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Many people think a certain field is their specialty because they spent a lot of time learning and studied very hard. They might be really good, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have talent. Talent is something you do very easily, even something you learned as a child, easy to the point where you think everyone does it. This article discusses why you can't see your own talent, and two techniques you can do yourself without waiting for someone else to help you.
- People who want to find their positioning but get stuck when asked 'What are my strengths?'
- People who want to turn their expertise into courses, products, or rules that AI can execute, but find it hardest to explain the judgment clearly
- Coaches, consultants, and mentors who need to uncover the judgment standards their clients can't express
- A set of clues to distinguish between professionalism and talent: learning is hard, or learning is easy
- Two techniques you can do yourself, each with a section of directly copyable questions
- Two signals you can start with the same day: what others ask you most, and what you can't help but correct
1. Many people mistake the professional skills they have learned through effort as their natural talent
This point needs to be clarified especially, because many people may misunderstand it.
Many people think a certain field is their professional area because they spent a lot of time learning and worked very hard to master it, so they are good at that field.
He may really be good at it. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's a talent.
Talent is something you do very easily, or even something you knew from a young age. Because you knew it from a young age, you don't realize it has any value, nor do you think it's a skill. You learn it quickly, easily, or even don't need to learn it at all. It's so simple that you think everyone is like that.
The learning process has clear practice, investment, and hardship. So you can remember what effort you put in, and you can explain how you mastered it.
You will count it as one of your skills because it was earned through effort.
Because there was no process of hard work, your memory doesn't include the fact that you once worked hard on it.
So you won't count it as one of your skills, or even think it's worth mentioning.
What does it mean when something becomes very easy after practice?
This is the most commonly asked question about this approach. Some things you learn very hard at first, and after ten years of practice, you do them effortlessly. So, is that professionalism or talent?
I need to make it clear that the above clues are for finding clues; they are not for labeling people.
So, what you should recall is the beginning, not now. When this thing first appeared in your life, did you have to put in a lot of effort to learn it, or did you learn it effortlessly without realizing it?
The fluency you achieve later is the result of professional accumulation, which is good and worth writing down. But it's not what I want you to find. What I want you to find is the part that 'didn't need to be learned at the beginning,' because only that part will be completely skipped by yourself.
II. You can't see your own talent, because it's too normal to you.
True talent is something you're born with. Because you're born with it, you'll think it's very normal, even assuming everyone has this ability.
Let's take an example that's closest to people.
In human terms, we walk on two legs, so humans think standing on two legs is normal. If you look closely, among mammals, those that use two legs as their main mode of movement for a long time are very few. Humans are bipedal animals; birds are also bipedal, and kangaroos jump on two legs. Within our kind of animals, this remains rare. Looking at robots, it is very difficult to make a bipedal robot maintain balance and walk steadily on uneven ground.
We compare ourselves with other animals, and only then do we realize that walking on two legs is not something all animals do.
So some things really need to be compared with others, and only then will we know that this thing is not something everyone can do.
This is the standard case of 'the blind leading the blind' and 'the observer is clearer than the participant.' Your talent has no comparison group in your own perspective, so it's like air, and you won't notice the air.
III. Talent is the easiest type of tacit knowledge to skip over yourself.
Tacit knowledge is those things that are not written down: the master's sense of touch, the way a business person judges customers, the boss's internal line of 'this kind of case we don't take.' They exist all the time, but they have no form.
Tacit knowledge is not only about talent. Your accumulated judgment from later life, or your intuition developed from seeing hundreds of cases, is also something you can't explain, and it's also tacit knowledge. The special part of talent is that it doesn't even have the thought of 'this thing needs to be recorded,' so it's the most likely to be skipped.
When I help people distill tacit knowledge, the most common thing I find is this kind of thing. The person often doesn't think it's knowledge; they think it's just a feeling or a reflex action.
I usually use a seven-layer distillation ladder to mark how far something is from being explainable, from visible results all the way down to the intuition that can't be explained. Talent usually falls into the fourth layer of 'intuition and feeling': you have a clear feeling, but it takes effort to translate that feeling into reasoning. A little higher is the second layer of 'experience': you have to stop and think before you can explain 'why I always make this judgment.' This layer is mostly filled with judgments accumulated later in life.
No matter which layer, as long as it hasn't taken a form, there are three specific costs.
When you ask someone to help, you can only watch them and make changes one by one, because you can't explain the standard, you can only say 'this feeling doesn't feel right.'
You go up to speak, you can explain the method, but you can't explain the judgment. Students go back and follow your method, but still can't achieve your style.
