Are you accidentally talented?

Do you have an accidental talent?  Are you really good at something that you never intended to be good at?  What do you do with that discovery?

If you would have asked me what I want I wanted to be when I grew up, I probably would have given you a different answer every single day. I never could quite nail that answer down.

When I started Girls Can’t WHAT?, I really had no clue what I was doing as you’ve seen very clearly in this illustrated post. I fumbled my way through designing, coding and marketing skills until I came up with something that worked. And in the beginning, I figured I would just keep doing my thing and let this site keep growing.

So far so good.

But throughout the whole process of creating Girls Can’t WHAT?, I discovered I have an accidental talent. Something I never planned to be good at and something I never thought I would be doing when I first started the site. It started innocently enough and has now grown into something bigger than I ever would have imagined.

It turns out that I am well-suited for the role of web developer.  I just “get it”.  I understand code and I pick up on concepts and programming functions very easily.  It’s my thing.  I enjoy it. Who knew?

And along with this accidental talent came some opportunities I never planned on either. It happened not too long after I launched a major update to Girls Can’t WHAT? and the site started generating a lot of buzz. I received an email from someone asking if I would build them a web site.

I thought it was a joke.

My degree was in music and I stated before I was just fumbling along in the world of web design just trying to keep it all afloat.  Why on earth – out of all the web design companies out there (there are thousands to choose from) – would they ask me to do it? Hmmm. Seemed a little weird.

So I said yes. What’s a little side job?

And here I am 5 years later… Girls Can’t WHAT? is still going strong and my “one little side job” has turned in to a full-scale web design business with a fairly huge network of clients and I’m booked months in advance. The income I receive from the web design biz not only builds my kids’ college funds, but it provides me with some additional capital to help make Girls Can’t WHAT? even bigger and better. It’s a win-win and I didn’t even know I was playing the game!

Sure, it takes some creative scheduling to make it work between the two businesses and there are some growing pains to push through, but all I know is my “accidental” talent has been one of the best discoveries of my life.

So what accidental talents are you harboring that you can capitalize on? Can you cash in on one of them to launch yourself into a new career? A new location? A new life?  Take a little time this week to inventory what you’re already skilled at and think about how you can leverage that to build upon the things you are already passionate about.

Let us know what you’ve uncovered in the comments below.