A Random Rant For A Random Sunday

Today, I am deciding to diversify my portfolio of the 90 Day Content Challenge with something much more daunting: a Sunday rant. As many venture off to breakfast (or waking up at 3am, awoken by my incessant reminder that yes, you belong to this newsletter), or ready themselves for Church, I am readying my leverage as a writer.

When writing became my life is another story for another day.

And that day is today.

When I Was Five...

I recall one day, sitting in a Temple that withheld a preschool called "Beth Am." I do not remember much, except for my infatuation with dinosaurs. I have always loved dinosaurs, and I recall my mother first allowing me to watch "Jurassic Park" when it released.

I was so into those things. I wanted to bring them back to life, to be frank with you.

I even imagined a world where dinosaurs would return, brought on my some quirky theory that if I prayed long and hard enough about it while sitting in a bathtub, we could bring dinosaurs back like in "Jurassic Park," where we would live in peace and harmony with them. Then I saw "Jurassic World: Dominion" this past year and boom, that thought disappeared rather quickly. However, we are here to talk about me today...

One Fond Day...

One fond day, sitting in my Kindergarten class (and after siphoning through endless picture books about dinosaurs), a former teacher actually took the time to take her class to me in a room around half a mile from my own.

I never thought twice about it, until she arrived.

She asked simply: "Ryan, what period did the Brontosaurus belong to? We could not find it in any of our books." Without looking, I recall casually saying to her: "Cretaceous, late."

She then said simply: "Thanks, that was killing us!" and then, she shepherded her class back to their classroom. In hindsight, this educator took her class on a venture into the mind of Ryan W. McClellan before the "W" appeared (read my article on personal branding), dragged them from their class half a mile away, and it was then I realized:

Did this woman just take her class on a field trip to see me?

No Egocentricity Meant

This is not an arrogant rant. I am not Judge Judy. However, I wanted to make that point because it later led me to my career in writing. I always loved to write. When I was around five or six years' old, I even invented a country.

Actually, it was more of a continent. I named it "Ahendo." I tried to copyright the word, but unfortunately you cannot do that. It is actually against the law. However, this was my early bloom as a creative, and my point here is simple: I am a writer, and I love doing it.

My First Book

Before the dawn of the "W" in "Ryan W. McClellan," I was just "Ryan McClellan."

Ryan "W" McClellan may have had his first book published in 2008, but "Ryan McClellan" actually did this at the age of six.

I was in first grade at a school called Sunset Park (a school that, over time, has remained my fondest memory, a place where I became "me"). I met many great educators there, but none were like my SPECS (i.e. "Gifted Program") class. It was then that the teachers within the school announced that any student had the ability to write a story to submit to a contest.

Said contest was simple: write a ten-page book.

So, I wrote twelve.

My First Lecture

I was invited to something called: "The Young Authors Experience," and yes, at the age of six, I read my first book to a room filled with parents, teachers, and educators. It was (of course) about a dinosaur named "Frankie." Frankie wanted to hatch his egg, but the egg did not want to do so. The dinosaur inside was happy in his shell, but with some coercion, the mother was able to get her son out of his shell. It sounded simple in hindsight.

It took maybe a day or two to write, and when I reread that sentence: "...to get her son out of his shell," I realize that I may have been psychodynamically thinking about how I was a shy kid, and how my mother wished for me to show my true colors and "to come out of my shell." I never quite did, not Frankie was able to hatch that egg rather easily, as did my mom.

And they chose me every year to read my many, many short stories to rooms filled with teachers, students...and of course, my very supportive and loving parents.

This Is A Ramble

Can you tell? I can. I figure, if Sunday is a day of rest, I will take a break from writing about the double standard of daily affairs and instead, merely make an attempt to entertain. This one is for me. I like to think that we all have skills, and then we all have talents.

There is a big difference between the two.

A "skill" is something you learn over time. I learned after years of practice to draw perfectly, but now if you were to ask me to draw, say, a flower, I would not be able to do so. This is because it was a skill, not a talent. A "talent," on the other hand, is something you are born with, and I guess that is the moral of the story here: go with what you are good at.

