You're a Natural

“You’re such a natural teacher, man.”

I really appreciate that comment on my YouTube channel.

It’s also nonsense.

No baby is born with the ability to transmit concepts and skills in a way that connects with the audience and instills confidence in their ability to learn and hone the material.

Yo-Yo Ma is not a natural cellist. He practiced… a LOT.

Michael Jordan is not a natural basketball player. He committed himself to the game.

Sara Blakely is not a natural entrepreneur. JK Rowling is not a natural writer.

I am not a natural teacher.

There’s certainly no guarantee that practicing something for 10,000 hours will make you the best in the world. It almost definitely won’t.

But it will make you MUCH better than not putting in the work.

Of course there are physical limitations on certain kinds of activities. If you’re 5’2”, you’ll probably never dunk a basketball.

But then again, there’s a lot of 6’6” folks out there who can’t dunk a basketball.

If you want to be a natural speaker, teacher, leader - commit yourself to the practice of getting a little bit better at that thing every week.

And remember, people tend to overestimate what they can do in a year, but underestimate what they can do in a decade.

The average length of time to become an overnight success is 10 years.

Get to it.