What makes one person consistently better than another person when performing a certain skill?

There are so many answers to that question that it opens the door for discussion.

Here’s my two cents worth (please adjust for inflation).

Let me begin with a story . . .

Christmas Eve day I got my annual visit from a man whose mother makes the most delicious Christmas cookies. I met him when he was 11 years old when his father brought him by a radio station I worked for and asked if he could get his son a tour. I agreed.

This young fellow was older than his years and had an appetite for radio and wanted to learn all he could. I invited him to come back each week to learn some more. I gave him an old tape of a radio performer who had inspired me and told him to listen to it and said, “Aspire to be as good as this guy.”

I eventually hired this boy who has since become a celebrated radio performer in many major cities. Back to Christmas Eve . . . we had our annual chat and caught up on what each other was up to and wished each other a “Merry Christmas.”

After he left, I got an email alerting me that the fellow who was on the tape I gave him many years ago had just died. How serendipitous . . . the man who sparked both our radio fires had died on the one day we get together.

This man’s name is George Michael. He became nationally famous doing his syndicated TV show called “George Michael’s Sports Machine.” Most TV sports fans knew of George Michael but few of them knew what a stellar radio performer he was in the 60s and 70s.

So back to the question . . . What makes one person consistently better than another person when performing a certain skill? All the ingredients I talk about in my FREE e-book, THE SUCCESS TRIANGLE, come to mind – Passion, Discipline, and Talent. But it was a subset of discipline that made the difference with George Michael. It was FOCUS!

As I said in a tribute to him, “He was like the great football players he talked about; he never took a play off.” George was focused. He didn’t have many of the talents that other radio performers had but he used what he did have and focused and became the best DJ I ever heard.

Focus will take you farther than your talent. I think of the old Cub Scout Manual technique for starting a fire without matches. Focus the sun through a magnifying glass on bits of paper under some tinder wood so you can ignite a roaring fire.

If you aspire to be better than you currently are, may I suggest George Michael’s secret formula – FOCUS!

All the best,

John

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