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Everyone gets one gift. There’s no reason for you not to be able to harness that gift into a valuable skillset or even several.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I want to be the first to say everyone has the ability to become a polymath, but do you believe that you have the ability to be a polymath in this podcast? I'm actually going to give you the secret to being a world class, industry leading polymath here in this podcast.
[00:00:43] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to shifts and ladders. You know who it is. It's Ryan Robinson. I'm here in a different setting. I'm actually on the road this time, filming this podcast, and I couldn't let the topic go of being a polymath. And one of the things I wanted to just nail down is, how does one become a polymath? Okay, and just to recap, last podcast, we want to talk about why they're so important to culture these days. If you're talking about Elon Musk, if you're talking about Steve Jobs, just name a few. If you're going way, way back, Leonardo DiCaprio, Leonardo DiCaprio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo. Those individuals were contemporaries as well as industry leading and historical figures in our lifetime because they had a major influence in how culture has been cultivated and the items that they created in the industries that they impacted with their information. Also, if you want to go even further back, we talked about King David. King David was a warrior, he was a worshiper, he was a king, he was a priest, he was a prophet, he was all those things. Even the apostles in the Bible were more than one, had more than one occupation.
[00:02:13] Not only were they apostles or students, Peter, for example, was a fisherman. So he had a particular gift set and skillset that was not anchored, no pun intended, on just ministry. He had another gift set. So it's important for us to understand that everyone has been given a measure of ability and capability, and we're going to jump right into it. First, you have been given a level of ability. Now I'm going to go to the parable of the talents. I believe it is in Matthew, chapter 25. I believe it might be something like that.
[00:02:55] But what I want to say here is matter of fact, let me look it up. I was right. I was right. I knew it. So I want to go to the parable of the talents. And this is important because there is something that God has given us that actually allows us to be a polymath. And as I provided examples before, there's some scriptural evidence that actually confirms that you have been given at least one gift and what to do with that gift. So I'm going to be reading from Matthew, chapter 25, and Matthew chapter 25 has the parable of the towns. That's where it's held. So it says this. It's for like a man. For it will be like a man going on a journey who has his servants and entrusted them with his property. To one, he gave five talents, to another he gave two, and another he gave one. Here it is. To each according to his ability.
[00:04:04] Okay? Then he went away.
[00:04:07] He had. He who had received five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five more talents. So he who had two talents made two more talents, but he who had received the one talent went and dug it in the ground and hid his master's money. Okay, so I'm gonna stop there. There's a longer piece to this particular scripture, but I want to just stop there. The Bible clearly articulates and says that he who had the talents, in this case, talents, was, I believe, about six months of wage depending on what society you're in. So he gave these individuals a measure of talent. Here it is according to their ability.
[00:04:53] This is the key.
[00:04:56] Everyone has ability, and everyone has given. Been given a measure of ability.
[00:05:03] You may be good at multiple things. You might be able to sing, play music, and draw, okay? You might be able to speak. You might be able to write, and you might be able to, I don't know, do something else, or you might just be good at listening to folk.
[00:05:28] Whatever the case is, okay? But it is up to you to discover what that ability is. So you can't sit here and say, I don't have the ability to become a polymath. You actually do. Is only because you have yet to cultivate and be curious enough to dig in for it. Now, we talk about people being lifelong learners, and I am one of those. I love podcasts. I mean, clearly, I'm on a podcast, or I make one, but I listen to a plethora of podcasts. I read and listen to a lot of books. I gain a lot of information. I talk to people, almost annoyingly, if you ask. Other people have known me for a long time. I really love to connect and gain information.
[00:06:24] Okay. And what happens is, when you gain information, you actually are, in many cases, investing those talents into more talents. So the more you learn about your natural ability to sing, play music, whatever the case is, that particular gift will begin to bear fruit and multiply in ways that you may have never thought of. But also, there is almost a common thread to the things that you either have interest in and the things that you are talented in. Okay? So, first off, you want to understand that you have been given a measurement of ability. So you cannot say that you do not have the ability. You at least have one that can be cultivated. And it's time for every time for you and for myself to cultivate that one.
