'Everyday' Intelligence: Find Your Niche

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Albert Einstein

I have been sitting on the above quote for almost half an hour now, thinking of ways to begin today’s entry. Well, I just have; bare with me now, it will all start to make sense soon enough.

Not as soon as you might think, though.

I went to a karaoke about a month ago and was drinking my Guinness when someone came out to sing Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York’.

I was stupefied; God, I think even my Guinness was stupefied!

The man behind the microphone was an elderly chap, around seventy- fivish, yet full of vigour and spirit.

The minute he started singing, I thought ‘this guy must have sung professionally before!’.

I could not have been more wrong.

Having taken some time to recover from his astonishing performance, I approached him and asked him whether he had been a professional singer before.

The man said that he had been a sailor his whole life; he said that he had often sung various songs to the crew, to keep their morale up.

And then it dawned on me: had this man done what he had been good at, he could have been as great as Frank Sinatra- if not greater!

When I asked him whether he had thought of becoming a singer he answered that singing was not a ‘trade’ (a profession, if you will) that could support a family; being a sailor, however, was.

 The above notion is something that has been implanted in our way of thinking since a very early age. We have been led to believe, by our parents and teachers, that we need a ‘trade’ and a career in order to succeed in life and earn enough to support a family.

We have been taught that doing what we enjoy is still alright...as a hobby.

I have recently read an article on PULSE that pretty much sums up my view on the above.

To cut a long story short, the article was about an accountant who had always wanted to become a singer but decided to take on accounting as he was very good with numbers.

In the end, he truly become a very successful accountant but he felt that something was missing.

One day he woke up and thought:

• I am good at accounting.
• Music and singing make me happy.
• Why not become an account to a musician?

And so he did; he successfully combined what he was good at with what he enjoyed.

The above notion is very simple:

• Being good at something makes you happy as it earns you enough money to support yourself and your family.
• Doing something that you enjoy makes you happy as it helps you relax and, thus, become more productive.

It would, thus, make a lot of sense to combine the two and lead a happier and stress- free life.

It’s really not that complicated- find your niche and stick to it.

Simple as that.