skill versus talent (an aspect of preface)

art versus craft
   I have personally known any number of people that were magnificent talents but had no development to speak of in people skills, professional skills, political skill, etc. Those folks tend to fail. Talent alone is no guarantee. I have also known many people who have had the skills I just spoke of and little or no talent. Whether they succeed or not will often depend on the degree to which they can develop their craft; an aspect of talent, the technique or technology of talent. And let us not overlook the value of tenacity.
   With the advent of such muscular software there is little involved in the craft and mastery of the technique for more often than not it involves one’s own personal commitment to celebrating the software; spending face-time exploring it, devouring tutorials and so on.
   While there may be no pixie dust to afford someone a “good eye”, much like the inability to “buy class”, one can nonetheless pick up on the essential sensitivities along the way. And you are hereby heartily encouraged to do so. Is this the end of talent? I should certainly think not. If you believe yourself to have talent continue the commitment to its development, alongside all these other skills I spoke of, and you should rise above the rest. This, too, I’ve seen repeatedly. But the cautionary is that the field of effort is evening. We will all be students for the rest of our lives.

ethereal versus business
   Another matter becomes applying artistic sensibilities to hard business; yet another skill set. Were I to have to bet on the longevity of the savvy entrepreneur who knows nothing about baking and the baker whose love of the art exceed all other experiences opening up a boulangerie my money is on the businessman/woman. For all the altruistic within us, business is about driving income; at least as a survival basis for the business itself, which can then be something beyond that (expressive, philanthropic, quality service, etc.). But much as a painter frames the painting, most often the frame is not his own; so too the desire to pursue one’s own expression must live within the context of how our world current works.
   So, we now add to the skill sets ideas like, well, business savvy. This is often a function of familiarity to mastery over such areas as all that money entails (accounting, economics and finance; and their sub-considerations), all that marketing involves (e-commerce, advertizing, etc.), the legal and ethical considerations, and all that management entails (knowledge, operations/organization, process, product, project and supply chain). Along the way some overlapping skills also become evident. The need to be familiar with other software (most notably the document, spreadsheet, database, presentation and notebook software represented by those components of the Microsoft Office Suite) and skills (such as statistics).
   One can argue which of these come before actualization, in what order and measure, and I imagine you already know there is no hard answer. Here is an area where being right-brained, seeing the forest for the trees, can find an objective individual with an advantage. If you’re honest with yourself you may know more organically, more fluidly what parts to develop in what order and how far before reaching each new plateau.