Ever found you have a previously undiscovered talent in something?

axisus

I rather like insanely good technical guitarists, the sort who just seem to have an incredible natural talent to play before they even start. I imagine that they had no idea they would be well above average before picking up a guitar.

And then there's Andrew Cassidy who found fame in 2013 with his footballing skills.



I often wonder if maybe there's something out there that I could be really good at but I have yet to try it. Knowing my luck it would be knitting.

Anyone here found anything surprising that they are good at?

boogieman

Not me but a guy I worked with. His daughter was totally disinterested in music at school. Every child had to pick an instrument but she refused to  chose, until finally everything was gone bar an oboe, which she grudgingly took home. She turned out to be a complete natural at it, went on to uni to study music and eventually ended up playing for one of the big national orchestras. Talent will out. 

TheMarlin

Archer and shooting.  I have a natural feel for it, very accurate. Neve bothered doing anything with it.  I do go shooting when I’m in the USA though, at a range. 

munckee

TheMarlin said:

Archer and shooting.  I have a natural feel for it, very accurate. Neve bothered doing anything with it.  I do go shooting when I’m in the USA though, at a range. 

Archery and darts for me just comes easy.  

Sambostar

Axe throwing

thecolourbox

I'm strangely good at accurately throwing things, not with any real force or speed, but very good at throwing things at people in particular

skay

The Fosbury Flop. Serious.

I had a ‘cabin bed’ as a young lad (those beds with the cupboards and drawers underneath), and unbeknown to me the running up to it and jumping in the air backwards over the side to land perfectly on my back in bed was the ideal practice to execute this style of Olympic jump.

ok, I was just 9 or 10 years old and this was only compared to my particular year at school, but despite being one of the shortest kids in the year, the ‘natural talent’ of being good at ‘high jump’ was quite a surprise!

EricTheWeary

My brother was a keen water skier and had his own boat, wrote articles for a water ski magazine. Always encouraging people to go along and try and we had a lot of family events by the side of the lake where they did it.* I don’t know much about skiing but basically everyone does badly the first time. 

Anyway, my brother had a lifelong friend called Terry who had a new girlfriend ( in their late 20s at this point I guess) called Anne and she was persuaded to have a go. She turned out to be a complete natural, skiing at a standard everyone else took months to get to. She got back onto dry land and my brother was going ‘that was amazing, I’ve never seen anyone so naturally good at this’...Anne basically went ‘meh’ and never wanted to ski again. 

* yes, very difficult to find a lake on a slope. 

munckee

EricTheWeary said:

My brother was a keen water skier and had his own boat, wrote articles for a water ski magazine. Always encouraging people to go along and try and we had a lot of family events by the side of the lake where they did it.* I don’t know much about skiing but basically everyone does badly the first time. 

Anyway, my brother had a lifelong friend called Terry who had a new girlfriend ( in their late 20s at this point I guess) called Anne and she was persuaded to have a go. She turned out to be a complete natural, skiing at a standard everyone else took months to get to. She got back onto dry land and my brother was going ‘that was amazing, I’ve never seen anyone so naturally good at this’...Anne basically went ‘meh’ and never wanted to ski again. 

* yes, very difficult to find a lake on a slope. 

One of my best mates is naturally great at most sports, was signed by a premiership football team but lost interest, was brilliant at golf with no lessons, played Gaelic football and was the best player in the field having never played it before. Makes me sick. 

Can’t be bothered to do any of them with all his effort. 

ronnyb

Not previously undiscovered but i've been able to talk like Donald Duck since i was a child. I thought lots of people could do it but apparently not. There was a video news item recently of a man in America deterring cold callers with his Donald Duck voice and it went viral. Any other fretboarders can do it?  

thecolourbox

ronnyb said:

Not previously undiscovered but i've been able to talk like Donald Duck since i was a child. I thought lots of people could do it but apparently not. There was a video news item recently of a man in America deterring cold callers with his Donald Duck voice and it went viral. Any other fretboarders can do it?  

I could do it as a child but I've just tried now and can't do it!

