When people talk about Michael Jordan being a natural talent, it sends shivers down my spine… the same effect as fingernails on a chalk board, but how many people are left who know about fingernails on chalk boards? White boards are not the same thing…

To call Michael Jordan a natural talent is an insult, a slap in the face. To call someone a natural talent is to discount any efforts on their part to become who they are. Michael Jordan worked hard to achieve the level of achievement he reached. It was not fluke of nature. It was not some act of a benevolent god who looked down from on high and decided this child, above others, will go far… he will be blessed.

What Michael Jordan did possess was determination. Grit. Tenacity. He worked hard to reach the heights he did. He did NOT leave it to chance. He didn’t say, “this is good enough”. He pushed on to work harder and longer than the competition. This was his natural talent. That, and his parents pushing him.

And it was not just practice—it was DELIBERATE PRACTICE. He practiced specific skills to get them right. There was a method to his madness.

Remember John Wooden? Coach of UCLA Bruins? Do you know what he taught each team member when they joined the team? Not lay-ups, not 3 pointers, not positions. No. The first thing he taught all of his players was more basic: he taught those college basketball players the proper way to put on their socks. No joke! Because fundamentals are VITAL. If the boys had problems with their socks, it would impede their game. You can’t play your best when your feet hurt you. He was very deliberate in his methods. These guys were not naturals…they needed to be trained.

You might come back to me and say what about Mozart! He was a child prodigy! He had natural talent. As it turns out this is well researched. Mozart’s father was a concert pianist who never reached the height he desired. He was determined his children would EXCEL. Mozart was there as his older sister was learning the piano and then came his turn. His father worked with him from a very early age. Like Tiger Wood’s dad, like the Serena and Vanessa Williams’s dad…. PUSHED, trained, working hard from a very early age.

This is not natural talent. This is the payoff of hard work. This is something interesting about American culture. We don’t want to look like we’re working hard. We want it to appear like we have natural talent, that whatever it is we’re doing comes easily to us. Effort, perseverance, tenacity, grit… these are the factors that should be recognized, acknowledged, rewarded. To brush all this aside and say the person is naturally talented to a cop out! A total cop out! You are giving YOURSELF an excuse for not achieving more in your life. “Oh, he has natural talent… I don’t have natural talent so I can’t do that. No need to try.” Well, you may not be 7 feet tall (which does help in basketball), but if you put in the hours of deliberate labor that ANY professional ball player put in, then you would have a decent game yourself!

“Natural Talent” or years of practice?

Or you could put the hours in cooking if that’s what you love, or writing, or knitting, whatever it is that you are interested in doing! It takes time in the game to build the experience necessary to be a “natural talent”. A “natural talent” is akin to an “overnight success” which usually takes about 20 years to achieve.

This information is especially important for parents. When you talk to your kids, be sure to acknowledge the effort and work something takes. Don’t write off someone’s success as a natural talent, but recognize what goes in to being a success at any level. It’s not easy. And by training your kids to understand that success takes work, takes effort, and is not something that some people randomly get while others don’t, will prepare them for the future.

As I’ve said many times in the past, you have to be in the arena to win. As those lottery people say, you can’t win if you don’t play.

If you are working on deciphering where to focus your efforts so you can excel in your area, the Find Your Brilliance program helps you create the framework to do just that. Get a clear picture of your gifts, talents, joy factor and more! For more information, or to receive a detailed brochure about the program, ping me back and I will send it to you! I am now filling Fall time slots so act today for the best schedule!

The information in today’s blog comes from

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Robert Pool and Anders Ericsson

Deep Work by Cal Newport

Thank you to Samantha Glocker for my illustration!