I’m going to train you exactly how I train my kids and exactly how I train all of my clients—I train everyone exactly the same way. We all have a problem and it's that we don’t have enough time in the day to practice, to rehearse, to train at the performance we have coming up.
You and I and my kids, we’re all measured, we’re all graded on our performance. We have to perform—whether it’s on the athletic field or on stage or in the office, wherever we have to come through for ourselves. Most of us have a problem right there. We’re performing way too much and we’re not practicing enough. Let’s take care of that, okay?
I started off by telling you I’m going to train you just like I do my kids. My kids, just like my clients, get this book—The Little Book of Talent by Daniel Coyle. My son’s name is written right here, Axel Eason. I gave him this book when he was six. This book is about Coyle going out to these hotbeds of talent—a tennis club in Russia or a swim club in Baltimore—all of these little hotbeds whether it's music or athletics or mathematics.
I’ve been part of these my whole life. I want you to be part of them too. This is what I’m building, this is who I train, this is who I teach and the hotbeds all have one thing in common, Coyle says. The hotbeds of talent have a different relationship to practice than the regular world. That’s how I train my kids—that’s how I train you.
If we look in here there’s a little note that I wrote to Axel when he was six. It’s pointing to the sentence that says our life is all about practice. I say to him, “Axel, you’re the best. This is your job for the rest of your life.” And there’s an arrow pointing to the sentence. “Love you, Dad.” And the sentence is, “People in the hotbeds of talent have a different relationship to practice. Practice is the center of their universe. It is the biggest part of their everyday lives. It is the big game. The same is true for you.”
Most of us don’t practice enough, we don’t rehearse enough, we don’t train enough for the day of performance, regardless of the discipline. We’re going to remedy that by changing your mindset and the percentage of the day you’re spending on preparation. And just so you know, I’m going to tell you right now that from this day forward I want you to spend 90 percent of your day preparing to perform, practicing to perform, rehearsing to perform—90 percent preparation and 10 percent performance.
If you refuse what I’m asking you to do, if you refuse it—and I tell my kids and my clients this too—if you refuse this call of practicing 90 percent of the time then you have sealed your fate. Let me repeat that—if you refuse to practice and prepare 90 percent of the time then you have sealed your fate meaning you have a ceiling, meaning you have boundaries that I don’t have. I’m committed to preparing, practicing and training during 90 percent of my day.
When I get on stage or when I have to perform in other ways, whether it’s as a husband or a father or a leader or an athlete, I’m going to come through for myself because I have the confidence and because I’ve trained the most. The same thing goes for my kids. By the time they’re 20 years old, they’re going to have trained more than anybody.
Look at your schedule NOW. Pull it out. Look at your everyday life. Where are you spending your time? Is it more performance-oriented? Or are you preparing for that day of performance? Or are you waiting for someone to choose you? I don’t want any waiting. I want practice, performance and training. Look at your schedule. It’s a very simple exercise. I don’t want your fate sealed. I certainly don’t want my kids’ fate sealed. And if you’re not going to do it then you’ve sealed it. You have a ceiling. There’s only so high that you can go.
Look at your day. See what percentage of it is practice and I want you to push that number up. So if that’s 50 percent of your day then I want you to hike it up 60. And I want you to continually get better, adding more practice and more training at your specific discipline, whatever your performance-based thing is, because, look, you’re getting measured. You have to perform. You’ve got to practice. You’ve got to train. Change the mindset. Then you get to be part of these hotbeds, part of these goldmines, because the only difference between them and us is we don’t train enough, we don’t practice enough.
Get out there—change your schedule, change it around. Ninety/ten—90 percent training. Got it?
Now, tell me what you're spending the majority of your day doing and how you're going to change that if it's not in line with your dreams.