[00:07:21] Now, I want to preface everything with this, if I can put an asterisk here. You as an individual, have not been gifted with everything.
[00:07:31] You have been given a measure of creative expression. Therefore, that creative expression comes out in the areas you're naturally talented in. You have a gift in you. It may be a spiritual gift that actually informs the way you connect with people. There's things that add value that don't. They're not monetary. They're from a person to person, their spirit. They're relational. They're emotional. They're just things that connect with folks. So it's important for you as an individual, it's important for you as an individual to recognize that you have been given some ability.
[00:08:16] So don't say I can't do it. No, you just haven't found out what it is yet. Okay, so now, the second part of this is, once you are able to discover your particular ability, do everything you can to learn about it.
[00:08:38] I was told by a mentor when I began to preach in my preaching career that if you love and you enjoy preaching, you need to listen to more preachers.
[00:08:49] If you love computers, you will learn and listen to those who are in the tech field. If you are interested in singing, you will learn music from those who have gone before you. You. Why is that important? It's because you get the ability to learn from the folks who actually have been doing it for decades and years, and you glean from them the experience that they paid for so that you don't have to pay for it yourself. And in doing so, you broaden your experience. You broaden and learn about how these individuals think.
[00:09:28] No one knows Steve Jobs and knows about Apple. If they don't read about how the man thought about his product and service.
[00:09:42] It is so everyone wants to be Elon Musk, but no one wants to learn how he thinks about stuff.
[00:09:49] No one wants to learn how Steve Jobs thought about Apple, or how Jony Ive thought about design in Apple, or how Bill Gates thought about Microsoft, or any of, or how Jeff Bezos envisioned Amazon. Like, there are things that individuals have wrote, have written down, and in many cases hidden in books about a pattern by which they thought about things.
[00:10:20] And once you have learned what your ability is, and honestly, there might be some, you know, individuals you may, I would say, reach out to or gravitate to. You have your gifting, and maybe you're like Steve Jobs, for example. Just use that as an example.
[00:10:41] Once you learn how Steve Jobs thought about product development and all the things that made him successful, now, what you do is you start putting these two things together, and then you put your thoughts as the third and most important ingredient. You, your ideas, your thoughts, your, in your ideas, who you are as a person, your experiences. You put all that in a pot, and then you stir it up. Okay, now, what do you have when you get it?
[00:11:17] What? You get a lot of ingredients, but in all of it, you could say, if we're thinking a soup or something, you're making, all the ingredients are where it needs to be, it looks good, you follow the instructions. But there's always one thing that happens that we forget when we follow the instructions and we're getting ready to, we're finishing preparing the food to eat, we usually add salt to taste.
[00:11:55] It is the common denominator that pulls out all the flavor. It pulls out all of the seasonings. It does every salt does a lot to just pull everything together. Now, you use too much. You're going to be like, that's terrible.
[00:12:12] But you usually salt to taste because it brings everything together. Now, this is the last piece to what I'm going to talk about.
[00:12:26] The third ingredient is understanding the pattern that connects all of your interests together.
[00:12:38] Okay, so I'm gonna run that back from one and two again.
[00:12:44] Understand that you have ability.
[00:12:48] Number two, cultivate and learn about that ability.
[00:12:53] Read about your gifting, but also read about the giftings of others and how they thought about it. Then, number three, find out what is common with everything that you're interested in, and find what I like to call the common thread or the common pattern.
[00:13:16] Okay, I'm gonna give an example. I'm gonna use a personal example.
[00:13:22] I have, in my career, I have had multiple areas of which I've had interests in.
