Opportunity is not enough

Surfing is still my favorite metaphor for life.

(racing cars is second)

Having access to the ocean and surfboards does not mean anyone will magically become a good surfer. If you have ever surfed, you will understand.

If skiing is a better metaphor for you — access to snow + skies does not mean you can handle double black diamonds.

In both surfing and skiing, you need training and practice to do anything useful. It takes time to reach a level of competency in both skiing and surfing — even with training. I like surfing because it forces me to practice and be curious and humble and learn every time. This deliberate type of practice which helps me surf is also the foundation to success in everything else.

It takes a lot more than one day in the ocean to achieve competence, much less mastery.

Here are other places where access and a tool are not enough to achieve success, places where training and practice are the key — electrical installation, plumbing repair, cooking a turkey, writing code, pitching a VC, getting a job, and leading a team. None of these tasks are easy and they all require skills training and practice. Desire is not enough. Repeated deliberate practice and some failures are required.

Lately I’ve been hearing a string of thinking mistakes that assume access + tools equals success.

Without proper training and practice, access + tools equals a tumble underwater or a fall down a snowy hill. There are no short cuts.

Unskilled is a learning space and expecting otherwise is fooling yourself. When people actually have skills — they communicate in a different fashion.

How do you know someone has skills? First — they don’t talk about skills, instead they talk about accomplishments.

Accomplishments are what we have when we leverage our skills. Writing and publishing content is an accomplishment. Building an ecommerce web site is an accomplishment. Accomplishments are what we want to understand when we read a resume, interview a candidate, or listen to an entrepreneur tell their story. Stephen Curry has great basketball accomplishments, he has proven the value of his skills. Steph doesn’t need to talk about running, dribbling, or shooting as skills. His accomplishments paint a much more complete story.

At the end of the day, you want to share accomplishments. You want to talk about the great day of surfing, see the video, and wow your friends with the accomplishments. To reach this level, you need to work well past the opportunity and tools into deliberate practice.

Up next — why working for free is a great way to practice skills, build accomplishments, and share your value.

This content is a small part of the curriculum at HAERT™. We are polymaths who figure out how things work and then translate it to education you can use.