As a kid I loved watching sports. Most kids watched cartoons, I watched SportsCenter. My favorite sport to watch was baseball. I would watch live games, highlights, reruns, anything I could find. But given the choice of anything baseball, I would choose to watch the Seattle Mariners and Ken Griffey Jr.
Griffey used to roam around the outfield like a puma hunting its prey. He was so smooth, so graceful, so powerful, so fast. His instincts were incredible and the jumps he got on flyballs were on another level. I remember vividly a wide angle photo of Griffey in full stride running towards the gap, BEFORE THE BALL HAD BEEN HIT. He was so good he knew where the hitters would hit the ball before they hit it!
Then there was his arm. Whoa. His arm was elite. The ideal combination of bazooka-like power with sniper-like accuracy. Griffey would come up gunning for the lead runner and save runs at an alarming rate. He was one of those outfielders that rarely got tested because baserunners knew better than to run on him.
And then there was that sweet Griffey swing. The one that every kid tried to emulate with the signature backwards hat, the high back elbow, and confidence-oozing shimmy that led to the simple, smooth upper cut with a one hand finish. Oh, and don’t forget that little pause to admire the homer and then the three strut steps out of the box before beginning the homerun trot. It never looked like Griffey was trying in the batter’s box, it just looked like he was taking batting practice off of his dad in the backyard.
Which, speaking of his dad, Ken Griffey Sr. played 19 big league seasons, won a couple World Series, played in a couple All-Star games, and had a career .296 average. Not too shabby for The Kid’s old man
Why am I telling you all of this about Griffey?
Because Griffey was always considered to be a natural. A natural athlete, natural talent, natural superstar. His pedigree was such that he was destined to be a star. It didn’t matter what Griffey did, he was a natural and success was his destiny.
What a load of garbage.
There is no such thing as a natural. The skills required to perform at that level are not innate. Those skills are developed over decades of intentional, grueling work. Thousands of games, tens of thousands of hours of practice, and millions of swings; that is what made Ken Griffey Jr. into “The Natural,” not some supernatural genetic combination.
This is a topic near to my heart because the idea of “naturals” in any given industry, profession, or sport can have a profoundly negative impact on those not dubbed as “naturals.” That second class group is known as the “hard workers.”
Yes, there is a level of God-given talent required to be elite in any arena, but far too much weight is placed on talent and not enough on just good old-fashioned work. John Wooden once said, “There is no trick, no easy way, no alternative, to old-fashioned work.” But as a culture, we are infatuated with the idea of the exceptionally talented. We even have a show called “America’s Got Talent.” Ironically, this show features people that have spent a lifetime practicing and mastering a skill that they then get 90 seconds to perform on television and it is chalked up as a "natural talent" for us to marvel at.
We love the idea of the freak, the stud, the natural. We love watching people make hard things look easy.
We love watching people with “talent” do things the rest of us are unable to do. Unfortunately, this is a romanticized, if not naïve, way of looking at how elite performers get to where they are.
Malcom Gladwell introduced the concept of the 10,000 hour rule in his book Outliers. This rule states that the tipping point to become elite at anything from gymnastics to piano to business was around 10,000 hours of intentional, focused practice. 10,000 hours. That is equivalent to 2 hours per day, 5 days a week, for over 19 years. Let that sink in. 19 years of practice.
Think about Griffey Jr. for a minute. He grew up in a major league clubhouse with his dad. He would watch big leaguers practice and play from the time he was in diapers. He could take batting practice with Pete Rose, run the bases with Joe Morgan, and talk strategy with Johnny Bench. The boy started his 10,000-hour clock before he could even spell baseball.
We choose to ignore the thousands of hours and millions of swings it took Griffey Jr. to make that swing look so effortless and natural. We prefer to hold him up as talented, not a hard worker. Hard worker is almost a consolation compliment for someone who doesn’t make it look easy enough. Hard work is looked at as an indicator that you are not as talented as you should be or maybe you weren’t meant to do this.
Michael Jordan believes the same thing about work, he said “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.” Jordan is known as the greatest basketball player of all time. It should come as no surprise that he was known amongst his teammates as the hardest worker as well. But we, as fans, just saw Air Jordan, the GOAT, the Natural.
Sports Illustrated is a repeat offender to this “natural” nonsense. They have deemed Tom Brady, Mike Trout, Lebron James, and Bryce Harper all as some form of the Natural. All of these “naturals” are coincidentally also widely regarded as some of the hardest workers in their sports. Heck, Tom Brady is so obsessed with hard work that he has created his own nutrition and workout program to optimize his performance.
But people look past the work. We only want to see the end result. We love the natural. It gives us a reason to put athletes on a pedestal because of their superhuman abilities. But this is true in any field, look at music, business, politics, television, medicine. You name it and we can point to the “natural.”
The Natural Narrative gives us a reason to stay stagnant. If we try and fail or if things get too hard, we chalk it up to the fact that we are not talented enough or we lack natural ability. It keeps us in a place of mediocrity while the elite continue to widen the gap through hours and hours of fine tuning and hard work.
Athletes, entrepreneurs, authors, doctors, actors, teachers, coaches, salesmen, it is true in any profession. Those that continue to work and overcome shortcomings, struggles, and obstacles are the ones that succeed. Those that not only embrace the hard work, but those that seek it out, are the ones that achieve more than others can even imagine.
Of course, hard work does not guarantee success, but I think deep down we all know this. Knowing this holds us back from trying at all. We are fearful of putting ourselves out there and looking foolish or even failing all together. It is safer for our ego to stay in our “natural” comfort zone of mediocrity than it is to go out and earnestly try to achieve our dreams.
With this being my last blog post of 2020, I want to encourage you to get out of that comfort zone. Stop believing that others are destined for greatness or they are naturally more talented than you. Get rid of the idea that you are incapable of achieving your dreams. It is not too late to start and you have all that you need. You will make mistakes, you will struggle, and you will learn along the way, but that is what the path to success looks like.
There are countless different roads to success but they are all paved with work.
Success looks very different to everyone. It could be starting a business, losing some weight, repairing a relationship, running a marathon, or getting that promotion. Whatever your goals are for the next year, go after them! Don’t worry about what anyone thinks, don’t worry about your “natural ability”, don’t worry about anything you cannot control.
While you certainly do not have to wait for a new year to begin pursuing your dreams, January 1st sure feels symbolic. If you are reading this after the fact, don’t wait for a new year or even a new week, start today. Sign up for my weekly encouraging blog posts. Go read “Dreams” and “Better Every Day”. Write down your goals and then get to it! Who knows, maybe one day after countless hours of work, someone may even call you a NATURAL…
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