The idea of owning your gifts is multifaceted and deeply personal. It not only entails recognizing and celebrating our inherent talents but also underscores the importance of sharing these gifts with the world. As Miranda Von Frickin passionately puts it, our gifts are not just for us; they are meant to better the community, elevate the collective energy, and contribute to something larger than ourselves.

The Nature of Gifts: More Than Just Skills

One of the essential points Miranda discusses is the differentiation between skills and gifts. While skills can be learned and honed over time—whether they be technical or soft skills—gifts are intrinsic. These are the attributes that you were born with, the ones that feel second nature to you. They could be spectacular communication abilities, an innate knack for problem-solving, or an unwavering empathy that you bring to every interaction. The critical difference is that these gifts are deeply rooted in who you are and often carry a sense of calling or purpose.

Recognizing and Embracing Your Gifts

It’s surprising how many people, even professionals with years of experience, struggle to recognize their gifts. This could stem from a lack of introspection or perhaps an undervaluing of what comes naturally to them. Miranda shares an anecdote from her talent acquisition background: reviewing countless resumes and LinkedIn profiles, where people highlight their technical proficiencies yet often miss acknowledging their unique gifts. This brings up an intriguing dilemma—do you know what your gifts are? And if so, are you embracing them fully?

Personal Journey: Using Your Voice

Miranda’s example of how she discovered her gift illustrates this point beautifully. Initially, she believed her gift of a melodious voice was meant for worship singing. However, not succeeding in this avenue led her to explore other ways to utilize her voice. She found her true calling not just in singing but in speaking, writing, and creating content that resonates with people. This evolution shows that recognizing your gift is just the first step; understanding how to best employ it is equally crucial.

Aligning Your Gifts with Your Calling

Understanding that our gifts come with a divine or intrinsic purpose can be liberating. For Miranda, her voice wasn’t just about singing; it was about spreading positivity, faith, and motivation through multiple channels—be it speaking engagements, podcasting, or writing. This experience could be enlightening for many of us who might be using our gifts in ways that don’t feel entirely fulfilling.

Overcoming Challenges: It’s Okay to Fail

Miranda’s journey underscores another important truth: it’s okay if initial attempts to use your gifts don’t succeed. This could mean you’re meant to use these gifts differently, or perhaps there’s another platform that’s better suited for your talents. Recognizing what doesn’t work is a massive step towards finding what will. The key is to keep iterating and not lose heart if the first few tries aren’t resounding successes.

Gifts for the Greater Good

Finally, coming full circle to the core message: our gifts are not just for us. They are meant to serve a larger community, to bring joy, aid, and perhaps even transformation to the world around us. On this Christmas-centric episode, Miranda aptly ties this back to the greatest gift of all and encourages listeners to find and use their unique gifts for the betterment of everyone.

Conclusion: Your Call to Action

So, on this day, whether it’s Christmas or any other time you’re reading or listening to this, take a moment to deeply consider what your gifts are. Identify them, embrace them, and most importantly, share them. Miranda encourages you to reach out, share your gifts, and start conversations about how these can bring more joy into the world.

Miranda leaves us with a hopeful, uplifting message: “We need that special gift that only you have. We need you to own it, and we need you to use it because only you can. It was put in you for a reason.” Let’s heed her advice and start owning our awesome today.

Transcript:

Miranda [00:00:01]:
Hello. Hello. And welcome to your Christmas edition of Own Your Awesome. I’m your host, Marina Von Frickin. Perhaps today should be called own your Christmas. Feeling festive, are we? So whether you’re listening to this on Christmas or after, it doesn’t matter. Today, I wanna talk about owning your gifts. How cute.

Miranda [00:00:24]:
Right? So owning your gifts, This one is gonna be short and sweet because it’s a holiday, and I gotta go cook something or clean something or wrap something. I mean, I’m a busy girl, and I know you are too. So this one may be pretty short, but I really want to remind you on this day of the gifts you were given. They’re your calling. They’re your zone of genius. Whatever you wanna call it, your specialty, your magic, We have gifts inside of us. Mine were given to me by God. I know yours were too.

Miranda [00:00:58]:
But wherever you think you got your gifts, whether it was school, Learning, passed down to you generationally. We all have gifts, and we’re meant to use them in this life. And I want you to start really embracing those gifts. Although some of my friends and colleagues that I talk to Don’t often know what those gifts are, which is shocking to me because coming from a talent acquisition background, I read a lot of resumes. Well, back in the day, I did. Now I read LinkedIn. But often, we’re we’re highlighting the gifts that we have. Some people mistake these gifts as skills.