Sambostar

Axe Throwing.

I'II just go through the backstory.  Lol.  Went with my parents over to some little town in the former East Germany to see my sister who was working over there, dating her future American husband, who was stationed over there.  Anyway, all five of us go into this Crystal shop and the head lady in the shop says to my mum,  God bless her,  'You could be German', then she turns to my dad 'You could be German', turns to my soon to be brother in law 'You could be German' then turns to my sister and says 'You too, you could be German'.  Anyway, by this stage I'm already feeling like the twelfth man in a teenage football selection.  So she looks me right in the eyes and says  'YOU.....YOU are DEFINITELY NOT GERMAN!'.

Anyway, later that night I found out there was a former death camp just 12 miles up the road.

So the next day we go to this Christmas fair and I am feeling something between the hump and the fear of death, although in retrospect, she probably just meant Bjorn Borg, but anyway.

So we get to this Christmas Fair and they've got these German things like Pole laths and German versions of Draw knives, all manner of crafts and all sorts of people dressed up in medieval gear and no end of strapping Germanic Sassenach all giving me the evil eye, when I could quite easily drink them under the table without any of the unnecessary aggro. 

So, making our way through the medieval Bratwurst smoke, we arrive at an axe throwing board hosted by these even bigger Bavarian looking types, who again look at me, resembling some weird kind of Dave Mustaine and immediately give me evils.  Instant dislike on their part I sensed.

So I wait my turn whilst all the punters' axes are pinging off the board, I only thought it fair to let my future brother in law have a go first, since competitive Americans can do everything better, not that I had a choice.  In fairness he got one stick.

Then, it was my go.  I calmly received the three axes handed to me and then with a completely laid back composure proceeded to throw the first axe.  It stuck deep in the heart of the German bullseye,  as did the second and then as did the third.   All with absolutely no effort at all.   Then I looked straight into the eyes of these two Bavarian types who's jaws were hanging and gave them this look which I can only describe as 'This is why we won the war'. 

Although in retrospect, they were probably just thinking 'There goes that weird pissed Englander who looks a bit like Dave Mustaine'.

PhilW1

I’m still trying to unearth my talent for guitar playing 

Trude

My son is a remarkably proficient armpit-farter. He can get the most amazingly nuanced and expressive sounds, running the gamut of every fart style you can imagine. He can also drag them out for far longer than you'd think possible, given the limited air capacity of his 10-year old pits.

He also does it on his back, using both leg-pits in rapid succession. It's bizarre to witness - like some kind of flatulent boy-grasshopper hybrid.

Need to get him on Tiktok I guess

Kittyfrisk

Wow. You had me at 'flatulent boy-grasshopper hybrid'. 

Winny_Pooh

Sambostar said:

Axe Throwing.

I'II just go through the backstory.  Lol.  Went with my parents over to some little town in the former East Germany to see my sister who was working over there, dating her future American husband, who was stationed over there.  Anyway, all five of us go into this Crystal shop and the head lady in the shop says to my mum,  God bless her,  'You could be German', then she turns to my dad 'You could be German', turns to my soon to be brother in law 'You could be German' then turns to my sister and says 'You too, you could be German'.  Anyway, by this stage I'm already feeling like the twelfth man in a teenage football selection.  So she looks me right in the eyes and says  'YOU.....YOU are DEFINITELY NOT GERMAN!'.

Anyway, later that night I found out there was a former death camp just 12 miles up the road.

So the next day we go to this Christmas fair and I am feeling something between the hump and the fear of death, although in retrospect, she probably just meant Bjorn Borg, but anyway.

So we get to this Christmas Fair and they've got these German things like Pole laths and German versions of Draw knives, all manner of crafts and all sorts of people dressed up in medieval gear and no end of strapping Germanic Sassenach all giving me the evil eye, when I could quite easily drink them under the table without any of the unnecessary aggro. 

So, making our way through the medieval Bratwurst smoke, we arrive at an axe throwing board hosted by these even bigger Bavarian looking types, who again look at me, resembling some weird kind of Dave Mustaine and immediately give me evils.  Instant dislike on their part I sensed.

