He told me the story that when he was a young guitar student that his timing was so bad that his frustrated teacher would snatch the guitar from his hand and would attempt to instill some basic rhythm into his young brain by making him march up and down the room calling out left, right, left, right.



He went on to say that when he tried to read music that the sound that came out bore absolutely no resemblance to the piece he was playing. Yet he became a musician that was famous for being able to play any sheet music put in front of him and to play it so well that it was as though he had been practicing it for years.

These stories intrigued me and I asked him how he managed to go from such talentless beginnings and progress into the famous musician that he had become.

He told me that he firmly believed that his ability today was because of his total lack of talent. He said that he became so frustrated and embarrassed by his hopeless attempts at playing music that he vowed he would conquer the task no matter what.

He devised all sorts of exercises to help him develop a sense of rhythm and timing. He practiced reading sheet music to the point where he read thousands of different pieces over the years. He took on the challenge of mastering music and totally dedicated himself to the task.

As he began to show progress he also began to get compliments from his astounded teacher and from his fellow students who had formally laughed at him and teased him. He started to enjoy the compliments until, what had started as a determined act of frustration, eventually became a joy and the love of his life.

This gentleman's story is not the only one of its kind. If you take the time to read biographies then you will discover that, in every field of endeavor, there are countless stories of people who became great in spite of, or because of, a lack of talent in that field.

Then if talent isn't a necessary ingredient for success, what is?

If you look for the common trends amongst those who overcame a lack of talent you will find that they each had a strong emotional incentive to succeed and they each had an all-consuming dedication to performing the necessary tasks required for success.

If you want to be successful then these are the two traits for you to develop.

First you need to develop a strong, emotional driving force directed at your success. This driving force could be initially based in positive emotion or negative emotion. As long as it gets you up and into gear and keeps you striving and achieving it will one day turn into love and passion for your chosen field.

Then you need the dedication to keep going and to keep getting up when you are knocked down. If something is worth mastering then it is worth doing poorly long enough to develop the skills required to do it well. The important distinction here is that while you are doing it poorly you need to be consciously looking for, and trying, ways to improve your results by improving your actions.

If ever you are tempted to use a lack of talent as an excuse for not becoming great then I suggest that you read this article again and accept that the need for talent is over-rated.