Living the Sweet Life: Finding Your “25”


By Alisa Murray
www.AlisaMurray.com
Nationally recognized
portrait artist and award-
winning columnist.

Did you know that each one of us has about 25 talents tapped or untapped? Some of us find out about the first few during the first years of life, like being more adept at sports or fancying spending time lining things up and organizing. You remember either yourself or perhaps one of your children who always seemed to be preoccupied with lining up perfectly their cars or blocks, or the kiddo who wanted to build things – emerging engineers or accountants perhaps. I remember early on being able to spot colors perfectly.  I would see a shade in my big crayon box and be able to go to the remnant store with my mother and find exactly the same matching colors in a fabric. I could always draw, and I loved to rearrange furniture all through my teen years. While some of our talents are hidden, only emerging when their time comes, others are almost readily available early on, like for me, art, and color was a screaming no brainer from a very early age.

In college I was intrigued by a guy who you might also know who went by the name of Leonardo Da Vinci. You remember that he was an artist, engineer, architect, painter and that’s just to name the things he actually got good enough at to be famous!  Being more than just one thing has been one of my life’s goals for a very long time. I call my goal “multipreneurship.”  Why should we –  if we really are talented in more than one area – confine ourselves to just doing one thing? Why not stretch yourself a little –  or a lot –  and pursue anything at all that interests you? After all, you are supposedly only going to live once, so go for it!

I am always evolving, and I have studied many famous and not so famous people.  One thing that runs congruently between all of us is the need for change, and the ability to adapt to it and transform into a renewed oneness. I am a creative person – an “artist” – and that is such a strong talent that many things spring forth from it, such as photography, paintings, my writing this very column. I also have design skills that have been honed from years of creating composition, texture, colors and understanding of how those all work together to create a whole, so moving freely into interior design is not a stretch for me. Selling both myself and things that I have created is also a strong skillset and dealing with clients who expect the best money can buy is my specialty. Marrying, if you will, the highest end products to promote coupled with who I have become through years of developing the best version of myself, makes use of all of my talents and creates more opportunities to grow and to help others. Open up your vision to all of your possibilities and versions of yourself!

Some years are years to be quiet – years to heal and years to learn and grow.  Other years are leapers where you jump from working on something to understanding it fully, which leads to you soaring and doing the very things you never thought possible. In the years of contemplation, you must seek out those 25 hidden talents and discover your puzzle of you.  Work hard to understand what your talents can do to help others. Are you compassionate? Perhaps a hidden talent is to give of your time to youth in our community. Are you really good at writing? Perhaps you can promote products and services that others need on your blog that they don’t have the time to research. Whatever year this 2018 is looking like for you, I promise if you look deeply within yourself, you’ll find those talents, and they will lead you to ways beyond your imagination to stretch yourself.  You, like Leonardo, may leave this life having accomplished so much and having helped many!

Take Care of YOU!

Alisa