[00:13:33] And when I was at an employer, one of my exercises when I started was to kind of draw, what does your path look like here at this particular employer? So I had no idea what to draw. So I drew, actually, two rivers. We had to draw a river and what we envisioned our career to be. And in this case, I actually drew two rivers, one with my ministry experience, the other one with my corporate business aspirations. And the facilitator said, why did you draw two? I said, well, I don't want to give up both of them, but at some point, I feel like I got to choose whether I got to choose ministry or if I need to choose business and career. And as I have grown in my career, I found out that my faith informed the way I did business, and the business informed the way I did ministry.
[00:14:37] So I found this common pattern that they didn't have to be separate. They were able to come together, and I found a pattern.
[00:14:48] What does a preacher in business all have in common?
[00:14:54] It's not a riddle.
[00:14:56] It's actually one I made up.
[00:14:59] But the thing that they do is they all have to connect with people.
[00:15:05] I thoroughly enjoy people.
[00:15:09] I'm a people person.
[00:15:11] I love sitting down, talking. I love sitting down, having conversation. I love sitting down and having, learning and sharing things that I've learned, things that I love to inform people on. I love serving people. I love teaching people. I love developing individuals. This is what I thrive in. I love teaching Bible study. I love teaching. So teaching people and equipping people is what I thoroughly enjoy doing. Now, depending on where that area is, whether it be in a church house, whether it be in business, whether it be in other places that I have interests in, whether it be in music or culture, the common thing that I thoroughly love is people and the expressions and creations that people make. Mine in particular, is music. I love hearing music because music is a cultural expression of what's going inside the hearts of people. So I found out for myself that me communicating with people in the scripture, in music, in business, and anything I learned that is interesting to people, I'm gonna learn about it. I'm gonna connect with it, and, you know, it could be. And I like gadgets, too. I like technology. So I have an inclination to those kind of areas. I'm not necessarily interested. I love sports. I enjoy sports, but I'm not following sports unless it's football because of my experiences. But I'm not having any other conversation around baseball or anything like that. You won't find me in that area, but where you will find me is in the tech space, in the music space, in the football space, in just athletics, general athletics, period. You're gonna find me there, and you'll find me in other creative expressions. Like, I like paints, paintings. I love reading about and looking at interior design. I just enjoy that kind of stuff. And I enjoy learning about how people think about things. Books and all those things give me new perspectives. So what I'm telling you, ladies and gentlemen, is that in order to find what that pattern is, you have to get more data points in order to find the thread or the continuity thread of what makes you you and when you bring you to different areas. Like I said, with, for me, with ministry, with business, with music, I don't have to be an expert in all of them. I have a depth and appreciation for those areas, so much so that I invest time, money and effort to stay informed and have a pulse on what's going on. So that if I ever meet someone, I'm a connect with them and we're going to have a conversation about it. So I end up having new expressions, whether it be from what I've learned in the Bible and what I've learned in the Bible now informs the way that I do business. The things that I have learned in business can apply to what I've learned in the Bible. The things that I've heard in music can be found in the things that I found in the Bible when it comes to worship and it comes to music and the things that music actually provides from a biblical standpoint, which is extremely powerful, I might do a podcast on that because it is extremely. Is extremely important.
[00:19:07] But if I did not have the expression in any of those areas, I wouldn't be able to talk to you all about it. So I want you all to understand that everyone has the ability to become a polymath or a multi gifted individual.
[00:19:31] It determines, it is determined, excuse me, on how much you're willing to invest in you and cultivate it, and make that five talent ten, or that two talent, four, or you also have the choice if you want to bury that one and see where that gets you.
[00:19:58] Okay.
[00:20:00] I really believe that once we really start embracing all the areas of our lives that we don't think quite fit from a society, a society's acceptance point, it'll change your life.
[00:20:17] I'm telling you this because I'm just getting this news.
[00:20:21] I've been. For much of my life, I have been fighting this algae mation of who I am as a person. I've shared with you that I love football, I shared with you that I love music, I share with you that I love the word of God, and I love teaching, and I love people. But there's also things that no one, well, a few of my friends know.
