You Can't Stumble Your Way Into Excellence: Refining Natural Ability

Welcome back to another episode of Halftime Talks. My name is Rahim Rasul, and you’re listening to the podcast that recognizes that in the middle of your game of life, whether you’re by 10 or down by 20, we all need halftime talks to uplift us, inspire us and challenge us to bring that level of performance it’s gonna take to win the game.

So we’re back with another episode of halftime talks before we begin, we got to start in the right place, and that place is a little bit of appreciation. Today, I want to appreciate all the manner of breadcrumbs we leave for ourself, that we leave for ourselves, that make us feel better along the way, be it the photography, be it the journal entries, be it the appreciation, be it our body of work that are capable of encapsulating where we were in a given moment. And as soon as we pick up one of those tokens, those breadcrumbs, and look at witness, we’re transported back into a time, a time when it was working, a time where we can truly appreciate the value of how far we’ve come since then, and that that is a beautiful feeling, and that’s why I want to dedicate this appreciation To those breadcrumbs. Keep leaving them and keep noticing them.

We keep rolling these episodes out, and I absolutely love it. So welcome back for another episode. To prepare you for this episode. In this episode, what we’re going to be talking about, as the title kind of insinuates is that you cannot stumble keyword, stumble your way into next keyword, excellence. You cannot stumble into excellence. You might randomly find a way to stumble into an ability that might have been hidden, but you can’t stumble into excellence. And so we’re going to be talking about how there are levels to excellence, how we must refine them. And so as we prepare for this episode, I want you to get your thinking caps on. Get prepared to take some mental notes and slap on your seat belt, because it’s about to go down. So here we go.

What do I mean when I say that you can’t stumble your way into excellence right now, at this point in human history, we are at the highest point, obviously, of population, as well as people point in human history, we are at the highest point, obviously, of population, as well as people chasing, and I’m using that word, very deliberately, chasing success, despite Their definition. They’re chasing success. They’re chasing that breakthrough moment which will catapult them beyond what they’ve prepared for, and when they find themselves in that foreign territory, what inevitably may happen. So there’s no such thing as a moment of excellence. You know excellence exists beyond just that rare glimpse, that rare, random sighting of excellence.

It’s something that you cultivate. Now natural talent is something that you can stumble upon. Raw talent is something that you can stumble upon, but talent at best can only get you attention because that attention starts to clock, and that attention that you get puts demands on you to conform toward excellence with natural talent and raw ability. There are times that we can perform beyond our ability. There are moments of inspiration that can leap us beyond our conceptual understanding of how to even repeat it. These surreal moments give us glimpses at what we’re capable of, and I mean capacity, not actuality, and integrated skill and. Excellence is all about consistency and integration and deliberate practice to expand and refine on top of that natural talent, because this generation right now, hats off.

Round of applause, you’ve cultivated the ability, beyond anything in human history, to acquire attention. One of my favorite songs for the mid 90s, that I always used to say is I could give it to you, but what should go do with it? You have the canvas of attention. What are the what’s the substance? What are the works that you are putting on it? You could stumble into attention. You can capture and cultivate attention. But what are you going to do with it? And we’ve seen it over and over in the course of human history. We call it the 15 seconds of fame. Can you come back with the next single?

Can you come back with the next set? Can you go from beyond us, seeing what you’re capable of doing, to bringing it on a consistent night excellence, like I said at the beginning, nobody brags about a moment of excellence. It’s not excellence, if it’s just a moment. It is you successfully playing beyond your ability. Being in the zone once is not excellence. It was an excellent night. Excellence is pushing that line of performance to a level that few have achieved. There’s a quote I’ve said this quote a million times. It feels like we don’t rise to the level of our hopes, we fall to the level of our training.

So please understand that each skill, each understanding, each ounce of confidence, combines into an exponential product. And this confuses us sometimes in the outside because we’re asked to judge natural ability and talent, but natural ability and talent don’t win. There’s another popular quote that says, Hard work beats natural talent where natural talent doesn’t work hard you can’t stumble your way into excellence. You know what I’m saying? I keep repeating this because I want it to sink in your natural ability, and raw talent must be refined ability, because at each stage, what is required goes beyond that natural ability. That natural ability will be a prerequisite to achieve in that next level be at the next level of leadership, the next level of understanding, you’ll have to learn how to grow and adapt, because with the attention the clock is ticking, demands are set.

I don’t know how many amazing artists come out with their first album that’s taken their whole life to get that level of attention to launch, and soon thereafter, you hear nothing from them. They don’t bring it back, they don’t cultivate your attention, they don’t refine the skill and ability to continue the arc of their career, and we call that the sophomore slump. How many times have you seen an NBA player drafted in the top five picks, and five years later you’re like, where are they? And there’s no need to go into the specifics of who these people might be, but understand that it can happen to you.

So stop chasing one of the things I say is stop chasing that success and commit yourself to cultivating the excellence, cultivating the skills, which will be the bedrock for which everything that you want to create will grow from. If you listen to the deliberateness of the words that I used, I said stumble and stumble by its own definition, does not really have the level of deliberateness required to be exacting. It’s random, low probability shaking the dice and hoping, hoping that your efforts will lead you in a direction that your dreams kind of presuppose. Another thing that I said is chasing, and I use that. Word earlier, I said very deliberately, because chasing means that you are pursuing from behind.

Once we stop chasing, stop hoping, and start hunting excellence, we start understanding the rhythms and patterns of where it emerged. We know where to meet it. We show up early because we understand where it congregates, and as we understand how it congregates, we have to begin to identify how to approach it, how to stalk the prey of excellence. And that’s going to require us to commit a level of learning, a level of skill development, a level so that once you’re invited in the room, once you’re invited in the room, this is not the opportunity for attention. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate the quality of the work, the quality of the character that you belong there, and guess what, even in there, you’re going to have to learn and adapt and accelerate beyond the 8020 in there to be exceptional within that space.

Exceptionalism is an accident. It is not an accident. You can’t stumble into it. You have to hunt it. You have to put it on your radar. You have to relate with it. You have to go to sleep with it. You have to wake up with it. If you want to be great, recognize this great and do and perform in a level that’s commiserate with how we see great in the world where you have the respect of the top of your peers. This is not an idol pursuit. This is not lucky. This is not the one hit wonder. This is something that we are constructing and orienting our whole consciousness around You’ve heard it said by hundreds of people, I am a 10 year overnight success because they’ve committed to the process they started in humble places They didn’t try to reach beyond where their grasp could clutch.

So the stumbling means that there was no vision nor balance, and the chasing means that you did not understand the patterns of its path. So recognize with me that you can’t stumble into success. You might be able to capture the attention by chance, but with that attention comes a demand for performance, and the only way to systematically raise to the level of capacity in which the performance is expected, is to cultivate that excellence on a day in, day out basis, beginning right now. You can’t look at it once a week or once a month. This is something that you have to dedicate time to each day.

Stop trying to stumble into excellence. Stop trying to chase the attention, because once you have it, what are you gonna do with it? Peace. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you also check out episode number 57 in it for the long haul and episode number 45 entitlement The world owes you nothing. Our entire library is available on our website, halftimetalks.net, as well as the iTunes podcast library. While you’re on there, do us a favor, SUBSCRIBE and leave a review. Not only will we love it, but it would also make our podcast more findable, discoverable for other people like you who can gain benefit from the podcast.

So until next time, go out there in the second half of the game and play to win, tune in next week, as we are going to be talking about who knows you or who you know, creating a reputation that precedes you. You.