• Determine Your Abstract Skill

    edited by Alexander Becker on October 01, 2006 | Link

    To successfully follow your excellence, it helps to find out what your excellence is all about.

    Here is an excerpt from one of my favorite songs of the eighties, Forever Young by Alphaville --

    Some are like water, some like the heat;
    Some are the melody and some are the beat.

    While the generic attributes are hard to determine, it is very insightful and worth the effort to abstract as much as possible. Are you a force of nature? An element? Which one? While we are not going so far as to say you are water, or heat for that matter, there is still a valid connection between what you do and what it represents to you and the world. The same practical skills can be perceived as completely different metaphorical and metaphysical attributes, depending on execution and passion.

    What skill, if you could freely choose, would you like to possess? Imagine being able to impersonate one generic element, virtue, or force of nature -- which one resonates most with you?

    What do you think you are?

    This is not about finding your purpose, instead, it's about expressing your purpose, it's about that one generic thing you've already done as a child and which the wise were able to recognize even back then.

    Ask yourself or your peers, partners, or anyone from your tribe what you do best and most effortlessly. Here is a hint: It may be hard to identify by yourself because you do it naturally and often without even noticing that for others, it is quite hard work.

    Think reverse-engineering your competency.

    Often the answer comes up as the why you do something. The inspiration that is driving you enables you to learn concrete skills along the way, what seems unrelated is in fact part of the set of tools you need to complete the tasks suggested by your underlying motivation.

    The abstract skill has but one goal: To manifest and to realize your purpose in the tangible, concrete world. The abstract skill is the means with which to fulfill your purpose in life.

    An example with a twist

    I may start with writing articles and creating and publishing books and websites and marketing and programming and tweaking and optimizing. Yet, it all comes from the same underlying motivation, it's all about expressing ideas. Thus, my abstract skill would be something like expressing and developing ideas. I am also interested in expressing your ideas, in fact, it's the same motivation for me. So I am recognizing and developing and expressing ideas, independent of medium, form, and style.

    But there is more to it. An idea is a thought or conception, that potentially or actually exists in the mind as a product of mental activity. It is an opinion, conviction, or principle, a plan, scheme, or method, and eventually, the gist of a specific situation; significance.

    Even more general, an idea is the specific result of a mental process. Mental processes manifest (in) reality. The observation and recognition and active development of ideas influences and ultimately changes reality.

    Through working with and refining and encouraging ideas, I make things real. It doesn't get any more abstract than that. Of course, applying the definitions of reality and consciousness, everyone is a creator and everyone makes things real.

    So we have to go back and analyze the means with which to make things real. I tell stories and reach out to you to get your ideas out in order to fulfill your dreams. This makes things real. You may build a machine of some kind, again making things real. Even without actually producing anything, you still manifest someone's ideas. What's the difference? Is there any difference?

    On second thought, what I am doing most of the time is trying to convince you that your ideas are worth being pursued. This makes me a salesperson.

    I am working with your ideas most of the time. I encourage and enhance and communicate your ideas. This makes me a developer and a communicator.

    What do all these things have in common? A creator, a salesman, a developer, a communicator.

    Expressing and manifesting thoughts. Everybody does it. This is the universal abstract skill, the foundation of everything that is accomplished. There is only one abstract skill.

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