What is wrong with our cultural idea of "Talent"

So many things.

A friend and I were talking recently. Her son was a creative type and when he expressed to people his desire to have a career as a creative type, the response was always “choose something else to do because you can’t possibly achieve that goal.” It wasn’t that he had no talent. He was clearly talented, had clearly shown that he had initiative and determination. So why the lack of support for his stated career in life?

I think it’s because of the bizarre American idea of “talent” and how it leads to success. We tell these stories about people who have “talent,” mostly movie stars, sometimes writers, painters, or musicians. The stories are remarkably the same. Some nobody created something and then magically became successful. Or some nobody got onto a television show and then the money started rolling in and they never had to work a day in their life again.

On the one hand, this seems like a great story, right? Some people win the lottery and then they have it made. That’s the American dream. Ordinary Joe Blow makes it big through no work of his own. He just got lucky.

But it’s actually a terrifying story to those who are actually trying to make a career out of the creative arts because it doesn’t show any process. There are no steps here to becoming a success creatively. It just happens, boom. Some people have “talent” and they get “lucky” and then they become huge. So of course you wouldn’t want to encourage anyone you know to choose this as a career because there’s no path to start on and no guarantee to the results.

But this is just not how it happens. It isn’t how it happens in any other career and it’s not how success happens in the creative arts, either. Why do we perpetuate this lie? I think it’s partly because creative people like to be mysterious. It adds a layer of something to your success story if you can claim that it just happened overnight. Dig a little deeper.

I suspect you will find a lot of hard work behind every overnight success story. And behind every person who is “talented” you will find someone who had lessons, fabulous teachers, and is meticulous in their work habits.

Now I’m not saying that anyone can make it as a creative person. It might be true, but I admit, I sometimes think there are people who won’t make it. I have so far been proven wrong in every case, but somehow some part of my brain still thinks that there is something called “talent” that isn’t the same as “hard work.”

The real problem is that this fantasy story that our culture tells leads people who want to work in the creative arts to be confused as to how to go about it. If you want to be an electrical engineer, you go to college, get a degree, and so on. But that’s not always the case for creative types. College isn’t always a gateway into getting a job. Because, well, working hard and learning the craft are the skills. So are networking, auditions, learning how to deal with failure, determination, continuing to learn every day of your life, and so on.

But really, not that different from any other job. We just send people to college a lot because college is where they learn a lot of that stuff, right? College is where they find a lot of the people who will help them learn what they need to learn and get connected with the people who can get them jobs. For creative types, college is less important than a more informal kind of apprenticeship.

No one makes it through talent alone. No one makes it overnight. No one has it made and never has to work again. Creative jobs are not easier than other jobs. And they’re not that mysterious to get, either.