You can be the laziest person in the world and have all the talent in the world, but it won’t do you any good. So how come few people succeed and most fail? It’s simple, they lack work ethic, talent, or focus (and you need one of these in particular to make it).
Talent
I knew a kid once who was a phenomenal basketball player. He put balls through the hoop like it was effortless regardless of where he was on the court or how much pressure he had. The guy just had a natural ability to play ball; a natural talent.
Off the court his game was completely different; he would play video games, message people on Facebook, eat Fruit Roll-Ups, and participate in activities that had absolutely nothing to do with success. I think the worst part was that I could tell that his dad was trying to find the line between pushing him too hard and getting his kid off his ass to actually do something productive.
Personally I don’t think he was ever pushed too hard and he seemed entirely oblivious to his talent. By the time he was a freshman in highschool he was starting as point-guard at a school that was known for bieng exceptionally good at basketball. He would go on to play varsity all 4 years and had the chance to play Division II at the college level but his grades were too low when it came time to play. All the talent in the world but absolutely no will to turn it into a career. Why?…pure laziness. Life continued on but not for him; he would find himself working minimum wage jobs, moving from apartment to apartment, and not really amounting to anything.
I never really could find a reason as to why he didn’t choose to achieve greatness. I finally settled on the conclusion that he just did not have the will or desire to be a great basketball player, let alone a great anything. And for no reason at all; he wasn’t an unhappy person, he wasn’t a troubled person, and he had a good family. It really came down to a sort of, “eh, I mean it would be cool to play basketball professionally but I mean I kind of want to go hang with my friends right now.”
Work Ethic
Another kid I knew in high school was an amazing worker. When the summer weather turned into fall in Western Washington him and I would cut firewood. We did it all by hand; chainsaw, splitting maul, etc. We would grind for 12 hours straight just to produce a $250 load of wood.
I remember one time when we had to drive through this muddy puddle on a logging road; we must have gone through this puddle 20 times before we had all the logs out. We ended up getting the truck stuck in it and had to crawl into the waste-deep water to remove the logs from the truck. Keep in mind this was after a solid 12 hours of back-breaking, sweaty work, yet there was no hesitation to jump into the water, get soaked, and do what needed to be done.
Dylan showed up early, left late, was always ready, and never quit. He bought his first house when he was 22, loves his work, and is highly paid. I consider this the only person that I physically have ever met that can rival my work ethic.
Focus
Shaun White turned professional at snowboarding when he was 13. If there was snow, gauranteed he was up on the mountain. His parents knew that he was extremely serious about snowboarding from a young age so they would get his homework from his school and he would do it on the way up to the mountain. If there was one thing that Shaun loved, it was snowboarding.
Of course it did not snow year-round in California so he decided to do the next best thing he could do in order to make sure he was good at snowboarding, even if it was a hot summer day in August; he would skateboard. His motivation for skateboarding was to at least do something to keep his skills up so that his first day back on the mountain snowboarding was on point. For him, it was all about snowboarding; this was his focus. Yet it just so happened that in practicing in activities that made him better at his focus also made him extremely good at those activities (in this case skateboarding). This led to a monetizeable career in skateboarding; which he became a professional at. Now you are looking at the most decorated male snowboarder in the world, an extremely successful skateboarder (which was no doubt a passive goal of his), not to mention a professional guitarist (sort of a side hustle if you will). Rather than doing 9 things at once, he focused on ONE thing, and look what the result was.
Logic:
Focus: Rapper Result: Landed $32M record deal this year, reality TV star, public figure
Abraham Lincoln
Focus: Law Result: President of USA, won the Civil War for the Union, orchestrated the 13th ammendment (freeing the slaves)
Les Brown
Focus: Motivational Speaking Result: Started his own radio show, best-selling author
It’s the focus that creates succcess; staying absolutely consistent at that ONE thing that matters most and seeing it through to success. And it is out of that success that you create the time, opportunity, and ability to monetize other skills. People seem to think that multi-tasking is good, yet it’s entirely anti-achievment. There is a difference between doing activities that pave the way for success at that ONE thing and doing activities that are entirely unrelated.
Simplify your life, simplify your tasks, focus on your GOAL. Back this up with a consistent, sickening work ethic and that is all that is required. Question is, are you gonna be a little bitch or do you have the discipline to create success?
