Talent Is Never Enough For Success

Talent is just the starting point for a success, on or off the golf course. It’s what you add to your talent that will get you extraordinary results. New York Times best-selling author Dr. John C. Maxwell has a message for you, and for today’s corporate culture fixated on talent above all else: “Talent Is Never Enough”. People everywhere are proving him right. Read the headlines, watch the highlights, or just step out your front door: Some talented people reach their full potential, while others self-destruct or remain trapped in mediocrity. What makes the difference?

Maxwell, the go-to guru for business professionals across the globe, insists that the choices people make – not merely the skills they inherit – propel them onto greatness. With authentic examples and time-tested wisdom, Maxwell shares the attributes you need to maximize your potential. All of these apply to a golfer.

1. Belief Lifts Your Talent

To reach your potential, you must first believe in your potential and determine to live way beyond average! Try to see yourself as you could be, and then do everything in your power to believe that you can become that person.

• Believe in yourself
• Believe in your potential
• Believe in your purpose

2. Passion Energises Your Talent

Passion can energise every aspect of your life including your talent. A passionate person with limited talent will outperform a passive person who possesses great talent. Passionate people act with boundless enthusiasm, and they just keep on going until they reach their goal.

Find something to be passionate about.

• Passion is the first step to achievement
• Passion creates fire
• Passion produces energy
• Passions increase willpower
• Passion is the foundation for excellence
• Passion is the key to success
• Passion makes a person contagious

3. Initiative Activates Your Talent

Don’t wait for everything to be perfect to move forward. Don’t wait for the problem to disappear. Don’t wait to gain your confidence or fear to subside. Start by taking the first step and things will get easier when you get momentum.

Here’s how having initiative activates your talent:

• You accept responsibility for your life
• You examine your reasons for not initiating
• You focus on the benefits of completing a task
• You share your goal with a friend who will help you
• You break large tasks down into smaller ones
• You allocate specific times for tasks you might procrastinate
• You get going!!

4. Focus Directs Your Talent

Facts about Focus:

• Focus does not come naturally to most people
• Focus increases your energy
• Focus lifts you
• Focus expands your life
• Focus must be intentionally sustained

Suggestions for Improving Your Focus:

• Be intentional – make every action count
• Challenge your excuses
• Don’t let yesterday hijack your attention
• Focus on the present
• Stay focused on results
• Develop and follow your priorities
• Focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses
• Delay rewards until the job is done

5. Preparation Positions Your Talent

Principles of preparation:

• Preparation allows you to tap into your talent
• Preparation is a process, not an event
• Preparation precedes opportunity
• Preparation for tomorrow begins with the right use of today
• Preparation requires continually good perspective
• Good preparation leads to action

6. Practice Sharpens Your Talent

Practice makes perfect. Consistent practice sharpens your talent. Practice requires us to make the extra effort that differentiates us from success with failure.

John Maxwell says there are 5 elements upon which great practice rests:

• An excellent teacher or coach
• Your best effort
• A clear purpose
• The greatest potential
• The right resources.

7. Perseverance Sustains Your Talent

Another word for perseverance is grit. Talent provides hope for reaching your potential, but perseverance, or grit, guarantees it. Perseverance cannot survive without a purpose.

Things to consider about perseverance:

• Perseverance means succeeding because you are determined to, not destined to
• Perseverance recognises life is not a long race, but many short ones in succession
• Perseverance is needed to release most of life’s rewards
• Perseverance draws sweetness out of adversity
• Perseverance has a compounding effect of life
• Perseverance means stopping not because you’re tired but because the task is done
• Perseverance doesn’t demand more than we have but all that we have.

8. Learning Expands Your Talent

It is the desire to learn, unlearn, relearn, and apply. You will expand if you keep expecting and striving to learn. Learning is a lifelong pursuit.

Learning truths:

• Nothing is interesting if you’re not interested
• Successful people view learning differently from those who are unsuccessful
• Learning is meant to be a lifelong pursuit
• Talented people can be the toughest to teach
• Pride is the number one hindrance to teachability

How to open up and be teachable:

• Learn to LISTEN
• Understand the learning process
• Look for and plan teachable moments
• Make your teachable moments count

9. Character Protects Your Talent

People are like icebergs. There’s much more to them than meets the eye. When you look at an iceberg, only about 15 percent is visible – that’s talent. The rest – their character – is below the surface, hidden. The greater their talent is, the greater their need is for strong character “below the surface” to sustain them.

The 4 elements that comprise character:

• Self-discipline
• Core values
• A sense of identity
• Integrity

Develop your character:

• Don’t give up or give in to adversity
• Do the right thing
• Take control of your life

10. Responsibility Strengthens Your Talent

We live in a culture that overvalues talent and undervalues responsibility. Responsibility is the foundation of success. It is a sacrifice that brings tremendous rewards.

How responsibility helps:

• It provides the foundation of success
• Handled correctly, it leads to more responsibility
• It maximises ability and opportunity
• Over time, it builds a solid reputation

Take the following steps to strengthen your ability to be responsible:

• Start wherever you are
• Choose your friends wisely
• Stop blaming others
• Learn responsibility’s major lessons
• Make tough decisions and stand by them
• Live beyond yourself

“The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

Next steps

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