Would You Rather Aim Too High and Fail, or Aim Too Low and Succeed?

The “Sentence A Day” program is aligned with my attitude that talent is badly overrated, and I’ve never seen the concept do a damned bit of good. In fact, almost every time I talk about this, a couple of people prove my point: they’ll talk about how they would never have been as good as some other person, or met some particular external standard (being in the NBA, for instance).

The one thing you cannot control is how much of a given innate quality (say, perfect pitch) you possess. That might be like “height” in the NBA. The problem is that

1. NBA Slam-Dunk champion Spud Webb is five foot six.
2. No one promised you a specific external result. But unless you have done EVERYTHING it is possible for you to do, you’ll never know how good you could have been, or whether you could have found a way to make a satisfying life doing something you’d do for free.

So success isn’t how tall you are (“talent”) it is how high you can jump (“ability”) which is hugely influenced by coaching, training and focus. What are the limits? NO ONE KNOWS. But I DO know that we have smashed notions of physical limitations so many times that trying to define those absolute limits is a fool’s game.

More important by far are:

How hard did you work? How long did you train? How superb was your coaching? How committed was your focus? How flexible was your methodology? How flexible were you in concept and…