Talent

When I think of talent, I think about people who have a
knack for something.
It's not that what they do is effortless, but there's a flow,
an instinctual understanding of the "doing", and no complex
thought process is involved in the action.

Earlier this week I uncovered a talent.
One that has nothing to do with being physically adept.
Because being physically adept, is not my forte.
As we know, I struggle with skating most of the time.
There is no natural flow there for me.
But I often enjoy the challenge of it just the same.

Anyway, the talent I'm writing about is something most
people who know me, at work, or outside of work, would
never ever guess I had.
Because there is no hint of it in those venues.

My talent, (remember, "truth is stranger than fiction"),
that place where I naturally rise to the occasion, where
struggle is not even in the same room with me, is giving
a presentation to a room full of people, on something I
am passionate about.
What gives most humans shaky knees, and wet arm pits,
flows for me.
Standing at the podium, with the microphone on, I briefly
look down at my typed reference pages, then out to the
space in front of me.
I open my mouth and heart at the same time, and it flows.
Addressing a room full of people, comes naturally for me.
If my heart is in it..

Three plus years ago, my company required us to take a
Dale Carnegie course.
It lasted a few weeks and my current boss and I ended up
in the same nightly class.
One of the things Dale C. has you do, a lot, is stand up in
front of your classmates and talk about stuff.
It can be pretty nerve wracking, and I was nervous, just
like everyone else.
When it was my turn to walk up to the front of the room,
I thought I would freeze up, I thought I would choke.
But I didn't.
Instead I opened up..

My boss reminded me of that when I told him about my speech
Tuesday evening to that group of Foster parents.
He told me he'd been, well, frankly amazed, when he listened
to me, in front of him, during our time in the Dale C. course.
"I had no idea you could do that"
"Do what?"
"Engage peoples interest, draw them in."
"You have a way, when you speak like that, of making people
lean forward."
"I do?"
"You have an honesty, that connects us to you, that makes us
believe."
"I do?"
"Yes, you do."
" ..........."
"But no one I've ever told here in the Company, about your
speaking ability, those who weren't there in that room with
you, none of those people can imagine you having a gift like
that."

Discovering a talent, even if it only comes out once in a blue
moon, is kinda cool.