AI can't follow a standard you yourself can't explain. Many people say 'I know how to do this,' part of it is true, but a lot of it is you haven't told it yet.
- A map is not the actual terrain Divide what you know but haven't said out loud into four types of unknowns, and provide a set of questions you can use before taking action. This article talks about why you can't see it, and the next article talks about how to clearly explain it to AI after you see it.
Four, two techniques you can do yourself
I usually help others distill by standing in the position of an observer. But when you are alone, you still have ways to create the condition of 'comparison.' The common point of the following two techniques is: first create a control group, then look at the difference.
Technique one: difference distillation method
The method is simple, but the order is important.
For the same thing, you first do a version yourself, then save it. Then give the same question to AI, let it also do a version. Once you have both versions, compare the differences.
The difference is your judgment standard.
Why this trick works for awareness of talent. Because talent needs comparison to be seen, and AI is just a readily available, never tired, never shy comparison object. It will answer with a general version, the distance between your version and the general version is the extra things you have.
First, complete the task yourself, and save your version as a file. Do not use AI for this step.
Start a new conversation, only give the title, not your answer, let it do it itself.
Once both versions are in the same conversation, start tracking differences.
The third step can be directly copied as a question:
After comparing, your answer to the question 'Why did you choose this?' is directly writable as a rule. The most valuable question is: Why do I think AI is wrong? Being able to explain where AI is wrong is equivalent to explaining your standard.
The best time to do this is right after you finish a real piece of work, when memory is still fresh, and reasons can be dug out.
Technique two: Random Encounter Method
The second technique is to look at those moments when 'I suddenly understand'.
You look at something in a completely unrelated field, an article from another industry, a speech from another profession, or a method you haven't learned, and you find that you suddenly understand it, even being able to spot the problem immediately.
That 'understanding' does have a source. You carry a certain structure with you. This structure is already built-in, yet you are unaware of it. This represents the typical state of possessing knowledge without conscious awareness.
This trick usually digs deeper, because things that still hold across domains are mostly your underlying logic, not a specific industry's method. However, understanding it once isn't enough, you need multiple examples to stand.
The question can be directly copied:
Starting point: Two signals without tools
If the above two techniques feel too like homework, there are two lighter starting points, one that can be done by pausing a thought for three seconds.
Those questions you answer without effort but the other person listens carefully usually hide the thing you think is not a skill.
When you feel the other person is wrong and want to correct them, the process of correction itself is distilling tacit knowledge, because you need to clearly state three things: where they are wrong, where you are right, and where the differences are.
That impulse of 'This can't be right' is because a standard inside you has been stepped on. That line is usually invisible, but it lights up when it's stepped on.
The common point of these two signals is that they don't require you to arrange extra time; they naturally happen every day. All you need to do is stop and make a note.
Five, what to do after digging it out
Awareness itself has value, and you will know better where you should stand. However, if you stop at awareness, it remains in your mind.
Only when you write it down as a rule will it start to work. The judgment you write down can be given to collaborators, put into courses, or handed over to AI to execute. This is what I'm doing: digging out the formless and turning it into reusable rules.
This was important even without AI, and it will only be more important with AI. Because AI can amplify the part you have already written down. Before the key judgment is clearly stated, it's hard for it to consistently follow your standards.
- Treat knowledge as an employee: The dividing line of knowledge management in the AI era The traditional approach is to have people use it after organizing it, but this article talks about structuring it so that knowledge can work with AI itself, which is where the rules you dig out will eventually reside.
Six, an honest boundary
Self-digging has a ceiling.
The reason is what was mentioned at the beginning of the article: self-viewing of tacit knowledge has many blind spots, many blind spots. The things you take for granted are exactly the places you are least likely to check, because it doesn't even occur to you that 'this needs to be checked.'
What the above two techniques can do is help you create a control group, making some blind spots visible. Once you dig down to the level of values, having someone who will ask you questions will be much faster. You can also continue digging down yourself, but it will be slower and require repeated recording and questioning.
Conclusion
Professionalism is something you earn through effort and deserves to be acknowledged. Talent is something you've always carried but haven't noticed, and it deserves to be uncovered.
Both things belong to you. The difference is that professional skills can be explained, while talents cannot, so it has never been counted as part of your assets.
Start with the question people ask you most frequently.
Looking for someone to check it once
Self-exploration has blind spots, which is what this article discusses throughout. If you want an object that will always ask 'why,' I host two free online seminars every month, explaining how to turn unspoken judgments into written rules.
Two sessions per month, with the link published in the LINE community 30 minutes before the class.
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