By Charlotte Kemp

In the ordinary business of life, industry can do anything which genius can do, and very many things which it cannot.  Henry Ward Beecher

There is a fascination with incredibly beautiful people, the extremely wealthy and the apparently mega talented individuals in our society. We have a strange love / hate relationship with them. Don’t we all want to be beautiful, wealthy and talented, and yet so often, even while admiring and desiring what these people have, we also feel jealousy and express criticism.

I remember having a hair cut when I was about 19 years old and a fairly gawky teenager at that. Remember parents, that nothing you say to your daughters will convince them that beauty is within. We seem to need this sort of message from people who don’t already love us. My hairdresser had just returned from an international competition and was full of excitement and buzz. He poured out story after story of all the beauties he had encountered and the glamour of the events but at one point he paused enough to teach a lesson that made such an impression that 20 years later I still use it as a touchstone to remember that everything is not always as it seems. He grabbed a random glossy magazine from the table and told me to choose the most beautiful posed picture I could find. Once I had one, he showed me how behind the scenes, out of sight of the camera lens, the clothes on the model would have been pegged up with wooden pegs to make sure that they flowed and landed just right. And that her hair that looked so perfect and soft and free was hair sprayed to a rock hard lacquer so that it didn’t move. Oh, and if there were still any problems in the photo after those interventions, they were literally airbrushed out. In one short conversation he totally destroyed my illusions about glossy mags and the fashion industry, but restored my sense of self worth. I walked out of that salon, gawky, with no make up, but feeling no less beautiful than the models.

Okay, it didn’t last for long, but what is my point? A beautiful model has a natural gift of beauty. A talented musician has an ear for music. Some people do better at school than others. Gosh life is unfair to give some people a head start and not make it equal. But getting a head start does not guarantee that person will win the race. The talent is not enough. Along with talent goes hard work, industry, long hours, effort, persistence, determination, doggedness, resolution, stick-to-it-iveness.

We give up too often in the face of someone else’s obvious initial advantage instead of pressing on. Talent often believes that it is entitled to an easy life, to benefits, and so doesn’t learn out how to sweat and toil and earn a living.

In business it is too easy not to take the challenge to go up against a competitor who has been there longer, or who is bigger, or who appears to be more established. But time and again we see that it is just these sorts of companies that are complacent about marketing themselves, taking opportunities to meet community needs, and getting to know their clients. Yes sometimes small start ups start and fail, like mine did. But sometimes they fail to thrive simply because they think they can’t compete with someone who looks better.

Let’s stop worrying about other people’s talent, or our children’s IQ scores, and be more concerned about instilling a little more, admittedly boring, but oh so much more valuable industry. We will get much further in life and be far less anxious.

The title of this post “Talent is not enough”, is the title of a book by John C Maxwell.

This blog is an exploration of the lessons I learned when my business failed. Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas, as well as your own experiences. It will eventually be published as a book – hopefully as a warning to new entrepreneurs to avoid some of these mistakes. Please see the first few posts as an introduction.