IN the 1984 movie “The Color of Money” that won Paul Newman the Academy Award for Best Actor, Newman plays ‘Fast’ Eddie Felson, a retired pool player. He meets Vince (Tom Cruise), a young and very arrogant albeit good pool player and girlfriend Carmen. Eddie tells them, “Use your area of excellence to make money for you.” Eddie believes that Vince has an area of excellence in his pool playing and his point to the younger man is that he should make money from it and not just leave it as an area of interest or a hobby merely to be pursued for pleasure in the pool halls. The rest of the movie is about how the three of them connive (‘hustle’) to win money from other pool players but that is another story and is no longer our concern here.

This idea of area of excellence can be quite appealing. It says in simple terms that a person is probably good at doing a number of things, but there is one thing that stands out, and that is his area of excellence. Now Eddie aka Paul Newman goes one step further and says we should work on it and turn it into an income generator.

However, what is not so simple is how to identify this area of excellence in one’s life in the first place. How do I know, for instance, what my area of excellence is? How long would it take me to find my area of excellence? One year? Five? Half my entire career?

I asked someone recently what she thought her area of excellence was and after a moment’s thought, she said, “Baking.” In response, I found myself saying to her that for many people, an area of interest did not necessarily become the area of excellence. I mean, a person may have very deep interest in bowling, or be very passionate in his golf, or would not go to bed without working out on a crossword puzzle, but he may not be anywhere near ‘excellent’ in any of those. Thus, those are at best areas of passion or areas of interests, but not necessarily areas of excellence.

Case in point; for some years I thought my area of excellence was in my writing, until recently. I have become more and more convinced that is not so. Someone asked me what made me arrive at that conclusion, and I said when I read magazines and newspapers, I came across so many articles that were so well written by their respective authors that I immediately realised I did not write articles such as theirs, and if I did not write good articles like those, then I could not say I was even good at writing. “My articles fall way short of those!” I told myself; and that was how I knew writing was not my area of excellence.

Strangely, however, I have a feeling I am better at telling stories than at writing them. When I think about it, most of my lectures are in the form of story telling and, putting some modesty aside, I believe I have become quite good at telling stories in class! Without stories, my lectures would become quite dull and dry as saw dust indeed. I admit here that the subjects that I teach help because if I were to teach say Pure Mathematics or Greek, there would hardly be any possibility to fit in a story in class. I mean, what story can you use to help you teach differentiation and integration? What story can you use to teach Greek grammar? The point is, story writing may be very well an area of interest for me, but it certainly isn’t an area of excellence.

If an area of interest does not necessarily develop into an area of excellence, does interest play any part at all in the development of an area of excellence? In all probability, yes, because with very little exceptions, it is hard to see a person excelling in something that he has little interest in. It is interest that generally drives a person to excellence. David Cook (American Idol, 2008) is a rock singer and song writer before he won the 7th edition American Idol. His huge interest in music and songs must have contributed largely to his excellence at the reality television show.

How we wish this were true all the time, but it is not. A person’s area of interest does not always turn out to be his area of excellence. An avid golfer can spend half a day every day at the golf course and yet not be qualified to tie Tiger Wood’s shoestrings. Half a million black kids around the United States of America spend hours at the basketball courts, but less than one per cent of them will end up being able to leap and slam-dunk like their great hero, Michael Jordan.

How long would it normally take for a person to discover his area of excellence? Generally it is true that as a person tries his luck at different things, over time he will eventually find his niche, but then again, there is no fixed rule for this. Some lucky people discover their areas of excellence within five to seven years of their working lives; some find it after one or two changes of careers over ten years, and some unfortunate ones never ever get to find out at all, poor things.

A former student of mine dropped out of college after only one semester in Foundation, not through poor grades but purely through a lack of funds. She was very passionate about doing a course in Computer Games Design but her failure to secure a loan dashed her passion and whatever dreams that came with it. After leaving college, she took two jobs to survive, working as a clinic assistant and a part time karate instructor for kids. She also tried her hand at selling stuffs through ebay. The clinic job did not work out and she left after less than 7 weeks at it. She then worked as an Administrative Assistant with a direct selling company. Meanwhile, the karate school did not have enough kids to stay on their register and discontinued her class. At that point, it seemed that King Henry VIII was having more success with keeping wives than she was with keeping jobs. She lamented that she was also ‘growing old.’ In short, her self-esteem was near zero.

That was more than two years ago. Today, however, she is a different person. In her latest communication with me, she said she was ‘running her own business!’ What business, I asked, delighted for her. She managed to kick start a modest tuition class with 5 kids in Primary School, and more parents were making enquiries every month. She discovered she was a natural with young children, and through them, she had found her niche; her

area of excellence! Gone were the days of job hunting and working for the sake of drawing a salary. Today, she eagerly starts her day getting her ‘classroom’ (at home) spick and span to welcome her eager young charges, and at the end of the day she sees them off through the front door, feeling extremely self-fulfilled.

She had the interest in the right place, she discovered her area of excellence and she’s making money.