfectionist. It explained why I had a hard time finishign things because I was setting myself up for a standard that I COULDN’T achieve. When I started teaching myself that done is better than perfect. Things started changing in my business.

I had my 1×1 coaching sell out. And in 2020, I had mutliple five-figure launches – one during COVID-19 and one in august of that year.

the problem with someone who has been naturally good at something, or worked really hard and now it feels natural – the goal post is always moving. You set one goal, and then from there, you achieve it so you set another one.

Perfectionism comes with the naturally moving goal post because the opposite of perfectionism is contentment.

Where does hard work fit in?

Hard work is the cure to the rising pressure and the ability to set yourself up for the business you want. Sales has become easy for me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t work on the same systems I teach my clients. If I neglected my lead generation system because I wanted leads to just come to me…. I would be neglecting a part that makes sales easy.

It’s the age-old saying to fall in love with the process, not the results. What feels like hard work in the start of your business, will not feel like hard work later out. It’s the new levels and creating a place to let you work hard and reap the benefits of it.

I will not be subscribing to the narrative in the online space that it gets to be so easy and to remove that you need to work hard.

So what about you?

Further reading: What should you sell as a business owner first, How to find your ideal client