How To Find Your Special Gift, Even If You Don’t Think You Have One

My favorite Italian restaurant is Chez Marie, but that’s French.

Hey, what’s up? It’s Marie Forleo and you are watching Marie TV, the place to be to create a business and a life that you love. And this is Q and A Tuesday where it’s all about Q’s and A’s. And today’s Q comes from ms Sasha and she writes, “Hey Marie, I got caught up with something you usually say at the end of your videos. It goes something along the lines of the world needs that special gift that only you have. I don’t really see myself as someone that has any special gifts and especially nothing I can offer to the world unless there’s a world’s best procrastination competition. I’ll go next week.” Very clever. “How can I work out what these special gifts are that I was sent into this world with? Thanks for any advice, Sasha.”

Sasha, this is a super great question. I have never met one single person who doesn’t have any gifts, but I’ve met loads of people who wonder if they even just have one. I think part of the problem is this word gifts. So when we hear that word, gifts or talents, instantly we think of someone who can sing or dance or talk to dead people or solve gigantic quadratic equations without using a pencil.

So I think the first step is we need to look at gifts in a broader way. So a simple shift is to start calling them strengths. And there’s no one that can say they don’t have strengths, right? And I bet you have strengths you’re not even aware of Sasha. Now the million dollar question is well, how do I figure out what my strengths are? The best place to start is with one of my favorite books of all time. Behold Marcus Buckingham’s Now Discover Your Strengths, Sasha. I recommend this book to everybody. And now when you read it, you’re going to discover that every single human being, including you, is born with a unique set of strengths. Now the book also comes with a code so that you can take this awesome little test and discover exactly what your strengths are.
Now the thing about strengths, they’re really an ability you have. It’s something that comes very naturally to you. It’s something that when you do it, you actually feel stronger. It’s something that you can imagine yourself doing repeatedly, happily, and successfully. Now, most people overlook their strengths because the fact it comes so naturally to them, they take it for granted. For instance, are you a great learner? Do you have a strong sense of empathy? Do you thrive on competition? Do you have a knack for imagining the future and getting people excited about it? Can you win other people over even if you’ve just met them? All those things are strengths, or what you might call gifts and yes, they are special and useful even if they’re not talent show material.
Presenting Jams, magnificent spatial relations, problem solver.

If you guys just moved all these chairs one inch over, you could probably fit a whole other row.
Now, once you know your strengths, the whole key is to continue to use them as often as you can and to develop them. It’s a big key to happiness, both in your regular life and at work. Now here’s a big thing you don’t want to get tripped up on. Don’t try and look for the perfect job or the perfect business to start in order to express your strengths. Your strengths are going to be with you for life. And if you’re like most people in this day and age, you’re going to have many evolutions in your career, so you don’t have to worry about it.

So for example, in my own life, two of my top strengths are positivity and communication. Now I use these strengths when I was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. I used them when I was a bartender. I used them when I was a Nike athlete. And I use them every single day in my business and here on Marie TV.

Now there’s loads more we can talk about as this is a big and fascinating topic, but the two most important steps you can take are number one, recognize that yes, you do have gifts, you just got to start calling them strengths. And number two, you want to find out what those strengths are and start using them as often as you can, because the world really does need it.

So let’s land this plane on one of my favorite quotes of all time and yes, it’s a tweetable. “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.”

That was my A to your Q Sasha. I really hope it helps. Now I would love to hear from you. Have you ever had a doubt that you have any special gifts? Did you have any ahas during this episode or if you’ve discovered what your gifts are? I would love to know how you figured it out. As always, the most awesome discussions happen after the episode over at marieforleo.com. So come on over and leave us a comment now.

Did you like this video? I certainly did. If you enjoyed it, consider subscribing to our channel and I would be so grateful if you shared it with your friends and if you want even more awesome resources to create a business and life that you love, plus some personal insights from me that I only get to talk about in email, come on over to marieforleo.com and sign up for email updates. Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world really needs that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll catch you next time on Marie TV.

And a shimple, shimple shift. Are y’all cool with this? Jams will you tell me if I did a good job? Oh, it’s just a bunch of beeping horns. I’m going through puberty. Oh, that was the worst time ever. Are we-