If I Can Do It, Anyone Can Do It…

If I Can Do It, Anyone Can Do It…

This phrase is typically used to downplay the talent of the person accomplishing the thing. And I get the reason it’s used. The person accomplishing the thing is trying to help the listener feel like “the accomplishment” is in their grasp.

But we have to be really careful when we hear someone say this, because the underlying precept (the talent of the speaker is irrelevant because accomplishing something really only takes hard work and “applying yourself”) is faulty.

Actually, when someone is very excellent at something, it’s always because of a particular set of strong talents they have that they’re just not aware others don’t have.

Like the ability to drive to the end of a project, no matter what happens.

Like the ability to anticipate what will go wrong and fix it quickly.

Like the ability to be excited about learning opportunities.

Like the ability to not be afraid of failure.

Like the ability to be highly focused on just one task because of a goal they set, and see that task through to the end.

Like the drive to beat their competitors.

Like the ability to shut the world out and not care about how other people feel.

Like the ability to act in uncertainty (or to take risks).

When the original research into Strengths theory was done, the experiments revealed a shocking bell curve in people’s ability to get better at a specific talent. We don’t like the discomfort of this truth (and it’s why people say, “if I can do it, anyone can do it,” if I’m honest), which is that there are some things I have a tendency toward being great at, and some things I do not.

We don’t like that lack of control.

And then there are some people (the ones who say this the most aggressively) who cannot handle people saying, “I can’t do that,” or “that’s not for me,” because of their own internal trauma that they’re not aware of. Those people do so much more damage to others than they will ever realize.

Because when we believe a task is easy, and then we can’t do it, we believe we are faulty. We criticize ourselves, instead of questioning the premise of what we’ve been told.

Just as a general rule, we do not question the premise of what we’re told enough. And we don’t question our assumptions anywhere near enough.

(I’m speaking to myself as much as to anyone, by the way. I had a conversation with a friend this year about the language around “natural talent” and how problematic it can be when we don’t check it, and it changed the way I talk about Strengths. It didn’t change my fundamental belief that there are a lot of things we should quit doing because they’re not for us. But it absolutely made me think twice about encouraging elasticity.)

But we cannot afford to (especially in the industry as it is, with all the voices telling us what we should do, and with the overwhelm about making choices that I constantly see) not close our ears. We can’t afford (sometimes actually, financially, can’t afford) to listen without critical thinking.

I’m working on another version of the Quitbook (Dear Writer, You Need to Quit for 2024, basically), and what keeps coming up for me is the fact that we still don’t understand exactly how important Strengths theory is. We still don’t quite get the wide divide someone’s top talents create.

(And, to put a fine point on it, we still don’t understand the wide divide our fears cause, but that’s getting into my learning about Enneagram, which I’ll point you toward Claire Taylor for…)

Just musings on a Sunday morning.

I hope everyone has a great week. Look at your Full34 report this morning and re-familiarize yourself with your top talents. Put some skin on what those talents look like for you. Lean into those high-level super-power-like traits today. Feed each one of your Strengths.

Do good work, my friends.