NATURAL POSITION

“Natural Position” is a term used in professional sports to describe a position that an athlete is “naturally” built to play. This natural ability is driven by either experience, physical characteristics or an innate aptitude, as opposed to a position he / she is being forced or asked to play other than their natural position for any number of reasons.

The same is true in music. When a musician picks up an instrument or opens their mouth to sing, it either flows naturally or it doesn’t.

Calm down, I know many musicians can play several instruments and many have mastered dozens.  But there is always one instrument (including voice) that they feel most naturally creative.

Having lived in both the music and sports worlds for my entire life, I can speak to this observation, it’s true from the youngest backyard amateur, to the highest degree of professional. I have witnessed firsthand this phenomenon and know it exists as fact.  I can’t speak to why it exists, I just that I know it clearly does exist!

Let’s take musicians for example.  If you have spent your life around players, you can usually identify what instrument they gravitate to (or their natural instrument) just by observing their persona.  They will exhibit very defined personality characteristics that if you are sensitive to, you will have the ability to walk into a studio of a dozen musicians (none holding their instrument) and point out who plays what.

The same holds true for athletes.  Again, having spent a large part of my career around NFL athletes, I feel comfortable identifying what natural position a person will be playing by both physical attributes and personality.

It’s important to learn or identify your natural abilities. You can do this by paying attention to what comes easiest for you. Each of us has gifts, or natural abilities that allow us to soar above others in that area. By the same token we aren’t all gifted in every area.  The key is to recognize which is which.  As you grow and see what the industry has to offer and what positions it needs, you need to keep one eye on what talents you feel natural with. What comes easiest to you. 

Personally, I identified my natural ability later in life. Early on I wanted to be an amazing guitar player and musician.  I developed acceptable talents on several instruments but it always seemed like work and I never was able to play what I heard in my head. I had friends that were killers on their instruments and they would enjoy playing and practicing for hours.

Not me! I just wanted it to happen.

As far back as I can remember I enjoyed writing, developing and telling stories. I never really thought much about it. I just came easy and I enjoyed it.  Songs, short stories, poems (yea poems haha) or just making up stories for my kids when they were young.

Oddly I never thought it was a talent. Even song writing. Since I couldn’t play the music in my head alongside the lyrics (story) I had written I never pursued song writing.

It wasn’t until I stumbled into broadcast did I realize storytelling was my “natural position”.  I still had to learn the nuances and skills of the craft, but it all came very easy to me.  Recognizing my natural position was a gift that had value to the industries. I began writing almost every day. 

I wrote stories for no reason. I wrote stories in the form of scripts, I wrote letters to nobody, I had three or four long form “novels” going at one time.  I’d wake up in the middle of the night and jot down a story idea.

Just like my musician friends, once I embraced my natural ability I was able to write for hours with no professional goal in mind. I dismissed the fact that I am severely dyslexic and writing should be the last thing I should be doing.

I understood, I had no formal training in writing and my style would seem amateurish to some. But my gift was storytelling not words on paper.

I realized storytelling and writing are two different skills. I began writing my stories the best I could relying on the storyline rather than slowing the process down by being concerned about my lack of training.  In music they call this playing by ear. If you haven’t been trained on an instrument and not familiar with the notes you’re playing… yet you still produce amazing music, you are playing by “feel” not “technique”.

When the opportunity arose to co-author books on how to use digital technology to create music with my close friend Steve DeFuria, I jumped on it.

When the opportunity arose to write and produce NFL Player Profiles which were mini docs about the personal life of NFL players, I jumped on it.

When the opportunity arose to create and develop broadcast pilot pitches, I jumped on it.

Prior to each of those opportunities I had no experience in any of those fields. I had never been involved in book publishing, broadcast producing or script pitch writing. But they all fell into one category for me, Story Telling and I knew story telling was my Natural Ability. Regardless of my lack of practical training I was excited to trust in those abilities.

Not all great athletes play their position with “proper” techniques.  Not all legendary musicians play their instrument as taught in a music conservatory, not all writers have a degree in literary grammar and not all titans of industry have MBAs. What separates the good from the great is finding their Natural Ability / Position and building on it.

You will know you found it when you realize something you really enjoy doing and developing higher degree of skills comes very easy for you. Embrace that “something” and rest will take care of itself.