YOUSE Your Talents

Early Losses

My drama career lasted exactly one day. One practice, in fact. I was in 5th grade and somebody (Mom, you know who you are) convinced me that I would like participating in the school play. So there we were after school, all of the usual suspects plus that one weird kid who always had super bad breath. And that girl with the filthy stuffed dog. Some teacher was up in front of us telling us how the play this year was going to be something called Thumbelina. Never heard of it, I thought, but as long as there were army men and shooting in it, I was sure I’d like it just fine, or motorcycles. Football players, maybe?

Then she passed around little pieces of paper to each of us. These contained the name of the character we were to play. Mine said, SPIDER.

Ok, not so bad, I thought, it’s not a soldier or a motorcycle racer, but a spider could be interesting (depending upon my acting method, of course). Then came some additional information. Key information. Game-changing information.

Plays have characters. Characters wear costumes. Spider costumes involve wearing a pair of girls’ black tights.

And that abruptly ended what might have been an illustrious acting career. I was outtathere. And somehow I convinced my parents to bypass the hard-fast Brady rule of “never quitting.” It would seem that even my parents had their limits.

But what might have been? Brando, Cruise, Crow, Streep, Winslet, Depp, Pacino, Brady. . . .

Nah, I can’t see it either.

Next came politics, as I won the position of Student Council President without even knowing how, and proceeded to do what Presidents everywhere have done throughout history — even less than promised during campaign promises — which in my case, didn’t even exist to begin with.

Track and Field day was great, too, and I won some ribbons for something or other, though I remember my friend Mark, who would go on to play in the NFL, beating me in every single event.

And finally there was the spelling bee. We did them in class quite often, and I did fairly well. I could generally make it to the last round or two, but always seemed to lose to this one Lorna girl. She was that goody-two-shoes who seemed ahead of me in just about anything my friend Mark wasn’t beating me in, which meant, everything that wasn’t athletic.

There was a big playoff competition, and the top two students from each classroom would advance to the big school-wide event. When the time came, classmates went down in flames like bi-planes at the hands of the Red Barron. Between Lorna and me, we polished them off in short order. We two Top Guns would advance to the big school-wide event.

And before you knew it, there we were, up on stage in front of the whole school and gobs of parents, lined up in a row under the bright lights. Once again it was short work until there were only two of us left standing: Lorna and me.

It was my turn to begin the final round. The principal strolled slightly closer to me, leaned forward, and gave me my word.

Would I prove up to the challenge?

Would I be smart enough?

Would I FINALLY be able to shake off the curse of Lorna?

“Chris, it’s down to just the two of you now.” Said the principal, a neighbor of mine, incidentally, who I think sincerely liked me and was truly hoping I’d topple smug Lorna from her perch. (Why else would he have given me such an easy word, as you’ll see).

He said, “Your word is ‘use.’”

I don’t know what happened inside my brain at that point. One of the synapses must have zapped in the wrong direction. Maybe I had gotten distracted for a moment by the lights and the faces and the pressure. But when he said the simple English word “use” I swear it sounded like something in Mandarin. I had no idea what that word was; had never heard it before. Couldn’t make sense of it. My mind just went blank. I started to sweat as a mild panic began to roll up inside.

“Um” (I gulped), “could you please use that in a sentence?”

Yeah, that would do it. Buy some time. Give me a chance to figure out just what the heck this word was, after all.

But then he grinned mischievously and simply parroted me. “Can you ‘use’ it in a sentence?”

What? What’s going on here!? Why is he messing with me? I thought.

The panic escalated.

Running out of time I decided to just spell it like it sounded. If he was going to hurl such an odd, foreign, crazy word at me, then hey, it was the best I could do.

“Y-O-U-S-E” I said tentatively.

At which point the whole school erupted in laughter.

And that’s the exact moment when my brain came back to itself and I suddenly realized what the word actually was. I was forced to stand there in humiliated silence while Lorna claimed yet another victory over me.

Getting Warmer

So let’s take a quick accounting of my career progress to this point:

Drama? No

Sports? No

Politics? No

Spelling? No, please no.

This wasn’t all bad, however, because discovering things I wasn’t good at was bringing me closer to areas in which I did have ability. In this way, early losses are instructive because they at least show us where not to drill. It was like I was wild-catting around in a big wide territory, drilling in places in which I had no talent. But the tendencies eventually take over, the talents finally allow themselves to be discovered.

Who you are meant to be has a lot to do with who you really are already.

All along on my report cards, going way back to first grade, my teachers had always noted in the comment sections that “Chris talks too much with his friends,” or “Chris is always goofing around with his friends.”

This wasn’t bad, it was actually a clue.

Then I was given another glimpse in High School. For some reason I took a class called Expository Writing II. I have no idea why, because, of course, I had never taken Expository Writing I. (That’s just how I roll). And in that class a surprising thing happened (which also, no doubt, will shock all three of my readers), the gentile elderly teacher took me aside to tell me I had a real talent for writing.

Um, I did? She obviously had not been at the spelling bee.

Years later, after working in the auto industry and attempting to drill in areas that provided some results but definitely no geysers, I finally struck oil in a world of public speaking, humor, writing, and business. It had been in me all along, below the surface, waiting to be tapped.

The point of this article isn’t to tell you some cute little story about me (but enough about me, what do you think about me?), rather, the point is that we are all born with gifts and talents in particular areas. One of the things that makes life exciting is trying to discover what it is that you were built to do. The goal is to explore widely so that you can find and then tap into your true potential and drill down far right there in that very spot.

So don’t be afraid to try things out in life. Experiment. Explore. Search. Treat it like an archeology project in which you are uncovering your life’s calling one clue at a time. And don’t be discouraged by the Lornas of the world who appear to have it all together, because you should never compare yourself in an area in which you are not gifted to someone who is. Just keep trying things on until something fits. You’ll know when you’ve found it, because it will make your heart sing. And looking back over your life, you’ll see that it was in you the whole time.

Even if it didn’t show up in a stupid spelling bee.

(You can follow Chris on his Facebook fan page at Rascal Nation and on Instagram at cbrascal.)