The Corey Taylor Lecture

I have spoken about Sir Corey Taylor before, but I warrant a reminder that he was more than just a lecturer at Oxford who chose some wise words that taught me everything. He is the known frontman for the heavy metal band: "Slipknot" and the lesser-known "Stone Sour," and though I do love Taylor, I have to say one thing before I continue:

"You should have stopped when you still knew how to make music..."

Anyway, at an Oxford lecture, Corey Taylor made mention of this phenomenon.

"Do what you are good at, not what you love.

Eventually you will learn to love what you are good at."

That wise advice has stuck with me since he spoke those words, and it is true: we all have something we are truly incapable of failing at. Mine is writing, and it is good that I was able to learn this at an early age. It has led me to more formal guest lectures, published novels, and of course, this 90 Day Content Challenge that, despite your requests, has not ended.

Do What You Are Good At

Do what you are good at, and you will never fail. I realized that a while back after he spoke such wise words. In fact, I have incorporated all of those things into my daily routine. I wake up, and I write, but not everyone has writing as a "talent." If this is not the case, you can learn. The idea of harnessing a skill as a talent is quite possible.

This does not mean you can become a writer overnight, or to become a heart surgeon just because you were relatively good at "Operation" (remember that weird thing? I never trusted the idea that we should let our children play doctor on a man with a red nose that is clearly a tumor, thus meaning the nose should be operated on, not the funny bone).

It simply means that on this Sunday morning, or day, or afternoon, or tomorrow, whenever you read this, we need to emphasize our strengths and go with them.

How I Figured Out My Talent

A talent is not very easy to "understand." It can be very hard to take the advice of: "Do what you are good at, not just what you love" because guess what? I love writing, but I am also good at it. You may think your talent is, say, football, or video games, but we cannot figure out a talent based on my inquiries. Rather, it takes a lot of variables in need of testing.

First, think about what you were born doing.

I like to think that if I had chosen "dinosaurs" as a talent, I would have never been able to do what I am doing now. But if you can figure out where you started your growth as a person, you have found your talent. There are many tests available to those wishing to discover their talent and to differentiate it from a skill.

One such test is found here, which was functionally based on the psychological insinuation that "people believe what they want to hear." The one thing I found when taking this heavily-sponsored test is that, it determined my talent was not writing, despite knowing it is. In fact, we all seem to find sanctity in the belief that everything and anything can be learned. This test was, on my end, quite frightening. It stated I was "undetermined."

I do not know what that means, exactly.

Research Shows Otherwise

Now, research shows that we are all born with a set of said skills, abilities, and facets of our existence that make us "us." And when you think about it, is that not enough? Do we really need to siphon all of our strength to figure out what we are great at versus good?

Can you not become a great writer with practice?

Or is that reserved for the "Stephen King's" of society? I like to think, and just for today (in an era ruled by oversaturated research and career aptitude tests) that we can all be what we want to be. Case closed. If you love something, do it. By all means, pursue it with your highest of standards. As an example, I have a great friend.

Said friend's talent is acting.

He is a marvelous actor, but he has not quite made it yet, probably for the same reason that I still have yet to receive an offer on a manuscript submission. We all have talents we are born with, skills we can harness, and things we can do with our lives.

For today, do yourself a favor while in Church, or at breakfast, or at lunch, or even at night when the day settled down: look toward the sky for answers, and hope in your heart that your skills and talents will come to you. Just be patient in your mannerisms. I never once "thought" I was a good writer, but I proved to myself that indeed, I was.

In Conclusion

What did this have to do with anything? Well, everything, actually. You have a right to know where you belong, and if you feel you need some advice on where to go next in life, note that one of my "skills" is figuring out career paths. I will link to my Career Counseling page below, and for now, take this Sunday to rest, to think, and to grow.

In the end, that is all that we can do to survive, and if you can dream it, you can do it. I end that generic advice with: "trust yourself," and you will be all set. Enjoy your Sunday.

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