There is no such thing as "talent"
The last 10 years have brought me to this moment: I don’t think talent is real thing.
Talent is a term people who have difficulty comprehending performance give to make sense in their heads of what they’re witnessing.
I’ll back up enough to say— there are certainly people who have more immediate aptitude for a sport, we’ve all seen that before.
However left un[der]developed, that aptitude goes no where.
The progress of those with aptitude is not guaranteed
There’s an old saying that “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” This is true, but reads to me like “the harder & longer worker usually wins.”
The individuals who may possess and develop this aptitude do indeed start above those who may not have that aptitude. Their trajectory is hastened and if they get with the right coaches, push themselves and intelligently move forward, they will reach heights that few ever do. This is undeniable.
Look at Sidney Crosby, a prodigy in every sense of the word, famously developed at every age and level, who finds himself now 36 years old, with 3 Stanley Cup wins, 2 Olympic Gold Medals, and a trophy room of accolades that affirm that he took his aptitude to levels that are hard to imagine.
None of that came without work. If he wasn’t on vacation practicing his stick handling even now, this doesn’t happen.
That’s not talent, that’s work.
What happens when you don’t develop that aptitude?
There are many examples you can probably recall in your own life, sports you follow or are a part of, but you know what happens. The aptitude tends to carry the athlete for a period of time until they rise to the level of where their aptitude can no longer do the work alone.
I think in jiu jitsu (a relatable example for many reading here), it’s why you see some people start, get promoted to blue belt quickly, only to sit there for many, many years. And that’s if they don’t quit. I’ve also seen it happen where some athletes get to purple belt very quickly, only to get crushed regularly because some of their skills at lower belt levels were too reliant on physicality, or some other athletic trait they disproportionately possessed.
I had an old boss that said “you rise to the level of your incompetence” — and while that’s snarky and I like to think of myself in a more optimistic and friendly way— it really is true.
The upper echelons of any sport are very, very difficult
I don’t think you realize how obvious this statement is until you’re actually in it. I found this out firsthand this past Olympic Trials period (wrestling). There are so many athletes who work so incredibly hard that don’t make it. It’s not because they aren’t good, either.
There are a very limited number of spots to represent your country (usually just one spot for your weight class/position/etc), and a lot of very eligible athletes. There are members of the Olympic wrestling teams who many coaches would say weren’t necessarily the most talented, but their ability to learn, hang around, adapt and win made them elite. They worked hard enough to stick around and were rewarded with the compounding effect of being around longest— and the all the benefits that come with the ability to work hard over a long period of time (this is a future article).
It’s also sometimes a bit of a play on what I described above: sometimes athletes get to a spot, or in a door, at a young age, and the room just outshines them. They get swallowed up by the level they found themselves propelled to. In honest environments, their coaches (and the athletes themselves) know when this happens.
It doesn’t mean they don’t have aptitude. It doesn’t mean that they don’t work hard either. They just haven’t been around long enough to reap the benefits of developing their aptitude. If they stick around, work hard and do things right, they’ll give themselves a great shot at success. This is yet another reason why it’s a disservice to write something off as “talent.”
It’s not talent. That implies it was given. It’s never given. You are a unique person that has unique ability to process information and act accordingly.
Physical outliers exist, but they have a ceiling just like you and me.
In a series of what will characterize articles on this Substack vs. ones found at DiSalvo Performance Training, I will be sharing some more first person narratives and observations from the gym right here (or in your inbox). Thanks for reading.
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