What innate skill?
Skills and our ability to be good and even great has nothing to do with whether we're born with it or not.
We all have skills that come more naturally to us. We make decisions about futures based on what we are good at. And when we're not careful, these innate skills often come to define who we see ourselves to be and limit us.
Innate skills aren't always what they seem to be. A lot of what we associate with natural skills is more often a result of so much more.
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the research conducted by Roger Barnsley, which showed that a higher percentage of all-star hockey players are born in the first half of the year. A significant influence on what made them slightly better hockey players was being the oldest on the team when the "training season" started every year. By being older, they were stronger, faster and overall, more developed than their younger teammates, born later in the year. That difference resulted in them getting early coaching, helping them build their skills even more, further distancing themselves from their younger team members. That's not to say they didn't work hard, but they had an edge that might otherwise be seen purely as an innate skill from the outside.
Another interesting example is the Asian numerical system. For Asian cultures such as China, Japan and Korea, the numerical system is much simpler to learn than the North American (English) one. As a result, Asian children, at the age of four, can count to forty, whereas American children can only count to about fifteen. In comparison, it takes North American children on average up to age five to reach a similar level.
Asian children learn to count much faster than North American ones. In addition, the simplicity and logical aspect of their number naming system makes it easier to perform addition and subtraction.
The English naming system is riddled with exceptions. For example, ten, eleven, twelve are structured differently than fourteen to nineteen. We don't write oneteen, twoteen or threeteen. And, for numbers higher than twenty, we put the decade first and the unit second (twenty-one), but we do the reverse for teens (fourteen).
In English, 21 is twenty one, and in Chinese, if we're to translate, it would be two ten one. So there are no exceptions; what you see is what you get.
Take a look at the additions below; in the English number naming system, we cannot get the total without first converting the words into numbers (often in our heads). Although, notice how that is possible in Chinese.
English: twenty one + forty three = sixty four
Chinese: two ten one + four ten three = six ten four
Asians tend to learn math quicker than North Americans, but perhaps that's not because they have some sort of innate math gene, but a result of how the culture's language makes learning math more straightforward, natural, and fun.
Skills and our ability to be good and even great has nothing to do with whether we're born with it or not.
When and how we grow up, the environment surrounding us, the opportunities available to us, and the culture that supports us have a much stronger influence on greatness than we give it credit. Combined with our desire to do the work, we can achieve so much more than what seems innate.
Perhaps we need to drop the "I wasn't born with it" mindset and adopt a new way of thinking. What if every skill can be learned and developed? What opportunities might open up to us that we never thought possible before?
Miguel,
Sparknotion – Think Differently.