Shit, I may be the best tennis player that ever was. But I’ll never know, because I’ve never picked up a racquet (nor do I care to).
I wouldn’t say “exceptionally talented,” but apparently I’m pretty good at sales – as evidenced by a few of the temp jobs I had shortly after college, and one summer spent going door-to-door for an environmental group. One temp job went so well that I was offered a position in the marketing department: my boss was suprised to learn that I didn’t actually enjoy the work. I have zero interest in doing either marketing or sales.
I’m a good writer but I’m way too much of a perfectionist to do anything real about it.
I was really good in math and science in high school, but never wanted to do anything in that area. I also caught on very quickly to computer programming, but it didn’t interest me as a career.
Not me, but I knew a guy in High School who was absolutely phenomenal on guitar, but so far as I could tell, gave not even a single shit about it. Didn’t play in bands, didn’t work to increase his talent, didn’t ever talk about it, never did anything with it in his future life (I’m fb friends with him today). To him a guitar was basically a toy. Good for ten minutes of casual play. Nothing more.
Made me mad back then.
Twenty something years ago, while working one full time and one part time job, I got an offer to teach a class at a local community college. I got great reviews from my students, but the money was mediocre and I absolutely hated the work.
Haven’t taught since and wouldn’t today even if the pay was amazing.
I once went to play billiards in the local hall and there were two young Latino guys playing the table next to us. One of them, somewhere in his mid-twenties, was using the rail as a bridge, playing one-handed. Making every single shot AND leaving the cue ball where he wanted it for the next shot. I had to watch him for a bit, it was such a thing of beauty. His attitude wasn’t showing off, but more like he was being lazy.
…which I don’t do for a living, and data cleansing, which I do do for a living. Part of the data entry ability stems from preparing the work before I start it, part from being completely mechanical about the entry part itself: I don’t try to analyze the data, I just put it where it needs to be.
Even if I’d finished my PhD, I was about as interested in a career in academia as in pulling my eyes out with knitting needles. The attitude of many professors of viewing teaching as something which “bothered their research” chapped my ass; don’t get me started on the idea that applying science somehow demeans it. If it’s not useful, it’s no good! (Hellooooo, science doesn’t get more pure than math yet calculus was invented because of the need to calculate velocities with more granularity than had previously been available)
I’m a damn good researcher and technical writer; after my first attempt at publication came back with a list of corrections boiling down to “put back all the corrections ordered by the graduate advisor”, several of my teammates started asking me to review their works after the boss had. We had an amazing publications record, which went bust (i.e., down to normal success rates) once I left the team. I’m a decent teacher and it’s part of what I do for a living, but I generally create my own materials and they’re adapted exactly to what the students need to know. The students’ livelihood depends on learning what I teach. That’s completely different from having a bunch of undergrads who can’t see why should they learn chemistry when they want to be doctors. And I haven’t been in a committee in my life.
My son drove his band teacher nuts back in the “you had to take band or choir” years. No desire to do anything musical, band was preferable to choir, never needed to practice, picked up music easily. Would pick up instruments just messing around (like you aren’t supposed to do, he’d get in trouble for it) and be able to play them and make them sound good.
Also picked up the guitar - a years worth of lessons and managed to get through four years of material
He certainly never had the drive or desire to become a professional musician - but his amount of talent and lack of desire had his band teacher telling me how unfair life was - she had a room full of kids who wanted to be musical and just weren’t.