What is the difference between being good at something and being GREAT at it? I think it’s DISCIPLINE. Yes there is a place for God gifted talents, intelligent minds, and creative genius, but all of these are absolutely nothing without hard work and discipline. Often what separates the good from the great is the level of commitment, discipline and hard work you are willing to put in.
Over the past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about people who have made a mark on the world, I have studied the people that have remained constantly successful in their chosen fields, those that have come and gone and come again even bigger, the one hit wonders, the people that made only one discovery and then dropped off the face of the planet, I have studied trends, I have read about them on Wikepedia, I have read interviews they’ve given, watched documentaries about their lives. The one thing that is CONSTANT with the people that have made it big and remained successful is DISCIPLINE, Discipline and Hard Work. The kind of discipline that wakes you up 2 hours earlier than everyone else in the morning, keeps you up late at night, the kind that pays attention to the smallest details in every task, that strives for excellence, and that combs out the unusual in the midst of the mundane.
It is my very strong belief that EVERYBODY is meant to make a mark on the world, in their own sphere of influence, it may be the little market stall that you work at, the entire market, it may be your local government area, your city, your entire country, or the whole world. We all have our spheres; yet because we lack discipline we don’t even manage to leave a watermark or even a graze on them.
In my humble opinion (Oz if you’re reading this forgive me) Beyonce is not the greatest singer of all time, there are far more talented artists than her, but the one thing she has that other more talented singers lack is discipline. I share my birthday with Beyonce, and for that reason I just didn’t like her, because she kinda stole my special day. That was until I watched the “Year of 4” documentary. I saw how hard Beyonce works for everything she’s got, the personal commitment and discipline that she puts into nailing every lyric, hitting every note, mastering every dance step, and producing quality in everything that’s got her name on it. If every one of her ‘stans’ (aka fans for the chronologically challenged reader) took anything away from this woman it should be her discipline. The extra ingredient that puts her a head and two shoulders above those who have more natural talent than she does.
Michele Obama in a recent magazine interview spoke about how nobody ever saw Ivy League material in her, but after her brother got into Princeton on a basketball scholarship, she took a decision to be disciplined and consistent enough in her studies to get in also, and I guess the rest is history.
Steve Jobs got kicked out of the company that he founded, it would’ve been very easy to quit at that point, but because he was disciplined and hard working he continued to found Pixar, NeXT, and eventually go back to Apple, create the the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, etc. At every one of these milestone technologies it took discipline to keep thinking and looking for the next great idea.
Without taking paragraphs more to say what can be contained in a sentence. Discipline is that extra ingredient that excellence is made of. It is often said that ‘the richest place on earth is the graveyard’, it is full of the potential that the dead could have achieved if they just had a little bit more discipline. It would be remarkably sad to leave this world with all the talent that you came in with because we slept more than we needed to, didn’t strive to excellence at even the small tasks, or because we didn’t put in the extra effort to think outside the box because we didn’t HAVE to.
If you go into a store and there are two brands of chocolate both the same price, one is wrapped in discoloured and patchy brown paper, it says: average bar of chocolate, no additional ‘gra gra’, just chocolate. The second bar of chocolate is neatly packaged in gold foil, the paper wrapper on top is embossed with the manufacturer’s logo in the richest of inks, there are a few ribbons and pretty bows, and it says: chocolate prepared with love from the best cocoa bean on the planet. You would go for the second bar, even if the first bar actually tasted better. The same goes with us, our skills, talents, and that thing that we are meant to mark the world with, we must commit to disciple to achieve our ‘tour de force’, because NOBODY BUYS AVERAGE.
xoxo.
