Talent is Never Enough Workbook

John C. Maxwell

• Publisher: HarperChristian Resources
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781418568177
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

A blueprint to maximize your potential, this workbook companion to an essential John Maxwell guide is filled with action-oriented business wisdom and examples of professionals from all walks of life to light your path to becoming a talent-plus person.

New York Times best-selling author Dr. John C. Maxwell has a message for you, and for today's corporate culture fixated on talent above all else: TALENT IS NEVER ENOUGH.

Some talented people reach their full potential, while others self-destruct or remain trapped in mediocrity. What makes the difference? Maxwell, the go-to guru for business professionals across the globe, insists that the choices people make-not merely the skills they inherit-propel them onto greatness. Among other truths, successful people know that:

• Belief lifts your talent.
• Initiative activates your talent.
• Focus directs your talent.
• Preparation positions your talent.
• Practice sharpens your talent.
• Perseverance sustains your talent.
• Character protects your talent.... and more!!

In this companion Workbook, Maxwell outlines the thirteen crucial things you can do to maximize your natural talents and become a "Talent-plus" person.

1
BELIEF LIFTS
YOUR TALENT

The first and greatest obstacle to success for most people is their belief in themselves. Once people figure out where their sweet spot is (the area where they are most gifted), what often hinders them isn’t lack of talent. It’s lack of trust in themselves, which is a self-imposed limitation. Lack of belief can act as a ceiling on talent. However, when people believe in themselves, they unleash power in themselves and resources around them that almost immediately take them to a higher level. Your potential is a picture of what you can become. Belief helps you see the picture and reach for it.

DISCOVER

What are your beliefs about yourself?

[Your Response Here]

How do these beliefs affect your behavior?

[Your Response Here]

Describe the type of person you believe you can become.

[Your Response Here]

BELIEFS WORTH BUYING INTO

I don’t know what your talent is, but I do know this: it will not be lifted to its highest level unless you also have belief. Talent alone is never enough. If you want to become your best, you need to believe your best. You need to . . .

1. Believe in Your Potential

Your potential is a picture of what you can become. Inventor Thomas Edison remarked, “If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves.”

Complete this sentence: I have the potential to become

[Your Response Here]

Too often we see what is, not what could be. If you could see yourself in terms of your true potential, you wouldn’t recognize yourself.

When my daughter, Elizabeth, was in high school, she had a “glamour shot” taken of herself to give me as a gift. That was the rage at the time. A person would go into the photo studio and be made up to look like a movie star. When I first saw the picture, I thought, That’s not the way she looks every day, but that’s Elizabeth. That’s truly her. Likewise, that’s what it’s like when you see and believe in your potential. If you were to see yourself as you could be, you would look better than you ever imagined.

Poet John Masefield wrote,

And there were three men
Went down the road
As down the road went he
The man they saw, the man he was
And the man he wanted to be.

The only way to get the “third man” into the picture is to believe in your potential. Doing that lifts you up, allowing you to respond to God’s gift to you. I believe the old saying: “Our potential is God’s gift to us. Our gift to Him is fulfilling it.”

TALENT IS NEVER ENOUGH

Describe yourself as you are right now and as others see you. How do these descriptions differ from the statement you wrote about the type of person you believe you can become?

[Your Response Here]

Indian statesman Mohandas Gandhi said, “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.” Closer to home, it would also suffice to solve most of our individual problems. We must first believe in our potential if we are to do what we’re capable of.

Executive coach Joel Garfinkle recounts a story by writer Mark Twain in which a man died and met Saint Peter at the pearly gates. Immediately realizing that Saint Peter was a wise and knowledgeable individual, the man inquired, “Saint Peter, I have been interested in military history for many years. Tell me who was the greatest general of all time?”

Saint Peter quickly responded, “Oh, that’s a simple question. It’s that man right over there.”

“You must be mistaken,” responded the man, now very perplexed. “I knew that man on earth and he was just a common laborer.”

