My granny used to say that everyone is born with gifts.
Talents that belong to us and no one else.
Our job, she said, is to nurture them and use them properly.
Because if we don’t, they fade.
But when we use them every day, we become who we were meant to be.
Every single assistant has a different combination of gifts – calm under pressure, extraordinary memory, empathy, diplomacy, foresight, intuition, influence. Yet so many of those gifts go unseen. They’re called “soft skills,” as if something soft can’t also be powerful.
When the world doesn’t see your value, it’s easy to start dimming your own light too. You shrink your opinions. You downplay your instincts. You start to believe that invisibility is safety.
When your gifts aren’t used, you fade. Confidence fades. Initiative fades. Passion for what you do fades.
But when you do use them, when you trust your intuition, when you speak up in a meeting, when you hold a boundary, when you dare to lead, those same gifts grow stronger. You grow stronger.
You stop being the version of yourself that fits neatly into other people’s expectations, and start becoming the person you were always meant to be.
If you’ve been questioning your worth lately, pause and remember this.
Your gifts aren’t small. They never were.
With AI in the picture, those ‘soft skills’ are fast becoming ‘core skills’.
So use them boldly.
Every day.
Because when you do, you don’t just shine.
You give others permission to do the same.
