Hello True Art Believers!

A year or two ago, I was sitting in an extremely hot and humid sauna.  Getting my sweat on, and it was glorious.  I would close my eyes and focus on my breathing, breathing in and breathing out. More often than not there would be a couple of people in there playing around with their phones.  Who does that by the way?  Smartphones are Friggin' expensive, why would you bring it into the sauna with you.  There are several reasons to not use your phone in a sauna, for one they do overheat and will shutdown or not operate if the temperature is too extreme. Another reason is that it's flat out gross, people are literally cascading sweat on their phone.  All so they can be entertained while they are supposed be relaxing and enjoying the serene heat rays of the sauna, but no, they must catch up on Kim Kardashian or real housewives of California or something silly like that.

Anyways I digress (as usual), so I am relaxing in the sauna and two guys start to talking.  They were talking about sports, one guy I gathered was a baseball player and the other I believe was a mixed martial arts coach. They were talking about training and the usual bro talk that happens at a gym.  There was one part specifically that I remembered, the baseball player made a statement about how many of his teammates spend their time partying and how he would rather go to the gym to train and improve.  The mma coach agreed and made the statement 'You can outwork talent" and I couldn't agree more.

In today's world there is this notion of talent, that you either born with it or not.  That is a bunch of horse crap.  That is a negative mind set and is self defeating from the beginning.  I want everyone out there to know, you all have skills, you just don't know it yet.  You want to be a master of something, here is the cold hard truth, you have got to work.  You have to put in the time and effort.  I say this because the notion of talent is an illusion.  It is this blanket statement we use to cover up our ineptitude at a skill we want to learn, but are unwilling to practice.  

Here are the facts,  you can not expect to improve in something if you don't practice it.  Even the people who you aspire to be, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, they worked, they put in the hours, and then they worked some more.  Now don't misinterpret talent for physical attributes, Phelps literally was built to swim.  But to ignore the fact that he spent more time in the water than on land is being ignorant.  Let us say that talent does exist, guess what, work harder than that person and you will pass them up.  Talent is static; you can't move it forward without the effort to maintain, nurture, and grow your "talents".  

If you are looking for guidance in improving your craft, easy, devote 30 minutes a day toward it.  That's too long, Okay, 15 minutes a day,  the length of time you spend practicing is not the point. The point is to be consistent, and consistency through time will yield growth and improvement.  Fifteen minutes a day for a week is 105 minutes, multiply that by 4, and you get 420 minutes.  Congratulations you have spent 7 hours a month toward getting better at something, not enough, okay, multiply that by 12 for months.  That gets you at 84 hours a year; 15 minutes not enough time, go back to 30 minutes a day and now you are spending 168 hours a year on getting better at something.  Heck, most people don't even work 168 hours a year at their full time job.  Those efforts through time, yield big results.  If my math is off, I do apologize, I don't spend my 30 minutes a day improving my math skills.  

Remember, you can outwork talent, now it is time for you to work towards your goals. 

-Matt