The quote in the title is attributed to the famous ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, who is considered as the greatest hockey player of all time by many sportswriters. He holds a small number of 60 National Hockey League records (as of 2014), even though he retired in 1999. In the book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell makes an assertion that those individuals who attained legendary success in their vocation had a common link of having had to practice 10000 hours to hone their skills. This was consistent feature from Mozart, to the Beatles, to Bill Gates and certainly of those involved in professional sport of any kind. But is practice for a certain number of hours enough to achieve the superlative feats of a Michael Phelps or a Warren Buffett? What separates the good from the great and great from the legendary?
Enter the curious case of Sir Donald Bradman, a cricketer with a mindboggling batting average of 99.94 in Test Cricket. Why is this feat extraordinary? Because in roughly 140 years of professional cricket, the next best batsmen has an average close to 61. He is often touted as greatest sportsman of all time as the extent of his dominance and the longevity of his record is unique in all of sports. People have spent years trying to decode the secret to his success. But one aspect of his early training caught the eye of many. As a young boy, he invented a game in which he attempted to hit a golf ball with a cricket stump against a water tank in the yard at the back of the Bradman home. He wrote in his autobiography, Farewell to Cricket: “The golf ball came back at great speed and to hit it at all with the round stump was no easy task. This rather extraordinary and primitive idea was purely a matter of amusement, but looking back I can understand how it must have developed the co-ordination of brain, eye and muscle which was to serve me so well in important matches later on.”
In simple words, he had trained hundreds of hours playing a game much harder than cricket. The actual game was far easier for him than others.
But you will see this theme repeat itself in other geniuses too. Take Simone Biles for example. She has an air of effortless ease and nonchalance in her dazzling performances blending artistic beauty and athletic prowess in the grandest of stages and that disarming smile of pure joy she wears most of the time delights all. Great performances in sport and music or art have a way of creating a singularity in the time-space continuum. For a time, we are quiet and still within and everything appears just right even if there is noise all round, we live for such moments. But these great performances are built on the bedrock of blood, sweat and toil and most importantly intelligent practice. Simone Biles during routines at level higher with greater risk than what she performs in gymnastic competitions. Of course, she is way ahead of her competitors.
How can we apply, what we have just learned? Tweak your practice regimen. In any field, it is possible to make things harder. For example, if you are playing five-a side football, play five on four. But don’t make it too difficult that it is depressing. Don’t play five on one that will not get you anywhere. It is also important to enjoy the practice. Remember Don was just a kid having fun by himself alone in a field. And even though Simone Biles had to give up on her normal school life for home schooling to miss accommodate her practice regimen, she could do it because gymnastics was fun.
Choice is yours. Whether you want to be ordinary or extra-ordinary or legendary? You become what you place your focus on. You can choose to play at the same level as what is expected of you or play a game nobody has a chance of competing with you.
Don’t move where the puck is, Move where the puck will be.
Then may be one day, I get the privilege to write about you too, if I am up to it.
Image from Hubble Space Telescope (bright spots represent galaxies)
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