It’s tempting, upon seeing a specific talent in a child or even a team member at work, to encourage them to continually do that same thing over and over again.
Indeed, we may push them to focus only on that specific talent, to sacrifice everything else in order to excel at one thing.
The idea is that they may become extraordinary — perhaps they’ll get on to a national or even a global stage. It’s their chance to step beyond the ordinary into the realm of true greatness. An opportunity to be admired and remembered.
But even Lyn Heward, the former creative director of Cirque du Soleil — which has very much been built off a collection of talented former athletes and other performers who’ve been encouraged to practice ‘one thing’ all their lives — believes we should be experimenting with all the things we could potentially be good at, rather than focussing on one only.
As she told the World Business Forum in Sydney this week, we have a responsibility to expose our children to as many things as possible. You never know where other, hidden talents may lie. And you never know if someone may enjoy one activity over another if you never give them the time and opportunity to give it a go.
Her comments took me back to the two-part Australian Story on Kieren Perkins this week. He did one thing, for most of the early half of his life. He got on the world stage and became the best at it. He captured all of our attentions regarding his seemingly impossible feats.
Now, having not swum in more than a decade, people still perceive him as a ‘swimmer’. He has a whole new career in banking and yet when people meet him for the first time in a business context, the first part of the conversation, he said, inevitably starts with them asking about his 1500 metre swims.
“When there are certain moments of your life people associate you with, it actually creates a very narrow view of who you are,” he said during the program. He told ABC News breakfast on the day the show aired that it’s a strange feeling to have been involved in putting a “eulogy”-like show together, and that he hopes the second half of his life will be just as successful as the first.
As Heward explained: “When asked ‘who they are’, most people will define themselves through their jobs, their families, likes and dislikes, but very rarely through their inner most thoughts, their creative ideas and their emotions.”
We are more than the labels others might apply to our lives, even if those labels make us “extraordinary”.
Heward herself had parents who encouraged her to try as many things as possible as a child. Now, she credits much of the creativity she has, and her ability to lead teams of artists and technicians with creating spectacular performances with Cirque, on those experiences and early lessons as a child.
While she believes we should encourage children to explore as many things as possible, she also adds that it’s never too late for the rest of us. You may have found your niche, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore the rest of the world.