The Shop | Talent Needs Drive

I was watching The Shop, a show produced and put together by Lebron James and his team of people that airs on HBO when they started talking about the importance of combining talent with work-ethic to reach the next level of success.

I am always looking for different forms of motivation for myself and my daughters, and The Shop had about a 5-minute conversation on how important it is to combine work ethic and talent.

Here are a few quotes that I took from the show:

LeBron James:  Everyone is blessed with the ability to do something.  Once you find what you are talented at, you have to have that DRIVE to want to be great and the DRIVE to go through it.  Yes, you might have the talent and a vision, but once you have the vision, there is going to be something, OBSTACLES, that are going to be placed in front of you.  We all go through adversity.  But the successful people have a will that won’t let them stop.

Bill Hader (Saturday Night Live): I had bad anxiety going into it, and they said, ‘Well, it’s going to get worse.’  But I had a second kid and I needed some money, so I had to go through it to get to it.  Anxiety, stress, obstacles, and failure are all a part of the journey.  Its how you go through it and what you learn from it that defines you and makes you who you are.

Demar DeRozan getting traded to the Spurs:  He didn’t talk to anybody.  He left and went to Anguilla for 8 days because trade talks were everywhere and he had to get away from everything.  The first person that he talked to was Pop (Greg Popovich).  Pop said that he traded for him and that they WANTED him.  It made him deal with the trade head-on and wouldn’t let him run from it.

He said that him getting drafted to Toronto was the best thing for his career.  ‘I was in the gym, every single night.  I’m glad that I took that approach because there were other guys drafted with him that weren’t in the league after 5 years because they weren't working on his game like he was.'

Question for Rick Rubin – Were you ever around artists who were fantastic, but just didn’t know how to be pros?  If they just learned how to be a pro, they could go all of the ways.

Rick Rubin:  The talent piece is unique, but there are so many talented people who, without the work ethic, we would never hear their names.

Steve Martin Didn't Just Wake Up To Be Steve Martin

Steve Martin Monologue:  Steve Martin was hosting SNL one night, and Bill Hader walks by Steve Martin’s dressing room and heard Steve Martin practicing his monologue by himself.  That is when he realized, ‘Oh Steve Martin isn’t just Steve Martin.  He has to work really hard to be Steve Martin.  He doesn’t just wake up and is Steve Martin.’

You don’t just wake up great.  You have to put the work in to be great.

Demar DeRozan said that a lot of guys come into the NBA and cruise through when they get they get their money.  The best stuff comes from the people who do what they do because they LOVE what they do.

You Have To Be Willing To Jump Out Of The Plane

Reality tells you what you CAN'T do.  You can't live in reality.  You have to ignore reality to do something new, and different, and challenging, and extreme.  You can't accept reality.  It's like jumping out of a plane.  We as leaders have the job of making them feel that scary. We have the job of pushing them to their uncomfortable place if we want them to do something special and transcendent.

The Importance of Education
People who make it without going to or graduating from college are unicorns.  Everybody can't do what they were able to do without education.  To be competitive and WIN, you need all of the resources that you can have to level the playing field.  Having the information and the education levels the playing field.  Combine your hustle, fearlessness, and drive with education and information, and you can't be stopped.