#15 It's what you bring to the party (eng & fra)
How to make good use of one's talents
Dear readers, thank you so much for being here. Today’s tale is about how to make good use of one’s talents to serve oneself as well as others. I hope you like it and if you do, please forward it to your loved ones to help me spread the rodeo spirit!
Here is where to further discover my work:
My podcast and book “The rules of the Game” about being a woman at work.
My podcast about how to invest one’s savings “The Starter Pack” (Fra)
I live in a small-town-vibe, everybody-knows-each-other neighborhood. It’s Paris but not quite. You walk down the street and chances are high you’ll walk on someone you kind of know, wave at least or if you’re lucky, be embarked in an existential debate on the sidewalk.
The leading roles of this charming theater are of course the shopkeepers. Watchers, informants, refuges, … they are the body and soul of those streets as it feels they have been there forever and shall be there forever. So when one of them leaves, the world crumbles.
Marc was one of those guardians. Perched on his stool, he ruled over his 50sqm, a restaurant that was a world within the world where you came for the food but came back for the vibe. You stepped inside, and time had stopped. You were in grandma’s kitchen, you were in a clandestine joint, you were in 1963, you were not quite sure.
The kitchen was open, as messy as it gets, the door always fogged up and inefficient a barrier against winter’s glacial air, the table cloths were yellow and the napkins were red. Decoration was bits and pieces from all decades, same for the crowd, as diverse as can be, teachers, students, tourists, locals, salt and pepper - although know that if you wanted to overhear a serious argument about Heidegger’s “dasein” over a quiche lorraine, that was the place.
Then Marc closed. The fresh marmalade every week, the fresh bread everyday, the 4:30 am awakenings wore him out, and at 60 + years old - although no one really knows - he took his bow. Thunder in the village! What would become of us poor souls? I went to his last supper with all the regulars, and during this last meal that turned out to be a spinach and blettes pie, I understood where the magic came from.
It was not the place, it was not the food, it was not even Marc’s high pitched voice, his constant state of excitement, his clumsy humour, his Dali moustaches, or his not-so-messy-as-it-seemed mind (very good at maths indeed) - it was the impossible charm of the combination of it all.
It was the essence. It was him accepting to share his essence with us the time of a meal that made us feel at home, and privileged. Identity, uniqueness, something of an aura, everything in the details - idiosyncrasy.
Marc embodies “it’s what you bring to the party”: you being here being you is what changes it all. You being here changes the face of the world. No need to conform, no effort to please required, and believe me Marc made none, Frenchness at its best, always on the verge of rudeness, you love or hate it.
You are the gift.
It’s funny how we make ourselves smaller sometimes to please and be liked. As if if we took too much space, shone too bright, we would bother and be rejected. So we shut our mouths, cross our legs, make ourselves little box shaped, hoping it will be enough to be allowed to stay where we are.
What a misunderstanding.
Fear and guilt at play.
But I have an antidote to reverse this terribly wrong reasoning: “The duty to make good use of one’s talents” is the way. It’s not from me, it’s from Kant but we still love it, see it as the ippon-seoi-nage (please wtach until the end) to the belief above.
And here is my take on what the great man says: making good use of one’s talents is not taking the light, it’s giving the light. It’s not an excess of vanity, it’s an act of generosity. You don’t take from others, you serve others. And as such, it’s not only a nice thing to do, but a moral duty. Boom, love it.
See where I’m heading?
You have a thought? Say it outloud because it may inspire others. You have an opinion? Express it because it may free someone who has been in doubt. You are in a meeting? Speak up even if you are afraid because it may give courage to others. Everytime you allow yourself to exist, speak, express, ask, refuse, propose, agree or disagree, you add to the world, you don’t strip from it.
Don’t try. Just be there. And in return, people will thank you for it, not punish you for it.
All we can do really is put ourselves out there. No shame, no guilt, unapologetic, not as an act of taking but an act of giving.
Make good use of your talents my friends, the world needs it and will be thankful.
Now, on your saddle, and off you go!
Clara
Et nous voici en French-speaking zone, enjoy!
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