Talent will only ever get you so far in life. You must regularly exercise that talent and push yourself to do better. The moment you start getting too comfortable in your role is the moment you become vulnerable to someone else who wants it more. As all high-performing athletes instinctively know, the difference between success and failure is measured in inches or seconds. You don’t have to be a workaholic, but don’t take anything for granted. The landscape of leadership history is littered with talented people who never fully realized their potential or who settled for simply being “good enough.”
Malcolm Gladwell is famous for postulating that you need to put 10,000 hours of focused effort into something to become an expert at it. In my experience, his assertion is accurate. The most talented leaders I work with never stop learning or being inquisitive. They are regularly expanding their perspective and seeking growth opportunities. Money and success are only the result of their own personal commitment to excellence and doing meaningful work. They take their leadership responsibility very seriously. They also do their best to model positive behaviors for everyone they meet. As one of my Vistage colleagues is fond of saying, they intuitively understand that “…how they do anything is how they will do everything.”
I encourage you to step back, reflect, and ask yourself where you are lacking in effort and practice.
- What skills do you need to further refine?
- Do you still possess the same edge you did when you first started?
- Are you demonstrating the behaviors you wish to see in others, or are you merely instructing them on how they should act?
- Are you focused on doing the right things or obsessed with doing things right?
- Do you approach each day with the mindset that your work (and life) has meaning, or are you just passing the time and getting by?
- Are you continually practicing to get better at your job, or are you content to enjoy the fruits of your position and success and let others do all the hard work?
You are either getting better and moving forward or stagnating and falling behind! Wasted talent IS a tragedy.
Related articles
- 9+ years until I move out of mediocrity? (sarahtheurer.wordpress.com)
- Practice Makes Perfect (the 10,000 hour countdown) (rhculp.com)
- Hard Work Beats Talent (but Only If Talent Doesn’t Work Hard) (psychologytoday.com)
- Talent vs. Practice: Training and the 10,000-Hour Rule (stack.com)
- 10,000 Hour Rule: Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 Hours of Practice Theory from Outliers Visualized (zintro.com)
- Beyond 10,000 Hours: The Constant Pursuit of Mastery (forbes.com)