I had a teammate at Virginia Tech who seemed destined for big things. He played football for four years and graduated, then picked up his MBA in his 5th year. After that, he went to law school and was hired by a highly-rated law firm immediately after graduation. All these accomplishments are even more extraordinary in light of the fact that very few players on the Tech football team at that time (only 5 in my class, including me) actually graduated from Tech’s undergraduate program in 5 years.
My teammate was a big man with talent to match. His ambition was strong and he wanted to make things happen now.
Fast-forward 20 years. My teammate had seen two firms right up to the edge of prosperity, only to have them crash and burn through no fault of his own, due to factors out of his control. He and I were at a Tech football game right around the time disaster was striking his second firm. I’ll let him take it from here:
Circa 1999, I was facing some pretty tough issues having gone into business with the wrong people a few years earlier. I wasn’t sure from day-to-day whether I could carry on. But, I do remember you saying one thing to me while we were in Blacksburg at the Miami game…”You can’t keep talent down…” I held on to these words…for years…and I prevailed.
I know all of the readers of this blog are blessed with great talent. What you choose to do with that talent is entirely up to you. You may feel that at this point in your life your career achievements aren’t in line with your talents. In some cases they might be well below your expectations. Please learn from my friend’s case.
He attacked life with a vengeance, taking on hurdle after hurdle and still seemingly failing again and again to live up to his potential. At each critical point when it would have been so easy to quit he remembered what I said: “You can’t keep talent down; never give up on talent.” After all he had to overcome, I’m proud to say he now occupies a position commensurate with his tremendous talent.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill’s famous quote: “Never, never, never, never give up” on talent.
Have a great weekend,
Ro