The global economy is said to be worth $120.2 trillion by the CIA Factbook as at 2016 but that economy is also the talent economy. The people that rule the world and the global economy are the people that have distinguished themselves in the trading of their talents.

We love Lionel Messi and we admire Cristiano Ronaldo and apparently both men are rivals in breaking football record with high-level-skill in display. These two men that have distinguished themselves in their career were diagnosed with health conditions at young age (Messi was diagnosed of growth hormone deficiency as a child while Ronaldo diagnosed of racing heart condition at age 15) which would have truncated their pursuit of relevance but they kept at it until Messi (No 3 of World highest-paid Athletes) is said to be worth $80M and Ronaldo $93M (No 1 of World highest-paid Athletes) as at 2017 by Forbes. The duo identified their talent and despite the challenges that would have discouraged them from pursuing their dreams, they kept fine-tuning it until they have become global spectacles of the best of football.

Jason Chukwuma Njoku who co-founded iROKOtv despite studying Chemistry found his talent in business and not in the laboratory and was said to have tried his hands on 10 businesses that failed but the 11th attempt has changed his live forever and iROKOtv is trending gradually into the class of Hulu and Netflix of this world. Jason’s talent has created and economy for him.  Linda Ikeji started writing at the age of 10. Linda identified her gifting and started blogging in 2006 as a hobby but that gift has created a large room for her among the greatest African entrepreneurs and her hobby has created an economy for her and listed her amongst most prominent people in Africa.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a renowned and globally celebrated novelist and short story writer, she identified her talent in writing at young age and despite spending a year and half studying Medicine and pharmacy, providence redirected her to her core talent and today, she is a well awarded and glamorously celebrated writer of global repute. Talent transported Chimamanda to stardom and has created a distinctive economy for her. 

Aliko Dangote who is best of Africa’s business geniuses found his core in business early in live and despite growing up around a wealthy home where rich kids are pampered and cared for like an egg, Aliko started buying candy from his Uncle to sell in school at age 5 and today, he is the richest black person in our planet. His gift has made room for him and created a tremendous economy for him. Elon Musk developed interest in Computing at age 10, taught himself programing at age 12 which became the rudder of his destiny and today, the talent he found and built has created economy for he was said to be worth $20.8B in 2017 and one of the richest and most powerful people in the world.

James Hawking was diagnosed of motor neuron disease at age 21 in 1963 and doctors' prognosis was that he’d live for two years after. Despite the health challenges that deteriorated his physical abilities, Hawking went ahead to become a renown theoretical physicist and cosmologist with several theories, scientific discoveries, publications and many awards including being ranked as No 25 in the BBC’s poll of the 100 Greatest Britons in 2002. Hawking followed his talent development by bagging PhD even while his physical abilities was deteriorating, authored many books and created an economy for himself, he also lived many years than doctors predictions even though he communicated with speech-generating device, he still motivates people (posthumously) all over the world and said to be worth $20M until his death on March 14, 2018.

The greatest people that ever lived became geniuses not by some super human abilities or endowments  but because they identified their talents pur unique giftings, harnessed or developed them and transformed them into product and services that we all buy and live by today. Imagine that every product we see around us was created by some people who were able to use their gifting to make live better for the rest of us; when you pick your phone to call a friend, Alexander Graham Bell should be thanked for it, when you are few minutes late to work and you rush in your car, Karl Benz is to be given kudos for it and when you travel from Abuja to Lagos for 55 minutes instead of 8 hours on the road or 3days on horseback then you should have the Wright Brothers appreciated for it. These great people became better by the use of their minds.

Muhammad Yunus who founded Grameen Bank in Bangladesh that pioneered the concept of microcredit and microfinance didn’t have profit in mind but to help the poor access meagre credit required for subsistence business. Yunus continued his work till he was recognized globally and awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and many awards, accolades and recognitions just by breaking through his mind to express his talent. He is generally believed to be worth $10M as at 2017.

There are many lost opportunities in the world created by people who came, lived and die without trading on their talents. There are many new cure for diseases in the grave rotten with those whose minds were coded with the cure but they didn’t develop their talent. The solar system might have been better explored else for people that lived and die without been able to achieve their goals, they came like Albert Einstein but didn’t develop their relativity theory, they visited like Edward Jenner but could not develop the vaccines that would have eliminated some diseases today but they came, tame their talents and were gone unnoticed.

There are many people living today that can change things like Steve Jobs reinvented smartphone and computing. There are several people that can disrupt industries like Jeff Bezos changed the face of ecommerce, there are so many people looking for job that can create their own companies like Nnamdi Ezigbo created SLOT and many roaming the street that can out run Usain Bolt if they will train and discipline their talents.

It is interesting that there is no limit to what the mind of the man can do and of course the world is like a complex puzzle of which everyone has its own part to fix but many will live and leave without being able to fix or complete the image of the generation which is why we have some environmental, pathological, developmental and psychological issues all around the globe because people that were to complete their part of the puzzles didn’t just do it. The much talk about inequality will grow in scale because even in our generation only few people are developing their talents and those are creating tremendous advantages over the rest of the world. It is for this that less than 1% of the global population run over 50% of the global economy.

It is one thing to identify your unique talent, it is another thing to develop it to full potential. It is taken that many living have not even found their core talent though they live and sleep with it every day and still searching everywhere waiting for one stellar ability to be their talent without realising that they could create another Jevnik restaurant out of that kitchen because each time you cook, your family leak their fingers. Many people are still waiting for some out of this world ability when they can dismantle their car engine, repair and couple back but they can build another  new car engine that will outperform Honda or Toyota or even Tesla.

Find your talent and develop it and if you have found yours, trade with it suffice to mean that you develop products and services around and about your talent and sell same to humanity then you will be fulfilling puepose. You can become a millionaire or billionaire on the long run if you care to commercialise your talent.

#TheTalentEconomy