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hard work and determination or natural ability


Stretch

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I hate to brake it to you, but this isn't Downhill

Ah please, give me a brake. You are braking my spirit
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three things are required but only two are really needed:

talent (genetics)

training (determination)

opportunity (luck)

 

As Spassky loved saying Korchnoi was the hardest working most dedicated chess player ever, but had no talent, so he always just lost the world championships to Spassky, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov.

 

Never ever under estimate the importance of opportunity. Some have got to world championships simply because of this. Opportunity is being there on race day when the competition is not, it is having the parent which buys the better equipment, it is being given a place on a team for political reasons, ext. Never ever waste an opportunity to prove that you have either talent or training (determination).

 

On talent read the book "the talent code" and "outliers". Often talent is the result of hard work, which was made to feel like fun, after all its not work if you enjoy it.

Edited by Witkop
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I don't have a talent for discipline...

 

(or much else actually)

At least you get my point

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Seeing as most of us are past our physical prime what if we take it to the absurd and use something like darts or croquet or lawn bowls where there is probably no genetic or age advantage. If you try to achieve the benchmark of 10 000 hours to become world class then you could practice three hours a day every day and complete that within ten years. You might not be the number 1 in the world but you would definitely win a few tournaments by then with so much hard work behind you assuming that you have trained yourself mentally to deal with pressure as well.

 

Now if you had started riding at the age of 6 you could have acheieved those 10 000 hours easily before you reached your physical peak. You would not be lacking in skill and it would be up to you to train and prepare yourself as much as you physically could. Maybe the stars align and things work out for you on a particular day or maybe they don't and you remain a top 30 journeyman but it certainly wouldn't be unachievable as long as you didn't suffer from any significant physical defect.

 

I think we do have a national croquet team so if any of you are still desperate to get your national colours.... Just tell people you played for the Proteas and change the subject before they ask which sport.

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Surroundings maybe, birth date I doubt....

 

Birth order, definitely - just under 70% of all Olympic gold medals are won by second children.... now why would that be do you suppose?

 

Of course, my mother said it's because there are more second children.... which caused several triple takes and much laughter....

 

Birth date is a similar concept to second child. At school I was born in the first half of the year and therefore placed with boys sometimes almost a complete year older than me. Net result is you are always competing with someone older and stronger

 

<sarcasm>thats why I am such a phenomenal athlete now</sarcasm>

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