"You never stop learning, perfecting, refining--molding your skills." Those words came from Bill Walsh, a man who won three NFL Superbowl's with the San Francisco 49ers. They apply to pro football players, pastors, and potters!
In The Score Takes Care of Itself, Walsh describes the work ethic of Pro Football Hall of Famers Joe Montana and Jerry Rice:
If you're Jerry Rice, the greatest receiver in NFL history and, according to some, the greatest player, you're practicing a slant pattern at 6 A.M. over and over with nobody within a mile of you--no football, no quarterback, nobody but Jerry working to improve, to master his profession.
Joe Montana, perhaps the greatest quarterback in NFL history, in his last season as a professional, when he was playing for Kansas City, would spend two hours a day every day at the same little practice field. I would work with him on basic fundamentals that would bore a high schooler to death.
For me, the starting point for everything--before strategy, tactics, theories, managing, organizing, philosophy, methodology, talent, or experience--is the work ethic. Without one of the significant magnitude you're dead in the water, finished.[1]
There really is no mystery to mastery. No matter what your craft, excellence begins with hard work:
All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. Proverbs 14:23 NIV Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men. Proverbs 22:29 ESV
It's Friday . . . time for the best to get better! What can you do today to sharpen your skills for the glory of God?
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[1] Bill Walsh, The Score Takes Care of Itself, pages 185-86.