skill | The Caleb Barney Collection

Being true to yourself

Be true to yourself. Nowadays, people want to become famous just to be famous. It’s not because they’re necessarily striving to be great at anything or known for being excellent at their craft. They sell out – doing or saying things that don’t align with who they really are just to try to get more likes or to make a viral video.

If you are only putting out the content because you want to get as many likes as possible you need to take a look in the mirror. Why are you trying to impress people that you’ve never met and likely never will meet? If the work that you’re putting out into the world is not something you’re proud of, why do it? Don’t do things to impress a random person or say the something on social media because you think it will be accepted by the main stream. You should do, say, and create things because they matter to you.

The world is full of individuals. We are all unique and that’s what makes this such a wonderful place. Be the real you. You may offend some people or turn others off, but the people who like your actions? They’ll like the real you. And you’ll be able to form a deeper bond/connection with them than any of the shallow connections of getting a few likes on a post.

Three success factors

To achieve optimum success, one needs to have the ability, work ethic, and luck. One of these is in our control, while the other two are (mostly) not.

Take ability, for example. Some people are born with an innate ability or have the physical characteristics to be more prone to succeed in certain arenas. LeBron James was built to be a superstar athlete. No matter how much work ethic or luck I have, I don’t have the same natural gift/ability that he has. Not many people do. But there have been other athletes who were just as talented as LeBron and who haven’t achieved his level of success. This is because LeBron optimizes his natural ability by also having an incredible work ethic.

This leads to the next success factor, which is work ethic. Work ethic is the only thing we have complete control over. Every morning we wake up, we make the decision on how we want to use our day. When we’re at work, are we actually working or are we scrolling through social media or reading espn? Do we casually going through the day or do we have a plan? Set our intentions for each day. What is the one thing we need to do in each area of our lives (mental, physical, spiritual, relational, financial, and vocational) to get us closer to our goals? Are we living intentionally?

Lastly, the success factor with the biggest variation – luck. Some people seem to have great luck while others have “bad” luck. But while some of what we experience is “luck of the draw,” a lot of times there are little things we can do to better position ourselves. If we have a good attitude, and are a great team player, we generally will have more luck. If we share our goals with other people and are likable, other people will want to help us when they can. But they can’t help us unless they know what we’re aiming for. And they won’t help us if they don’t like us. So be kind to everyone, be generous, be curious, have a good work ethic, contribute to a positive culture, and be willing to be vulnerable. Take calculated risks (preferably asymmetric risks, where the cost is low, but the potential reward is high).

The key to greatness

To be great, you have to be consistent. You have to be disciplined. You may have natural talent/ability, but without nurturing it and growing it through consistent effort, you will never achieve true greatness.

Do you think LeBron James or Michael Jordan were born with gifts that you and I don’t have? Yes. That’s how the world works. Everyone is different. But they also worked tirelessly for years on end, spent millions of dollars investing in their bodies to help strengthen them, honed their craft with hours in the gym, etc. They had natural ability, but so do a lot of other guys in the NBA. It was their consistent, focused effort over many years that helped them become the greatest of all time.

While it is easy to think of sports as the best analogy here, it applies to everything we do in life. Want to be better at your job? What actions are you taking daily to train to become the best? Do you role play scenarios with other team members? Do you take continuing education classes? Do you read about specific subjects to help you or watch “how to” videos?

You don’t improve the most by going to a weeklong seminar once per year and then not doing anything else until next year’s seminar. You improve the most by taking small, focused actions every single day, always building upon the previous day.

What actions are you willing to take to achieve greatness – not today, and not tomorrow, but five, ten, or twenty years from now? Are you able to look at the big picture and base your decisions on that instead of what feels good today? Do you have the discipline to repeat the monotonous actions (slightly/slowly improving over time)? If you want to be mediocre, that’s fine. You can live a good life coasting through it. But if you want to achieve greatness, you have to endure many unheroic days to reach some heroic decades in the future…

Sport-specific training

Working on your genera fitness is great for most people. This would include your average working out like running, lifting weights, or doing yoga. But general physical preparedness (GPP, as we call it in the biz) should only be the baseline for those who are training for a specific sport or event. GPP focuses on health, but not on performance. And while you typically need to be healthy to perform at the highest level, being healthy does not necessarily translate to athletic achievement.

For example, in most sports, it helps to have one or more of the following attributes: strength, explosiveness/power, flexibility, agility, aerobic and anaerobic conditioning, etc. You can easily work on all of those at the gym by yourself. But no matter your strength or conditioning level, you still need sport-specific training to work on your skills if you want to excel at your sport. It doesn’t matter how many times you hit the weights or run, those are not going to make you run a better route, use better technique, or improve your hand-eye coordination. Being more agile will not make you a better shooter, swimmer, golfer, etc.

Always work to have GPP. But if you are competing in a sport, make sure you take the time to focus on your sport-specific skills. Most of the time, if someone is highly skilled and in decent shape, they will outperform someone with low-to-moderate skill but is in great shape.

Ability

There is natural ability (what you’re capable with very little training) and there is learned ability (effort that you put in to increase your overall ceiling for achievement). Don’t rely too much on natural ability. This can lead to overconfidence and a lackadaisical approach to learning, growing, or improving. Don’t discredit yourself thinking that you don’t have much natural ability either. You are more capable than you believe. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’re less likely to step out of your comfort zone and try to tackle new challenges that can help you grow.