The Secret to Achieving More Success With Less Effort and Friction
Hard work actually doesn't beat talent
Your life is like dragging around a heavy concrete ball.
Step, drag. Step, drag. Step, drag.
As long as you continue to play the game wrong, everything will be difficult. Everything will be a slog. It’ll never come easy to you. Success will be out of reach, a carrot that dangles right in front of your nose.
But there are some people who don’t have that heavy ball to carry around. They actually float through life quite pleasantly with minimal friction. Everything comes easy to them and their ceiling is unlimited.
What’s the difference between you two? Why are you cursed, and they’re blessed?
Because they’ve listened…
Not to books, courses or mentors showing them the way. They listened to themselves and mastered the most obvious concept — the one-way ticket to success and happiness.
But you ignore it.
And I don’t blame you. I ignored it too. We didn’t know any better.
But I had a breakthrough while during a basketball workout that revealed the answer to me, and I’m going to share it with you.
“This is not your move.”
It was Friday night when I got an invite to the local basketball court from my buddy Jeziel.
Jeziel, and his brother Neri, are from Mexico — I met them at the court and we instantly clicked. They’re very smart. Subtle head and eye movements are all you need to tell if someone really understands the sport. They’d played high-level in Mexico.
That Saturday morning, they were teaching me some concepts to improve my game.
As we worked out, I tried different moves to score, but Jeziel kept saying this phrase:
“This is not your move.”
Even when I made the shot, I heard that thick Spanish accent saying:
“This is not your move.”
Not my move?
I didn’t really get what he meant. Can’t I just learn the move? I thought it might’ve been a language barrier issue, so I just kept it moving.
At one point I made an unorthodox shot where I went off my right leg and shot with my right hand — something I feel comfortable with and have been doing for a few years.
“That’s your move!” he said with a spring in his step, “I cannot do that — but it’s easy for you!”
Ahhhhhhh— I get it now.
It’s actually so obvious.
I was trying to force things into my game that weren’t me. I don’t have that high-level athleticism to leap toward the hoop and finish amongst the trees. I’m not 6'8 and 110kg and can run like a gazelle.
But there is always an advantage that you have.
Look at the greatest 3-point scorer in the history of basketball — Stephen Curry.
He was called: too short, too skinny and too small to succeed at the professional level. But they were wrong. Why?
Because they assumed he was going to play like the other players.
If would’ve approached the game like the average player, the scouts would’ve been right. If he’d tried to jump over everyone and beat them with athleticism, you’d probably be sending your tax return to Stephen Curry Accounting Services.
But instead, he found his natural ability to score from far away — supreme hand-eye coordination and balance — and doubled down. Tripled down.
Not only did he succeed, he changed the way the game is played. He became so efficient that the statistics said shooting 3 pointers at that clip is more efficient than most 2 pointers.
Jeziel was trying to find something that came effortlessly to me. Something that used my quickness, but also something fit within my body’s natural movements and capabilities. Something that looked fluid, something that came easy to me.
And that’s exactly what we should all be looking for in our lives.
Hard work actually doesn’t beat talent…
Sorry to break it to you, but it’s the truth.
“Hard work beats talent, when talent fails to work hard” assumes your opponent isn’t working hard.
But what if they do work hard?
Picture this: two friends have to renovate a house.
Peter Painter has smooth and fluid movements. He also has a great eye for colour and styling.
2. Hannah Hammer is precise, calculated and accurate. She loves measurements and is incredibly detailed.
Who do you think should pick up the paintbrush, and who should pick up the hammer?
If Peter Painter picked up the hammer, he’d hit his thumb more than the nail. He’d hammer the timber in wrong and the house would be as structurally sound as a sandcastle. He could sit and hammer for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, and he’d never hammer as well as Hannah could by praciticng 2 hours a day, 5 days a week.
But if he picked up the brush, he’d paint beautifully, and be able to create an amazing feature piece too.
And guess what? It’d be easy for him. Because that’s his natural ability. That’s his strength.
Don’t resist your strengths
“If a pen resisted being written with, and a chair resisted being sat on, they’d be nothing more than paperweights.”
— Chin-Ning Chu
Why are you avoiding your strengths?
Why are you trying to do things that others think you should do?
Why is the artist studying Engineering?
Because it’s safe? It pays well?
No matter how hard you work and study, you’ll never achieve what you could’ve achieved as an artist. Or at least in an art related field. You’d be better off in interior design or something like that if you’ve got an eye for it.
Don’t resist your strengths. Leverage them. They are your superpower.
Everyone seems to forget to look inwards and see what their natural abilities are. I forgot to as well.
But change that right now.
Your slingshot to success is sitting and analysing your own strengths and natural talents, and attacking life from that angle. We all have natural ability, and if you think you don’t, you just haven’t found yours yet.
So many of us get pigeonholed into what our parents think is good, what the world deems secure and what is generally accepted as a good path.
But your natural abilities — your ‘God Given Gifts’ — are nothing to be ashamed of, hidden or reserved for side hobbies.
They should be the absolute crux of everything you do.
Everything should point toward this question:
How can I play to my strengths?
The more you play to your strengths, the more success you’ll see and the EASIER it’ll come.
When you hit a baseball, it’s the one that feels easy and natural that goes the furthest.
When you shoot a basketball, it’s the one that rolls of your fingers nice and smoothly that goes in.
Look for that feeling.
What’s your unfair advantage?
What comes easy to you? What do you have an unfair advantage at? Try everything. Experiment. Ruthlessly give new things a shot until something just works.
I remember my friend Rory was hopping around jobs while he was living in Brisbane. His gift was how well he could talk to people and make them feel warm. And it wasn’t until he tried door-to-door sales that he excelled. He was the highest performing member within a couple weeks of starting.
“It doesn’t feel like work” — he’d say.
Find your natural aptitudes, what feels fluid and frictionless and work with that.
Don’t force the screw in at an angle.
Take it out, realign and try again. It didn’t work? Take it out, realign and try again. And again, and again, and again.
Then, eventually, the screw will glide right into place with basically no friction.
And that is when you know you’re maximising your abilities and that you’re on the right path — that you’re swimming with the current and not against it.
Find your move.
Thank you for reading this if you got here.
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Ideas like this genuinely do make self-improvement more interesting and simple to me, and my aim is just to share that with you.
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I understand what you are saying but sometimes the truth is somewhere in between. Usually what you want to be and what you can be are different. Part of the pleasure comes from the effort you put into the task. If it comes naturally, it may not be as much appreciated by yourself as some other outcome that is only half as good but needed you working your ass off for it.