Very few things in this life just happen to us, especially things like opportunities, talents or skills. Whenever you hear someone say “he is so naturally gifted,” chances are they are overlooking a tremendous amount of time, effort and hard work. We tend to over-simplify other people’s skills into “natural talent” to make ourselves feel better about not having the same skill or success. It is much easier to imagine that they were given to someone else and are out of our power.
But brilliance is not a gift, it is a skill. Success is not an event, it is a process. Have you ever heard the saying “he worked hard for 15 years to get famous overnight”? Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers begins with the rule of 10,000 hours: to be great at something, you need to do it for at least 10,000 hours. Simple enough.
Author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat Pray Love) gave a remarkable presentation at the TED conference about genius. Did you know that “genius” used to be considered an outside force? A person had genius. Now they are a genius. Big difference. It actually takes some of the pressure off to think of genius as something outside of the self. We need to show up for work and sometimes the genius will appear.
The one piece of advice I have heard from every single one of my heros is to work every day. Some days are magical, some days are abysmal. But, in the words of Philip Roth, “the ordeal is part of the commitment.” If we feel compelled to do what we do, any success is just a bonus. The real goal is to spend a life creating.
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