Robert Fulghum wrote All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Well, for me it was a restaurant. There I learned what I called "Kitchen Aptitude," which started out as a level of competence in the kitchen of a large restaurant. It grew to become more of a general aptitude, the ability to cope with whatever life threw my way.

Too many times in my life, I have learned a skill that seemed at the time to be very specific to a task, yet later turned out to be quite generic. I have collected a toolkit of skills, and I have enough skills now that I have confidence that I can tackle almost anything. The toolkit may not contain the exact skill/tool for the job, but I can adapt and develop new ones.

To make use of your talents you have to change your perspective. To do this you change the questions you ask yourself, for example: "I know I can do this, now which of my skills can I apply here?"

(From the best of Big Dreams)