Listen Now

A conversation between my wife and me on how to engage a the talent of your child with the public.

A conversation between my wife and me about what our 18 year old is doing now with his talent. We talk about what he is doing to bring value to others in the marketplace and now bringing in an income of his own through the use of his talent. Our father and mother conclusion was that this talent development process was worth it!

Can you start talent development at a much younger age than age twelve? In a conversation with my wife I talk about how my experiment in talent development with my nine years old son is coming along. It can be done, but you have to way the cost in time of starting that early versus waiting for a more natural age of twelve. This is part of the 10,000 hours journey with developing a different talent in each of my children and my documentation of what works and doesn't work. Your call to action: see if you can identify in any of your children who are younger than age twelve one ability and one family advantage that you could start putting together to begin developing a talent.      

I interview Jack Reamer, real world writing consultant for business people. You turn to him if you want to learn how to write emails that others will want to open and read. Have you noticed how hard it is to get others to read the message in your mail unless you already have a very close relationship? Most school curriculum and college prep courses will not teach you to write in a way that others will actually listen to what you have to say. Traditional courses do in fact teach you some very clever and sophisticated writing techniques, but those will not get you read. But, Jack says, the mistake the mistake of those courses is to teach you to write too much and too cleverly.  Jack Reamer explains how and why a different approach to writing gets you to your goal of communicating and connecting to your intended audience of readers. I asked him to unpack it in this interview in a way that young man or young woman who has a talent could use it to start building a following of readers by email.  Enjoy! Jonathan Harris www.the10ktotalentshow.com   Here are some of the resource links mentioned during the interview: Jack Reamer’s blog site on how to turn your email newsletter list into paying customers: http://emailsthatsell.com/blog/   Recommended reading: "The Robert Collier Letter Book" about how to write sales letters that customers will want to act on http://www.amazon.com/The-Robert-Collier-Letter-Book/dp/8087830679    Recommended reading: “Ogilvy on Advertising” by David Ogilvy http://www.amazon.com/Ogilvy-Advertising-David/dp/039472903X    Recommended reading: “The Boron Letters” by Gary Halbert http://www.amazon.com/The-Boron-Letters-Gary-Halbert/dp/1484825985    BananaTag.com is very hand tool to help you find out which subject lines triggers the mo

Is it worth going to conferences connected to your son or daughter's talent? I discuss with my wife the great experience I had taking my four older sons to the Maker Faire's conference of 2015 that took place in the San Francisco Bay Area. At the end of this episode, we finish with this call-to-action: Cut back on one to two extra-curriculur activities (i.e. baseball, soccer) in order to directly replace those hours with time devoted from now on to your child's talent development.   (10000hours, 10ktotalent, children, education, entrepreneur, homeschool, parents, talent)

When is it time to switch up the mentor for your child's talent? I discuss with my wife Renee about why and when you want to start switching to a different mentor, teacher, or learning environment. Because a talent should not be based on a single skill, it becomes natural to not expect that sticking with one one good mentor is the answer to putting together the many different skills needed to be of real service to the rest of the world. At the end of this episode, we finish with this call-to-action: Make a list of at least two ways you could switch out your son or daughter's current mentor, teacher, or club experience for a new and different one. (10000hours, 10ktotalent, children, education, entrepreneur, homeschool, parents, talent)

Can a gaming hobby, such as Minecraft, be turned into a real long-term talent? Yes, it can be! But you must re-cast the interest in a way that focuses on bringing value to others. When you switch from doing a skill for just your own enjoyment, to doing a skill so that it brings real value to other people, you transform the hobby into a talent. I discuss with my wife Renne about how we have been successfully able to turn one of our children's talent into a potential for real long term talent.  At the end of this episode, we finish with this call-to-action: Go listen to the interview by Wardee Harmon of Traditional Cooking School. This interview is a discussion on how you can gradually turn a traditional skill, such as backyard gardening, into a long term market valuable skill for your young person.   (10000hours, 10ktotalent, children, education, entrepreneur, homeschool, parents, talent)

How do you manage your young person's social media presence on the Internet so that it helps on his journey to developing amazing talent?  I discuss with Renee how we have been successfully able to handle and encourage the use of social media for own children's talent development. At the end of this episode, we finish with this call-to-action: Find two types of social media or Internet forums that would could be a good fit to the type of interest or talent that your child is wanting to develop.   (10000hours, 10ktotalent, children, education, entrepreneur, homeschool, parents, talent)

How do you use an Instagram account so that your talent focused young person can connect with other talented young people? There is an easy straight-forward way to do it and we tell you how to approach with the right mindset. It's the smart way to use your smart phone. My wife and I discuss two recent Instagram examples that helped our two oldest boys to a community of very talented people. At the end of this episode, we finish with this call-to-action: Create an Instagram account to search for ideas on how the world of your child's talent could be showcased so that other talented people will want to connect with your son or daughter.   (10000hours, 10ktotalent, children, education, entrepreneur, homeschool, parents, talent)  

Why do parents overlook hidden assets in their family life that would make all the difference to their child's future and talent development? I discuss this common blindspot with my wife Renee. We propose several reasons why as parents we often fall back on choosing the average or common opportunity rather than taking advantage of what is already excellent in our family connections and relationships. At the end of this episode, we finish with this call-to-action: Make contact with one person you know or one event in your area that is directly related to an aspect of your son or daughter's talent. Use that time connecting directly with an active participant in that world of interest to replace some of the time spent studying it simply through a textbook. (10000hours, 10ktotalent, children, education, entrepreneur, homeschool, parents, talent)