30 Nov Explore Your Gifts and Natural Talents
For most of us, we are taught the same path to go down. You go to school, get good grades so you can get into a good college, get good grades in college so you can get a good grades in college so you can get a good job with benefits. And that’s the dream, you get a good job with benefits. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that but that shouldn’t be the route for everyone. So if you decide to go against the grain, you may choose to work for yourself or open your own business, you have to find the one thing that your great at, and that is how you will be successful. But is that necessarily true? Do you have to find your one true gift and make your money from that to find success and happiness? I honestly don’t think that it is that black and white.
By trade, I am a graphic designer. I went to Columbia College in Chicago, (great school by the way) and earned my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design. By day, I have a 9 to 5 working as a graphic designer and by night, and weekends, I am a freelance graphic designer and run CDS, a graphic design and modern marketing agency. By all intents and purposes, I am going down the typical road of getting a degree and using that degree to get a 9 to 5. Then the next typical step of using my one true gift to start a business. Although, that is the road I am on, there are other gifts that I know I have.
For me, the best way that I figured it out my other gifts was to just try them out and just do it. I’ve always enjoyed taking pictures. Growing up, I had a regular film camera, disposable film cameras, Polaroid cameras and digital cameras. And in college, I took two photography classes, one using a black and white film SLR camera and a digital SLR camera. I did very well in those classes and enjoyed them very much. It’s something about photography that I really enjoy but for some reason, I initially never thought about photography as a career or something I could monetize on. Now, I use that same digital SLR camera to take went photos for my family gatherings. Over the last few years, I’ve done it for free but I am learning from those experiences. Although, some of those inquiries haven’t went through, I had people ask for my card and how much I charge. I was taking pictures for fun and with the intention of using them for a portfolio one day. I would then use that portfolio to market my services to get clients. I didn’t think that taking the photos was a way of marketing.
Over the years, I’ve definitely created a body of work to prove myself as a photographer. I didn’t get a Bachelor’s or Master’s in Photography but I have a nature ability for taking photos and I feel like I’m pretty good as it. Most importantly, I have happy “clients”. For everyone that I’ve taken photos for, they were very pleased with the final photos. For a few “clients”, I created a printed photo book as well as a calendar. For the people that I created those for, I got the biggest emotional reaction from and they were so happy. I thought it would be cool to make a photo book but I didn’t think they would be as excited about it as I was but they were. In that moment, I know I had a potential for a business. In practicing my photography skills and building a portfolio, I realized that I could use my skills in graphic designs at add-on products to my photography skills.
Sometimes, we think we know exactly the path we need to take because of what everyone tells us. And the road less traveled is just scarier because you have less answers about the way it is supposed to go. I am personally going for the road less traveled because I know that I will get the greater reward and I will definitely have more fun doing it. I say explore what you enjoy. You may realize that the thing that you would enjoy doing works better as a hobby opposed to a business or you may find out that your gift just may be your ticket to your dream life. Just as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Thanks for taking the time to visit www.CampbellDesignSolutions.com and we talk to you next time.
No Comments