The Little Duane that Could: Use All of Your Talents

I have a friend of mine named Duane who is a musician. He plays bluegrass here in Southern California. Yes, a good old country boy who was raised just outside the Los Angeles area
He’s just a salt of the earth kind of guy.
An incredible talent and a really killer fiddle player.
He also loves to fix and tinker with things. He’s put together hand crafted steam engines and made jellies and juices from his homegrown pomegranates.

A couple of years ago, his regular gig at The Disneyland Resort was coming to an end, and like any working musician he was looking for his next gig.
I hadn’t seen him for a while, but when I saw him a few weeks ago, he shared a story that I found quite inspiring.

Throughout his career as a musician, Duane has been a master at fixing broken instruments. It was just something he could do and he would work side jobs for various music shops and schools.

When his regular gig went away he proposed to his local school district that he could contract out to fix musical instruments for more schools in the area. The local school district said “Great idea, we’ll think about it and get back to you”
Meanwhile a job position opened up for a larger school district. It was such a big opportunity, that the school district selected 50 applicants to show up for a hands on test to see how well they could fix instruments in a time tested environment. Duane tested in the top 5 applicants.
And he didn’t get the job.
A few weeks later, the larger school district called him back and said they had another position open that was in their main operations center where all the schools in the county sent instruments that needed to be fixed.
He took the job.
Now he spends his days fixing broken instruments and gets them sounding amazing and even better than new.
And on his breaks, he gets to play bluegrass with the other fellas at the shop.

And the other school district wants to work with him. And Disney has been contacting him about more work.

I wanted to share this story because, like Duane, we all have those gifts, abilities and talents that we instinctively do. Duane loves to tinker and fix. He was able to use those talents so that he could support himself during a lean time.
It’s never too late to use these talents. Duane is a mature gentleman, but he’s now entered a new chapter of his life and couldn’t be happier for this opportunity that’s come his way.

Here’s the other thing I love about this story. Duane’s a positive guy. When a trial came into his life, he hunkered down and did what he could. He’s not the type of guy who gets despondent when a hardship comes along. Like fixing broken instruments, he learned how to tinker around and find a fix for his loss of income.
I never saw a man who was so grateful for the opportunity that came his way and now his bucket is overflowing with opportunities.
Sometimes we get pushed through a trial because there is something pretty cool waiting on the other side.

What talents do you have? What’s that thing that you just seem to naturally do and don’t think twice about? Maybe it’s something that you need to be sharing with the world. Let me know on my Facebook page.