Your TALENT is Your TRUMPET; Blow it Loud!

 

Born on December 30, 1975, in Cypress, California, his parents identified his talent at an unusually early age. The boy was gifted not only with exceptional playing abilities, but he also possessed a passion for a particular kind of sport. He first gained national attention when he was only three at the time, and he was quickly hailed as a prodigy, or a child with remarkable talent. Not long after that, when he was only eight years old he won his first formal competition. From that point he became virtually unstoppable, winning trophies and breaking amateur records everywhere. Media accounts of the boy prodigy had reached nearly legendary proportions by 1994.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, he was the most dominant figure in all of sports, and it soon became evident that he was destined for success. That legendary prodigy boy is Tiger Woods, the champion.

Imaging a room filled with people with different sizes and shapes of trumpets. And everyone is expected to blow with his or her own. What do you think will happen? This is what I think; it is the one that blows loudest that is heard and that eventually gets attention.

In a world where there is a struggle for recognition and relevance. Everyone wants attention and everyone seems to be doing his own thing in his own corner of the world. No doubt, everyone is endowed with incredible talent. But unfortunately many have been made to believe that education is what makes one relevant and recognized. However, history has proven without doubt, like that of Tiger Woods that education by itself is not enough to make one relevant or recognised. Talent is what stands one out of the pack. Borrowing a statement from the Bible, “the gift of a man makes room for him and brings him before great men.” My understanding of this statement is that one’s natural gifting is what announces one to his world.

Therefore, for you to be relevant and gain recognition, you have to show the world what you carry within. In this wise, your talent is your trumpet. The louder you blow it, the more attention you command.

Joseph the prisoner blew his own from the prison and pharaoh heard in his palace. David blew his and the whole of Israel raised his banner over that of their King.  You have got to blow your trumpet. Blow it really louder. Because the louder it sounds, the farther it goes and the more recognition you get.

If you want to gain recognition. If you want to become relevant. Then you must blow your trumpet! My advice; blow it with all you have got, cos’ the louder the better.

Cheers!

The Reality of Entrepreneurship

Born on September 9, 1984 and raised in the impoverished south side of Chicago in a single parent family. He began his entrepreneurial, personal and civic development at six years of age selling home-made body lotion and his own hand-painted rocks door-to-door. At age seven, he was carrying business cards that read "the 21st Century CEO." At age eight, he became co-founder of Urban Neighborhood Enterprise Economic Club (U.N.E.E.C.) on Chicago's South Side. At age 13, he started a fast foods business which he sold a year after for $1.5 million dollars. By the age of fourteen he was already a self-made millionaire. Today he is the youngest person to have an office on Wall Street. His name Dr. Farrah Gray a remarkable young man with an entrepreneurial mindset. His story, truly, represents a true picture of the reality of entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship among many things gives you the opportunity to stretch your potentials, explore opportunities in your environment, provide solutions to the problems of the society and explore a wide range of avenues to better your lot.

Dr. Gray is truly a representation of the reality of entrepreneurship. He was able to transit through the three realms of the path to economic emancipation; Passion to Product to Profit. Identifying needs or opportunities and providing products or services to meet the identified needs is what entrepreneurship is all about. Meeting needs! Every society has needs and it takes only people with entrepreneurial eyes (mindsets) to be able to identify those needs and fill the gaps.

Like Gray, every one of us is born with that spirit of enterprise. However, the problem lies in our unwillingness to exercise and stretch our minds to think and provide solutions to the problems in our immediate environment.

Entrepreneurship is and will always remain the only solution to the problems of unemployment and poverty in most nations. We each have a responsibility to challenge ourselves to engage in entrepreneurial ventures. Nations have been and are still being transformed on this platform.

There is something in you that you can give out. There is a wealth of talent and skills in you that can meet a need. Gray made it from a slum, single parent home and as a vulnerable kid that needed all the support a child can get. He went on to become a real business owner and founder at age 6! Remarkable, you say! Well, I couldn’t agree any less.

Take that step today. Stretch your mind and experience the reality of entrepreneurship.

Cheers!