Right Turns for Success; Left Turns for Long Lasting Pain
by Julie Broad
 One of the most miserable times in my life was while I was completing my MBA.
There was plenty of drama happening in my personal life. I was discovering that I was not at all suited to be a property manager. I was finding the job search
depressing and demotivating. And, worst of all, I hated a lot of the classes I was taking. It felt like
everything in my life was such a struggle. Most of the things I touched seem to turn to disaster. I was having
trouble seeing through the clouds.
I did learn some pretty important lessons from that experience. But one of the lessons I learned really just
clicked for me last weekend at the Engage Today event. It clicked for me when Jay Niblick, author of What's Your
Genius? stood on stage explaining the results of a massive research study he undertook. This study involved
surveys of 200,000 people, a bunch of PHD researchers, and 7 years. The study was all about success and the
natural talents that successful people possess.
Jay explained in detail about how much time, effort and the abundance of resources that went into this elaborate
study - all in pursuit of a correlation between natural talents and success. In other words, he wanted to
understand if most successful people possess great organization skills, or a talent for leadership or a gift of
communication.
At the end of the seven years, when all the results were tallied and the conclusion was in he discovered that there
is absolutely no correlation between natural talents and success. None. Not a single correlation existed. Bad news
for him - given that he invested so much into finding the correlation. But the bad news for him, at the time, is
actually GREAT news for us.
This means that ANYBODY can succeed no matter what gifts or talents you were born with. ANYBODY CAN SUCCEED.
It's not what you've got that matters, it's what you do with it.
He went on to explain that the big difference between successful people and the rest of the people was simply that
successful people understood what their natural talents were and utilized them. In other words, they didn't try to
be good at things they weren't naturally talented at. They adjusted the role they were in to suit their talents and
didn't try to adjust their talents to suit the role they were in.
Suddenly so much of my MBA misery made complete sense to me.
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