When Talent is NOT Enough

 

            When Talent is NOT Enough

Life is tough but life gets tougher when your toughness is not tested to its limits. Comfort zones, anyone? That’s a no-brainer. Everyone of us would prefer ensconced in our own comfort zones but you can’t stay there forever. Circumstances will change. There will be many ‘moving parts’ in our life. Too many variables and unknowns that will shape and impact our next day, our tomorrow, our future.

Over at the NBA post season now hosted out of the ‘NBA bubble’ in Orlando, Florida, everything is down to the Final 4, the top 4 remaining teams vying for the NBA’s O’Brien Trophy. Pundits and media have all hoisted the Boston Celtics as the consensus winner over the Miami Heat. Out of sheer talent, Miami Heat is outmatched by the starters of Boston Celtics. But after two [2] games, the Boston Celtics is in a deep hole holding on to a 0-2 Eastern Conference Finals series handicap.

And except for the Miami Heat organization and its legions of fans, everyone is scratching their heads how the Miami Heat has bamboozled the Boston Celtics in the first two [2] close matches the past week. Ask the Miami Heat team, they will tell you it takes more than sheer talent to romp off with those wins against a tough nut to crack in Boston Celtics. Quoting Dominick Cruz, a popular American mixed martial artist, ‘Infuse heart, soul, spirit and passion because talent is not enough’.

Well said. That explains why the mind-boggling performance of Miami Heat at the NBA Playoffs. How do they play? It’s a total outpouring of intensity and passion. And all these are inter-connected by their emotional connection that are closely inter-twined. For forty eight [48] minutes, they run the game relentlessly whereas for the Boston Celtics, Coach Brad Stevens admitted that they can’t win games if they play for thirty six [36] minutes because what that creates is a gaping hole where they would fall.

Aligning ourselves to what’s going on in the NBA Playoffs, let’s take a leaf from Angela Duckworth, the popular American psychologist who kept harping ‘As much as talen counts, effort counts twice’. Behind all these principles is a straightforward 4-letter word spelled out G-R-I-T. As she defines it, ‘GRIT is the passion and sustained persistence applied toward long-term achievement, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way’.

To reinforce GRIT as the key ingredient for us to further succeed in life, let’s piggy-back on GRIT which ends up as the acronym for GUTS, RESILIENCE, INITIATIVE and TENACITY. Yessirrrr, these are the drivers of the continuing Miami Heat successes now at the NBA playoffs.

To cap this off, sharing these proven equations in most of life’s successes.

GIVING WHILE LIVING

 

Chuck Feeney's Motto: GIVING WHILE LIVING

Till today, there are close to 3,000 billionaires. And 100% of these billionaires are self-proclaimed philanthropies ! Bill and Melinda Gates. The Jeff Bezos. The Jack Mas. The Jack Dorseys. No doubt, their philanthropic initiatives have touched the lives of the poorest of the poor. The Gates Foundation has committed $250 million for the fight against Covid-19. Even Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has committed $1 billion to the Covid cause.

But Chuck Feeney ? He’s not even a household name but in the world has he done to be lumped alongside Bill Gates and company ? And to think that today, he and his wife live in a spartan-like rented apartment akin to a student’s dorm and with no car to boot. Hmmmm, less than forty [40] years ago, after amassing more than $8.3 billion as a successful Irish-American businessman, alongside his wife and his lawyer, they jetted off to the Bahamas, rented an office for a day to incorporate the Atlantic Philanthropies as an initiative focused on health and social priorities spanning the western world [from the United States] and Ireland over to South Africa and Vietnam. The long-term objective of the Atlantic Philanthropies ? To inject seed capitals across potential businesses that will further infuse monies back into Chuck Feeney’s philanthropic initiatives.

September 14, 2020. Chuck Feeney formally signed off the demise of Atlantic Philanthropies after it was able to complete ‘spreading the wealth’ of Chuck Feeney down to the last $1. And with humility, Chuck Feeney declared that he is now 'officially broke' now living a spartan life in a rented apartment with his wife.

When Chuck Feeney embarked on this never heard before initiative, he was quoted: ‘I believe strongly in GIVING WHILE LIVING. I see little reason to delay giving when so much good can be achieved through supporting worthwhile causes today’.

Too good to be true but this is what it is. Plain and simple GOOD. Contrast this to the unsatiable GREED of the powerful souls on our planet. It’s akin to comparing day and night, heaven and earth.

But we won’t lose hoping that Chuck Feeney’s good deeds will be contagious enough akin to the contagion that we are now witnessing with this covid-19 global pandemic. Heard of CSR initiatives ? Corporate Social Responsibility. Not bad BUT we’re fervently hoping those CSR initiatives can be further expanded by leaps and bounds if only to help alleviate the significant shortfalls and sufferings brought about by this global pandemic.

And for the UNLI greed that abounds in the corridors of power, we hope that they will realize that they can’t take with them those billions and unrestricted powers once they face their final judgment. Amen.