[00:20:43] And now, you know, as a listener, I love comic books.
[00:20:48] I love comic books. I love anime. I actually thoroughly enjoy. I was one of those people that, you know, I had glasses and everything, and I just like. I'm not your typical anime person, but I loved anime. I had good friends that we just enjoyed watching Dragon Ball Z or Yu? Yu Hakusho, for those who know what I'm talking about. Like, those were shows that I enjoyed. If you don't know them, you can google them if you're even interested. But those are things that I enjoy.
[00:21:20] And I like clothes, I like shoes, I like socks. I like all those kinds of things, and why they are creative expressions of me. So I didn't have to or didn't feel the need to.
[00:21:34] And maybe I don't feel the need to hide them now.
[00:21:38] But before, years ago, maybe just a year ago or so at the latest, I felt like I had to hide that part because that stuff just didn't fit, just didn't. I didn't work with it enough.
[00:21:54] If you ask Steve Jobs if he was alive today, how he came up with the devices that he came up with, you could see that he took things that weren't typically supposed to be together, but now have become cultural staples in how we communicate and digest media information and other mediums of media and communication.
[00:22:30] If you asked Elon Musk, I don't know, decades ago, do you think that electric vehicles would be as powerful as they are today?
[00:22:45] He believed it, but no one thought you could put a battery in a car like, it's a hot wheel or a big wheel or, like, big wheels and be successful in it.
[00:23:01] Every major car manufacturer now has an electric electric vehicle in their line, in their lineup of card offerings.
[00:23:13] But who was. Who risked it?
[00:23:15] Elon Musk did. No matter if you like him or not, the guy tried something that typically you would see in a child's playroom, a car with a battery in it.
[00:23:32] Now do you see how amazing this is?
[00:23:38] Steve Jobs just envisioned.
[00:23:41] And my iPad here, I'm going to share this.
[00:23:45] Oh, man, we're going in on this.
[00:23:49] I enjoy iPads thoroughly.
[00:23:53] When Steve Jobs was CEO at Apple, one of the things he decided to do was he. He took a laptop.
[00:24:07] He popped the buttons off of it.
[00:24:10] He took. I believe he took the screen off and basically said, I want it to be like this. A sheet of glass.
[00:24:22] A sheet of glass.
[00:24:27] Can we make. Let's. I want to make something that's like a sheet of glass that you interact with that takes. That takes some. Some balls, some courage to be like, look, the way we have things now in a laptop form is great, but I want to go further.
[00:24:51] I don't even want to have keys on the thing no more.
[00:24:55] I don't even want to be able to just have a slate of glass and metal and that function as a computer? Who would even thought I would? The Jetsons didn't even have that. Or maybe they didn't, I don't know. But if they did, I don't remember.
[00:25:13] But that's something too futuristic.
[00:25:18] But here we are with a slate of glass in the form of a phone in the form of an iPad that you can do just about as much, if not more, than Fortune 500 companies have at their disposal the same tools.
[00:25:43] Office access.
[00:25:48] All those tools you will also find in these companies that is made possible by the lovely people at Apple and Microsoft. And your car you drive, if you have an ev, was brought to you by the bold and often misunderstood Elon Musk.
[00:26:15] So what will we be talking about years from now that was brought by you and the uniqueness that you have been God given to deposit into this earth with things that no one ever saw coming or didn't even think matched.
[00:26:41] But decades later, they're saying, I wouldn't and couldn't have my life like this, had someone like you imagined it and believed it to be possible.
[00:26:58] Ladies and gentlemen, that's the end of the podcast for today. Tune in to the next pod. Next week we have an incredible topic, and we'll probably be having a guest, and I can't tell you who it is yet, but I'm excited about what we're going to be having next week on the pod. With that being said, thank you for listening to shifts and ladders, and we'll catch you in the next pod. Peace.
