Players at that level are just different

Recently I was able to attend a college football game for one of the larger college football programs in the country.  The father of one of the players coached me in football when I was younger so I have known him for years.

At our tailgate, long with his family and many friends and acquaintances was another high school football coach.  I was able to strike up conversation with both of them about football and their observations.

It was interesting to hear their thoughts and several things stuck out with me.  First, the father gave the advice that these players have to dream big.  They have to work towards larger goals than most people.

Because of their talent and abilities, they should use their ingrained advantages to allow themselves to chase the largest dreams and goals in life.  It seemed that having worked hard to get where they are, now gave them, in others’ eyes, the ability to dream even larger. 

But to me, I took this message as a prompt to everyone.  We all have special talents and abilities to succeed.  Regardless of where we fall on the talent scale, we can all learn to dream big.  In this definition of dreaming big means doing the difficult work necessary to achieve big dreams. 

It was inspiring to hear his take on what it meant to dream big.  It was a stark contrast from how most people would dream big. 

Instead of wishing and hoping, it was more about working and planning.  It became more about doing what is necessary to help make the dream a reality. 

Hearing from the player’s former coach was also very interesting.  At one point he started talking about the elite players that he has coached. 

He said, “They are just different.  They look different.  They workout different.  They play different.  They prepare different.”

He went on to explain how he could tell an athlete that would reach this high level (Division I).  He explained that it wasn’t by following the herd or just doing the minimum get by.  

He talked about their resolve to act differently.  He contrasted their ability to keep working while others would slow down and coast.  He talked about how this translated into being able to be better in many of these aspects of the game. 

In other words, they used their skills and abilities to keep working harder than everyone else to achieve more.  Then, when they reached their goals, they kept putting in the work to get even better.  It seems like they just have a natural drive that kept pushing them towards success. 

Yet most people automatically assume these athletes are where they are due to talent.  In fact, if you asked most people what percentage was talent and what percentage was hard work, I’m sure you would hear something like 90% being due to talent.   

But this isn’t the case.  In fact, tracking many of these situations, I have found that there is much less talent and much more work than what we see from the outside.

We don’t see the hours and hours and hours of work to perfect their performance.  We simply see the final result, the elevated performance.  So we assume the work was only a small part.  But the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. 

That is why I feel we all have to learn how to dream big and then act differently in order to put in the work to succeed.  We can’t simply wander around waiting for inspiration or waiting for us to find our elite talent. 

We have to, instead, have a clear vision of what we want to achieve and then work like crazy to achieve that goal.  Sure, talent will matter.  But talent matters much less than you probably think and the work matters much more.