innate ability

How To Teach Areas Of Great Innate Ability

You might have heard me talk about the four stages of growth. However, there are areas of innate ability where we do not go through those four growth stages. How easy is it for a person with an innate ability to teach those skills?  

Transcript

Greetings. Recently, you might have heard me talk about the four stages of growth

  1. First, we are blissfully ignorant about something. 
  2. Then we find out that we don’t know that something. 
  3. Then if we decide it’s important to us, we learn it. 
  4. Next, we forget that we even learned it. It’s still in our subconscious mind, and it comes to the surface when we need it. But the rest of the time, we are unaware. 

However, a dear friend of mine pointed out that there are areas of innate ability where we do not go through those four stages. She is right. Thank you! 

That insight brings up the question: How easy is it for a person of that innate ability to teach those skills?  

  • Think of a golfer who doesn’t have to go through all the years of practice but is already quite good at it. 
  • Or think of my friend’s son who, at age seven, believe it or not, came up with a budgeting exercise. He took his mom through it to convince her that she could indeed afford to buy something for him that he wanted – even though she said it was a bit on the pricey side. Where did that come from? 

When we consider how possible is it to teach things that we are innately great at, we realize it’s tricky. 

Why Are Innate Abilities So Hart To Teach?

The reason is that we’re not likely to realize what it is that we’re doing precisely. It takes effort to figure out, “How am I doing this? Well, it just came to me!” 

In most cases, it takes external eyes to observe what that person is doing to get that result, break it into steps, and make a system out of it. In rare cases, the person who has that innate ability can do it themselves. But in my experience, most times, it takes fresh eyes. It takes somebody else to observe and systematize these skills and make them into a process. 

I’m Curious

  • What are examples of your innate abilities?
  • Which innate abilities have you observed in other people?