“That’s right, my friend,” assured Saint Peter. “He would have been the greatest general of all time, if he had been a general.” ¹ Cartoonist Charles Schulz offered this comparison: “Life is a ten-speed bike. Most of us have gears we never use.” What are we saving those gears for? It’s not good to travel through life without breaking a sweat. So what’s the problem? Most of the time it’s self-imposed limitations. They limit us as much as real ones. Life is difficult enough as it is. We make it more difficult when we impose additional limitations on ourselves. Industrialist Charles Schwab observed, “When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do.”

Describe some of your self-imposed limitations, and note when you first started believing you were limited in these areas.

[Your Response Here]

In If It Ain’t Broke . . . Break It! Robert J. Kriegel and Louis Patler write,

We don’t have a clue as to what people’s limits are. All the tests, stopwatches, and finish lines in the world can’t measure human potential. When someone is pursuing their dream, they’ll go far beyond what seems to be their limitations. The potential that exists within us is limitless and largely untapped . . . When you think of limits, you create them. ²

We often put too much emphasis on mere physical challenges and obstacles, and give too little credence to psychological and emotional ones. Sharon Wood, the first North American woman to climb Mount Everest, learned some things about that after making her successful climb. She said, “I discovered it wasn’t a matter of physical strength, but a matter of psychological strength. The conquest lay within my own mind to penetrate those barriers of self-imposed limitations and get through to that good stuff—the stuff called potential, 90 percent of which we rarely use.”

TALENT IS NEVER ENOUGH

What limiting beliefs about yourself do you need to modify? What truth about your potential can replace these limiting ideas?

[Your Response Here]

In 2001, I was invited to Mobile, Alabama, to speak to six hundred NFL coaches and scouts at the Senior Bowl. That’s the game played by two teams of college seniors who have been invited to participate because they are believed to have NFL potential. In the morning I taught from The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, which had just been published.

And in the afternoon, I attended a workout session in which the players were tested for running speed, reaction time, jumping ability, and so forth.

One of the coaches in attendance, Dick Vermeil, chatted with me as I watched. At some point he said, “You know, we can measure many of their skills, but it’s impossible to measure the heart. Only the player can determine that.”

Your potential is really up to you. It doesn’t matter what others might think. It doesn’t matter where you came from. It doesn’t even matter what you might have believed about yourself at a previous time in your life. It’s about what lies within you and whether you can bring it out. To reach your potential, you must first believe in your potential, and determine to live way beyond average.

2. Believe in Yourself

It’s one thing to believe that you possess remarkable potential. It’s another thing to have enough faith in yourself that you think you can fulfill it. When it comes to believing in themselves, some people are agnostic! That’s not only a shame; it also keeps them from becoming what they could be. Psychologist and philosopher William James emphasized that “there is but one cause of human failure. And that is man’s lack of faith in his true self.”

People who believe in themselves get better jobs and perform better in them than those who don’t. Martin Seligman, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, did some research at a major life insurance company and found that the salespeople who expected to succeed sold 37 percent more insurance than those who didn’t. ³ The impact of belief in self begins early. Some researchers assert that when it comes to academic achievement in school, there is a greater correlation between self-confidence and achievement than there is between IQ and achievement. Attorney and marketing expert Kerry Randall observed, “Successful people believe in themselves, especially when others do not.”

3. Believe in Your Mission

What else is necessary to lift your talent? Believing in what you are doing. In fact, even if the odds are against your accomplishing what you desire, confidence will help you. William James asserted, “The one thing that will guarantee the successful conclusion of a doubtful undertaking is faith in the beginning that you can do it.” How does this kind of belief help?

Belief in your mission will empower you. Having confidence in what you are doing gives you the power to achieve it. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright noted, “The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.” Confident people can usually evaluate a task before undertaking it and know whether they can do it. In that belief is great power.

Belief in your mission will encourage you. A woman with a will to win will have her naysayers. A man on a mission will have his critics. What often allows such people to keep going in a negati...