Miranda [00:01:40]:
Right? Technical skills, soft skills. But really our gifts Are something a little more elevated than just what we can put on a resume or put on our LinkedIn profiles or even our Instagram bios. Our gifts are something that are innate, that we were born with, that we were called to use, To to give to the world, our gifts inside of us aren’t meant to be kept. They’re meant to be regifted, if you will. Don’t re gift your holiday presents, friends. Find use for them. No. I’m kidding.

Miranda [00:02:17]:
But we are meant to gift our gifts to the world. That’s why we were given them. Who is given a gift and then just hoards it to themselves? Right? You often hear it’s more Powerful and better to give than to receive, but we’ve already received. We have the gifts that are in us, whether we’re Fantastic communicators or skilled negotiators or we love children or we’re we We’re great at gardening and knitting, whatever. These may be skills, but they’re really gifts. What is the the higher level gift that you’ve been given, that you’re not using. I need you to start owning these gifts and putting them out into the world. Even if it’s just to start small and we’re owning them for ourselves.

Miranda [00:03:07]:
So I’ll use it as an example myself, of course. My gift is my voice. I learned it many years ago, probably, I’d say in my it was before Sophie, so it has to be in my twenties when I realized that my voice was my gift. I loved singing. I loved praising Jesus. So I thought my my gift was supposed to be used as a worship leader at church. And this this whole experience Of auditioning to be a worship leader at my church and not getting the opportunity made me think that my gifts weren’t supposed to be used out in the world. But here’s the thing about our gifts.

Miranda [00:03:49]:
We may know what they are, but God may have a different plan for us of how we’re gonna use them and how we’re gonna execute and express those gifts. So for me, It was writing. It was speaking. It was singing, but I thought it was singing. I thought it was using my voice to worship, which it still is. It’s just not in a paid way. Remember back in the day, I wanted to be Britney Spears growing up? Yeah. I wasn’t meant to be a pop star or a worship pastor apparently, but my gifts are still my voice.

Miranda [00:04:23]:
That didn’t change, But how I use my voice did. So I became a speaker, and I write content. So I’m able to use my voice, what I have to say, not just my literal voice, to spread my gift to the world. I write articles. I do this podcast. I write content on social media. I’m featured in books. I’m interviewed often.

Miranda [00:04:50]:
I’m writing my own book now. It’ll be out soon. You’ll hear about that more in the next episodes. But using my gift actually fuels me to live out my calling. And I’m curious. Are you using your gifts to the fullest? Are you even owning the gifts that you’ve been given? What are those gifts, those higher level gifts and specialties that you have that only you can do that can really elevate The collective energy of the people around you, the world around you, your community, are you using them? And if not, why? Do you not know what they are? That’s okay. Obviously, that’s that’s even knowing that you don’t know what they are is a great place to start. Do you know what they are and you use them and maybe it didn’t work out, that’s okay too.

Miranda [00:05:43]:
It happened to me. It happens to a lot of people. Maybe there’s just a different way you’re meant to Express those gifts and use them. Are you using your gifts and maybe it’s a part of your occupation, but you just don’t feel connected to it anymore. That’s okay too. I know it it doesn’t feel okay, but the fact that you can articulate it and you know it means you can change it. So the gifts that you were given are not just for you. They’re for the world.

Miranda [00:06:11]:
God gave them to you for a reason because you’re the best one to harness the power of that gift, and you’re meant to use it in the world. So on this Christmas Day, When Jesus was born to give us the biggest gift, our life, he also gave us a gift that’s special and unique just to us. I hope you know what that is. If you don’t go find it, please use it. But most of all, I hope you own it so you can feel the power and the gift and the love that God has given us every day, not just today on Christmas. And if you’re like, Miranda, you’re talking a lot about God. I get that it’s Christmas. Let’s talk about Santa.

Miranda [00:06:54]:
Then you’re not my people. No. I’m totally kidding. I’m totally kidding. I hope you had a wonderful, magical day today. Hope it was full of love, full of joy, full of laughter, and please reach out to me. Say hello. Tell me you’re listening to this.

Miranda [00:07:10]:
Tell me your gift. Oh my gosh. I would love, love, love to hear from you of what your special unique gift is. And let’s talk about owning it and using it to increase the joy that this world feels because We need that special gift that only you have. We need it. We need you to own it, and we need you to use it because only you can. It was put in you for a reason. Alright, friends.

Miranda [00:07:40]:
Thank you so much for listening to another episode of own your awesome. Merry Christmas. I can’t wait to come to you next week. It’ll be January 1st when I do, and boy do I have an episode for you. Alright, friends. Until next week.