TITLE: Stop Developing Skills Until You Identify Your Natural Hardware
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9-2Q1DJiyY

Does he have any special talents? Talent? Talent? Everybody's got talent. I got talent. NO TALENT. NO TALENT. One of the problems is it's hard to see your own talent. Your talent feels normal to you because your brain already knows how it works. That creates a paradox. What you notice is effort. What other people notice is difference. That's why people around you often detect your talent before you do. Talent? Yeah, for the talent segment. I can make you look, but I can't make you see. Seeing is a choice. 10,000 hours of practice equals genius. That's That's not the theory. Okay. Wait, so is that am I doing a Mandela effect right now? Like >> No, no, no. The idea was 10,000 it takes a long time, i.e. something like 10,000 hours, for talent to be manifested. But if I could spend 10,000 hours on a golf course and I'm not turning into Scotty Scheffler. Okay. Right? But the idea was that that it's it's about the insufficiency of talent. And it's about the duration of practice. It's those two ideas in combination. The way that idea was misunderstood was that people thought I was saying that with practice any kind of excellence is accessible. And no, that's nonsense. Who would think that? That's like nuts. Do you think if could I turn myself into you with 10 No. You you have some God-given thing which you have carefully cultivated over time. But it begins with you having some God-given thing. Talent is domain dependent. Talent only reveals itself when the environment activates it. A person can go their whole life without ever being in a domain that activates the talent. >> [music] >> Was it a little daunting at first taking a lead role? I mean, this is an amazing story. Um I really didn't, you know, >> [music] >> I didn't it it was just so unbelievable, you know. >> Um but after a while I just took to it and became kind of like a routine. I just did best that I could. The reason I'm amazed you said you never took or never acted this the role. I mean, it was an incredible performance. It was the neighborhood that changed, not me. And please, I ain't seen nothing change. >> You ain't seen nothing? What in the hell kind of sentence is that? When you're in here, don't talk like you do out there. >> I was messing with you, man. It was a joke. Imagine how many musical prodigies are born without instruments. A mathematician that never encounters higher math. A strategist that never encounters complex systems. A storyteller that never learns how to write. Most people assume talent is something you develop. But talent is not something you develop. Talent is something you're born with. Skill is what you do with the hardware. Talent is the hardware itself. So when you did that last one, when you were you in Yeah, I never it never it never it never had had happened before. So that was my accidental genius. I didn't It's out of my control. It doesn't always work. Okay, you know how you switch your voice? What? I got the mic. Look. You know how you switch your voice? Can Can you do it all the time? So >> [applause] >> So >> Talent is hardware, skill is software. Even if you look at the first grade and second grade and you go to field day, you can see who's faster and more athletic than everyone else. That little kid didn't train to be athletic. These are gifts that they were born with. You have a a huge hand. What what can you span easily without trying? >> Easily 11. >> [music] >> You don't you don't have to break it. You just come up from above it like that. >> Yeah. Well, I also That's how you You know, we're talking about Teddy Wilson a little while ago. Um who was a master of the right? Yeah. Broken tenths. Yeah. >> [music] >> I found that I was frustrated trying to play the walking tenths. >> [music] >> Yes. It sounded like So, in trying to stretch my hand when I was a youngster, I found I could walk the by using [music] the Yeah. second finger. Oh, so so you play tenths with with four on the thumb? Yeah. If you listen to Jay-Z talk about Snoop, I think Snoop Dogg has a great voice. Like, he can say, "One, two, three into the four." It's like, "Oh my god." >> [laughter] >> It just sounds good, right? All the other things about your voice you can learn. Phrasing, breath control, timing, but the grain of your voice, that's something you're born with. This makes me think about someone like Howlin' Wolf. And we'd like you to meet the king of smokestack lightning, Howlin' Wolf. >> [applause] [music] >> The blues singer, his voice, the texture of his voice. A lot of people's wondering, "What is the blues?" I hear a lot of people saying the blues, the blues. But, I'm going to tell you what the blues is. When you ain't got no money, you got the blues. When you ain't got no money to pay your house rent, you still got the blues. A lot of people holler about, I don't like no blues, but when you ain't got no money and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food, you damn sure got the blues. The raw power of his voice is not a technique. It's not something you can learn by practicing in your garage. That is a gift, a talent. Musicians hear structure inside of the sound. A designer sees balance in images. A strategist sees systems inside of chaos. A storyteller sees narratives inside events. As a matter of fact, I remember when I first heard Art Tatum, I was like, this is fake. I thought it was dubbed piano. [laughter] I had no clue Oscar said the same thing. Word. Like like the first time he heard Art play on a record, he didn't believe it just cuz the crazy stuff that he was able to do. It was insane and I was hell-bent, you know, on like trying to prove that that was dubbed piano until I actually I was like, oh, wait a minute. When I first got a piece [music] of Yesterday's, I believe it was, it just changed my whole approach to everything, you know, having that left hand and I was like, I was like, wait a minute, I can do this. Oh my gosh. >> [music] [music] >> People will see numbers as colors. They'll describe sounds as shapes. Do you see colors? Do you taste Do you have take Do notes taste? >> Some things, yeah. Mhm. What What notes What do they taste like and what notes are they? >> Sometimes I hear like tuning has a taste in my mouth for sure. People's sounds have a taste in my mouth. You know how you're playing something and then he'll change it and it will make the temperature in the room shift and it'll get blue. Oh, those things, yeah, for sure. But I don't necessarily know the color to that. But but it's whatever you attach to it. Yeah. You know what I mean? If something changes for sure. Like when you hear somebody singing sharp, right? It doesn't have like a lemony zesty yellow vibe to it? You know? >> it has more like a nickel in your mouth or a penny. >> go. A penny and like that feeling of that metal metallic feeling. >> that in your neck and you know that it's wrong. Just like synesthesia connects senses, talent works the same way. It's just a different way of perceiving reality. It was more like visual. It was like [clears throat] I could see the shape of the chord. Like I saw the notes. I realized that if I move the notes around >> [music] >> over each chord change >> [music] >> and then [music] I realized I could take notes outside. >> [music] [music] >> This is a method for finding your own talent. Here are four things you're going to think about. Number one, into many domains. Number two, pay attention to what comes easier to you. Number three, listen to external feedback. Number four is pay attention to what you're obsessive about. Talent is not something you manufacture. It's something reality reveals when you're in the right domain. And the only way to find it is to move through enough worlds until one of them reveals who you already are. This is Brian from The King's Hand. If you like my content, please subscribe, please hit the notification bell, and like the video. If you want to support my channel, feel free to become a member. Be a pointed hand of the king. >> [music]