You can call yourself a Chef, but if you can’t actually cook or even boil water, you probably aren’t one.

You can call yourself a Dancer, but if you trip over your own two feet while walking, you probably aren’t one.

Just because you have been given the title of Manager, Supervisor or Leader, that doesn’t make you one either!

People fail and that is just a brutal fact of life. You can accept the failure as a way of not doing something or you can push it aside pretending that you don’t care and avoid the truth.

To explain their failures, you might hear people say,

“I don’t have a head for business which is why my store went bankrupt.”

“Leaders are born to lead. I guess I was born to follow.”

Your brother hits more home runs than you do. You decide you don’t really like playing baseball anyway. Maybe he hits more home runs because while you are at home sitting on the couch watching ESPN, he is actually at the batting cages!

If you believe you need to inherit a skill or talent to be successful, you are one step closer to failure. Yet if you realize you can get the talent to succeed at anything you wish, you are one step closer to success. So if talent is not something you are born with, where do you get it?

How did Michael Jordan become the greatest basketball player of all time? What made Luciano Pavarotti into a great opera singer? Why was Liberace such a brilliant showman?

The most successful athletes, musicians, investors, actors, managers and doctors do not get their skills at birth. They achieve their greatness through hard, intense practice.

“In any activity, quite a bit of what passes for ‘talent’ is really just practice.”

One can train one’s body, one’s eyes, and one’s hands and feet until, with practice, they sort of just do it. One no longer has to ‘think’ about your skill, like breathing: one just DOES it.

The same principle applies to crafts and professions which mainly use the mind. The lawyer who has not drilled on courtroom procedure may not have learned to shift his mental gears fast enough to counter new turns of a case and loses it. A green salesman who has not rehearsed selling can starve for lack of sales. A Leader who has not practiced the skills of leadership will just be another person failing at getting people to perform to the best of their abilities.

“The right answer is to practice, practice and practice!” — L. Ron Hubbard from The Way to Happiness

Examples:

Winston Churchill, one of the world’s greatest speakers, practiced his speeches compulsively.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team which proves his talent was not natural. Instead, he practiced his famous basketball moves for more hours every day than anyone else in the game.

The great pianist Liberace began playing the piano at age 4. He had a 17-yr. Scholarship to the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music from the age of 7. Liberace practiced his skill 4 to 5 hours a day, every day.

The best musicians, writers, actors, surgeons, managers, computer programmers, artists, politicians, dentists, chefs, pilots and electricians all become the best through hours and hours and hours of practice. And their practice is intense.

For example, running around the block for fun is not practice, which is why most amateur runners do not improve. Practice means running and running and running for miles every day to improve your speed and stamina.

Part of our problem is our need for immediate gratification.  We want; what we want; when we want it; and we want it now! I am certainly no exception. I desperately want to be able to sketch, draw and paint. I have the books, tablets, pencils, brushes and paints. I attempted to draw a cup, from lesson one mind you, it came out like crap. Immediately I said I guess I’m not an artist. Perhaps I should try again!  OK, who’s up for giving me lessons?

Role-playing is how you practice to become a great lawyer, a great doctor, a great speaker or a great manager, supervisor or leader. Much of this practice can be done with a coach, as well as on the job.

To succeed as a manager, you need to spend many hours bringing out the best performance possible from each of your employees. You need to try different approaches with different individuals until you discover what approach works best. The more you practice the better your staff will be and the better you will be.

Every skill can be practiced and improved: managing, leading, delegating, negotiating, giving feedback, giving speeches, driving race cars, using computers, writing reports, teaching students, managing money, fixing engines, building houses, everything.

Very few people are born with talent. But with practice, everyone, including you, can become talented at anything!

These are the steps you should follow:

• Write down a talent you wish to gain.
• Break down the talent into all of its skills. Make a thorough list.
• For example, to be a great manager you need to learn to manage a vast array of individuals. You need to learn people skills, personalities and work habits. To be a great accountant you need to master math. To be a great dancer you need to master all of the various dance steps. To be a great mechanic you need to master all of the various engines, car makes and models.  You might have a list of 100 individual skills.
• Work out how to practice each individual skill. Some skills you can practice on your own while others require study or research or a coach to help you master the skill.
• Practice for as many hours as you can stand, each day, until each skill is perfect and you gain the talent you desire. You will find that you actually even get more work done while you are practicing!
• Every time you fail at something you must remember that it is not a failure but merely practice. Turn the loss into an opportunity. Which of your skills need more work?
• Constantly improve your skills. Everyone has room for improvement.

Always remember that failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.

As a result of your constant improvement, you will gain all the skills and talent you need to succeed at being a great manager, supervisor, leader or anything else that you set out to do!