One of the most humbling experiences you can have is failure – whether it's missing the mark, not getting the job or making that team, losing a fight or not landing a business deal, or like in X Factor or American Idol, not making it to that top spot.
In fact, I watched the last episode of American Idol recently and saw something amazing. There were actually 15 people that could actually sing singing live on the show (Americans are usually on another level). Unfortunately, only three of these were selected to go through to the next round. The others, although very good, failed to reach the next round and I asked myself why? Why did these three get through? Was it their sob story about their past life of poverty? It couldn't be because all 15 had such a story! Was it their image? No, all of them were styled by top professionals. Was it their personality? Surely not as they only sang for 1 minute and 30 seconds, not long enough to get this across fully.
The only thing I could put it down to in the end was their vocals. But why was one better than the other, were they just born that way? Well, here's where all the people who attribute success, achievement and destiny to an external force begin to say “they were just born with a gift” or “they were just lucky”. Aren't we all born with a gift and don't we all get lucky? You see, I think there is more to it than that and I'll share my thoughts with you hoping that it will liberate you, inspire you, and enable you to get up and pursue your destiny without leaving it to chance, luck or any other external force.
A thing called Skill
The difference between the successful and the unsuccessful is not luck, it's skill. Let me explain: we all have a talent, just like the people who sang on the Idol show, but did you ever realise that you can be talented and not skillful? Talent is the recognition that an individual may have a specific ability to perform a certain task – in other words, potential. I define skill as the ability to consistently and accurately manifest that potential at will whenever you want and wherever you go. Therefore you can sum up the two as this: talent is potential; Skill is potential consistently manifested at will. Greatness is not for the talented but for the skillful.
OK, after all that mind science, “so how do I become skillful?” I hear you ask. Well, I can tell you that you don't get skillful by chance, luck, or fate; you get skillful by walking over the bridge that takes you from talent to skillful. This bridge is called practise. David Beckham spent hours and hours walking that bridge, as did Pele, Andre Agassi, Christiano Ronaldo, Bruce Lee, Usher, Mariah Carey, and Justin Timberlake, to name a few. It's not what you do on camera that makes you skillful, it's the time you spend walking across the bridge – off camera! Practise doesn't make perfect, it makes skillful so walk the bridge today because your greatness awaits you on the other side.
“My future is NOT what i am doing, it is what I am BECOMING”
