Talent, Skill and Craft

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http://michaelmindes.com/wisdom-wayne-gretzky-quotes

You don't make it to the elite by practicing one hour a week. Look at anybody who dominated a sport. They wouldn't have even got a sniff of the pros, if they hadn't started at a young age and hadn't dedicated their lives to that sport.


This could apply to any pro athlete in any sport not just hockey.

Wayne Gretzky is legendary on the ice. He did not become a legend overnight and had no physical advantages. When he began in the NHL, he stood 6ft tall and weighed in at 160 pounds. Many critics claimed that Wayne Gretzky was “too small, too wiry, and too slow to be a force in the NHL.” The critics were absolutely correct about The Great One’s size. The critics did not account for hard work, intelligence, knowledge of the game, and vision. Let’s hear directly from Wayne Gretzky’s quotes, and look into their wisdom.

“The only way a kid is going to practice is if it’s total fun for him… and it was for me.” – Wayne Gretzky

The popularity of the “10,000 hours of practice to become an expert” idea is on the rise. This is not an hour of practice repeated 10,000 times. It is 10,000 hours of increasingly difficult tasks. To practice this much it not only needs to be “total fun” for a child, but it also needs to be “total fun” for adults. To become an expert, practice every day without fail:

One hour per day requires 27 years 139 days to become an expert
Two hours per day requires 13 years 252 days to become an expert
Three hours per day requires 9 years 46 days to become an expert
Four hours per day requires 6 years 308 days to become an expert
Are you willing to commit that consistent effort into becoming an expert? Only if you love it. If you are not willing to commit the effort, do not expect children to commit such effort.

“The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day, that I never dog it.” – Wayne Gretzky

The harder you work every day, the better you will become. In Wayne Gretzky’s auto-biography he said:

“All I wanted to do in the winters was be on the ice. I’d get up in the morning, skate from 7:00 to 8:30, go to school, come home at 3:30, stay on the ice until my mom insisted I come in for dinner, eat in my skates, and then go back out until 9:00. On Saturdays and Sundays we’d have huge games, but nighttime became my time. It was a sort of unwritten rule around the neighborhood that I was to be out there myself or with my dad.”

With that desire to skate, play hockey, and practice, it is not a surprise that Wayne Gretzky is now recognized as the best hockey player ever. That is 6 hours a day of practice in the winter. If the winter lasts 4 months in Canada it would have taken him almost 14 years to become a true expert. Since he practiced starting at 3 years old, he was able to begin his NHL career at 18.

“I wasn’t naturally gifted in terms of size and speed; everything I did in hockey I worked for, and that’s the way I’ll be as a coach.” – Wayne Gretzky

You need to expect results from hard work and proper practice. If you are frustrated with your skill level, start working hard and improvements will come. I started this blog to improve my writing skills. I loved to write when I was younger, read and wrote a lot as a Philosophy major in college, but I still feel that my skills are insufficient. Ask yourself, what do I want to improve upon in my life? Write down five things you want to be better at, choose one you love and get started.

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky

This is absolutely true. Listen to your gut! Whatever your intuition is telling you to go after, stop debating, and go after it!