Here is an excerpt taken in its entirety from the book, EDGE (a publication designed especially for those on the younger side of life), written by Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward.
We love watching people who are at the top of their game. Whether doing the types of performance readily seen (such as in sports, preaching, musical performance, acting, or public speaking) or those that can best be realized by observing the finished product (such as with architecture, great writing, or painting), people who rise to such levels of greatness have a tendency to make it look easy.
Looks, however, can be deceiving. No one can really perform that well without thousands of hours of unseen practice. No one is gifted as much as we sometimes wish to think in our efforts to comfort ourselves about why we aren’t that good. Certainly people have areas of gifting. Certainly there are different levels of endowments given to each one of us in different areas. But there is still a distinction even among those equipped with similar innate ability—and that is preparation.
It never ceases to amaze us the lengths to which people will go in order to avoid preparation. Given relatively equal abilities, the more prepared person will win nearly every time. We don’t know about you, but we think we can almost always tell when someone is “winging it.” This always makes us wonder why people wouldn’t choose to give their endeavors all they’ve got. Why wouldn’t they prepare? Are their hearts not in it? Are they just lazy? It may be they simply haven’t been convinced that preparation is a competitive advantage.
Jerry Rice, the most decorated wide receiver in pro football history, was famous for his hours of preparation and grueling workouts, even into his forties!
“Sweetness” Walter Payton said he gained his advantage in his off-season training by running up and down a sand dune near his house.
Stephen King wrote that he forces himself to follow a rigid writing routine every day and won’t leave his desk until he’s written at least twenty-five hundred words.
Throughout his remarkable business career, Sam Walton was famous for walking through competitors’ stores in search of even little ideas that could be copied and improved upon, and he was known for digesting reams of data prior to his legendary Saturday morning operations meetings.
John Wooden pre-scripted every single minute of every practice in every season of his coaching career.
Napoleon would sleep a mere three hours a night, utilizing the rest of the “quiet hours” to pour over maps and battlefield reports so he would be the most informed commander on the battlefield.
One of our favorite quotes is by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward through the night.”
In what area of life are you striving for excellence?
Would a court of law be able to convict you of that fact by observing your preparation?
Take time today to consider what more you can do to prepare, so you can blossom into the professional you were meant to be.
Remember, the best make it look easy, but it’s not. Excellence is always hard, and it is forged on the anvil of preparation.
Now, get to work.
(Posted by Kristen Seidl, on behalf of Chris Brady)
