Are You Frozen or Fried? 2 Steps to Rehab Your Talents

In 8th grade, I had a fall over a hurdle that resulted in a compound fracture to my right arm. With a full cast that started below my knuckles and extended over the elbow and bicep, I was sentenced to 12 weeks of no use of my dominant hand and arm. Two things happened over the course of the next three months: First, I got creative and a little more proficient doing things with my left hand and other body parts like learning how to write (legibly!) with my left arm, albeit at a much slower rate. Second, I bought fully into a marketing campaign that milk builds strong bones and began to drink it at every meal.  

Three months later when my arm came out of the final cast, it was withered and puny compared to my left arm. Writing and many simple tasks were immediately regained by my freed right hand but it took some deliberate therapy to rebuild the strength and mass in my right arm so I could extend it out straight, lift heavier objects, and throw a baseball. I had to redevelop and then strengthen the use of my mended right arm. As for my liquid diet, I’m sure it provided its promised calcium to the healing process. However, there can be too much of a good thing and I was burned out on dairy for the rest of the summer.

Riding the chaos of the Coronavirus pandemic has forced some of our top five talents to be put on ice. Blue Connect talents like Communication, Relator, Empathy and others are missing the interpersonal dynamics that come from face to face interactions. For many people with Blue talents, the 2-dimensional online meeting or 6 foot conversations behind a mask feels like your talents are in a cast. For two months, Mobilize talents have been limited to influencing others over the phone and motivating those they are locked down with to accomplish spring cleaning projects.  

Internally, the constant fluctuation of unprecedented events, information, and expectations has frozen some Reflect talents like Consistency, Context, and Intellection. Energize talents have been frustrated as outcomes and accomplishments for work are being redefined or put on hold altogether.  

While some talents have been frozen we’ve turned up the heat on others.

We’ve had to work out of weaknesses or overuse certain talents to a burn-out mode like my Milk fixation. Take Adaptability. It thrives in change, flexing and flowing to the variety of new options to do. Yet when a talent is over-used to the exclusion of other talents, it can burn out or we experience the Kryptonite of the talent in an exponential way. I have talked with a lot of Arrangers who feel exhausted by the constant rearranging and over-arranging of potential paths and solutions but not being able to take action because the problems change daily. 

To start your personal talent rehab, pull out your CoreClarity Pyramid for a quick diagnostic.

STEP ONE - THE ICE TEST

Is my talent functioning, frustrated, or frozen? If frozen, how can I find a way to thaw it out this week in a new area or relationship?

STEP TWO - THE FIRE TEST

Is my talent flowing, fired up, or fried to a crisp? If it’s a bit overdone, how can you play to your other top four to rest and restore it?

Talent care makes a massive difference but it is on us to be proactive and intentional to do the work.

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For more color around your Talents in Crisis, check out my FREE video series on Talents & Change by clicking HERE!