So I wait my turn whilst all the punters' axes are pinging off the board, I only thought it fair to let my future brother in law have a go first, since competitive Americans can do everything better, not that I had a choice.  In fairness he got one stick.

Then, it was my go.  I calmly received the three axes handed to me and then with a completely laid back composure proceeded to throw the first axe.  It stuck deep in the heart of the German bullseye,  as did the second and then as did the third.   All with absolutely no effort at all.   Then I looked straight into the eyes of these two Bavarian types who's jaws were hanging and gave them this look which I can only describe as 'This is why we won the war'. 

Although in retrospect, they were probably just thinking 'There goes that weird pissed Englander who looks a bit like Dave Mustaine'.

Legend

Stuckfast

I think mine is remaining calm and collected when massive spiders land in my lap. Though to be fair I'm extrapolating from a small sample size here.

scrumhalf

I can make things disappear.

Mainly chocolate and biscuits.

Shrews

At the age of 52, I took up hiking. An unfit, overweight, non-athletic asthmatic with dodgy knees. It's fair to say I struggled to walk five miles, getting up a 500ft hill, yes, but not after reaching for my inhaler 100 times and miles behind the walking group apart from some ex-smokers and some old boys who probably felt sorry for me.

6 months later I had dropped 3 stone, got fitter, my lungs no collapsed at the sight of the hill.

A year later nobody could keep up with me.  Although it was never a race, I found I could go super-fast, so much so that I now enjoy walking on my own rather than with others.

A month ago, I walked the Bright Angel Grand Canyon trail.  9 miles down to the Colorado River another 9 miles back up. I was zooming past people half my age!

It's too late for me to do that wiggle hips walking stuff, but I reckon I'd have been Olympic Gold medal winner if I'd have taken it up at 20. 

littlegreenman

Rather boringly, managing people. Never done it before until 6 months ago when I was given a temporary position at work. I didn't particularly like doing it, but now that the post has been filled by a permie all my staff have been telling me how well I did and they don't want me to go. Very odd as I thought I just went through the motions and did what I would have expected from someone managing me. 
Are most managers really that bad?

Shrews

littlegreenman said:

Rather boringly, managing people. Never done it before until 6 months ago when I was given a temporary position at work. I didn't particularly like doing it, but now that the post has been filled by a permie all my staff have been telling me how well I did and they don't want me to go. Very odd as I thought I just went through the motions and did what I would have expected from someone managing me. 
Are most managers really that bad?

Prior to leaving work to travel I worked for 16 years as a management lecturer after being in management since the eighties. My advice to you would be go and learn the theory, you will be surprised how much it helps.

The number one over-riding factor though is how to cope with the stresses the job will eventually bring. If you're not thick-skinned enough, everything else starts to fall apart. No matter how good you are at it, if you haven't got the thick skin you're going to struggle.  

But

Companies generally shy away from telling their staff anything about stress management.  Look at the absence records of, well, pretty much every company (in my experience of being involved with hundreds of companies) and you will find that stress is right up there with the top causes. 

Are managers really that bad?  In my experience, yes. Mainly because they never get trained to become managers.  If you employ a welder, he gets trained to weld in his first few days.  Ask a manager in any company if he/she's ever been trained properly and likely they'll say 'no'.  Maybe an afterthought from the company a few years after they've been in the job, and even that is normally because the manager has requested/demanded it (normally because they want a qualification to bugger off somewhere else).

It's no surprise that the number one cause of people leaving their jobs (more or less every year since records began!) is their relationship with their immediate line manager. Make no mistake, shit managers are everywhere.  Mainly because they can't handle the stresses and take it out on others. 

There's an old addage - Don't put one ulcer people in two ulcer jobs and yet companies make the mistake time aster time after time.

Don't get me started, I could talk forever about this and will probably give myself an ulcer doing so!

Good luck with it, if you're interested in learning, drop me a pm and I will give you some hints and tips (I wont charge!)