“Talent is cheap! Dedication is costly!!” – Bertoldo de Giovanni
One of the all time great quotes by a mentor to the renowned artist Michelangelo.
When Michelangelo was 14 years old he began studying art with Bertoldo. Even at this young age it was apparent to Bertoldo that there was enormous talent in the young man. As a wise sage he realized that even great talent can be tempted to lean on their natural abilities over putting forth the energy to develop their full potential.
And boy oh boy can I ever relate this! For well over a decade I leaned on my natural skill set of persuasion when recruiting. I recruited candidates by combining my persuasion (talent) with the company value proposition. Because of this I had minimal results compared to the amount of effort I put into recruiting.
Little did I know I was going about recruiting all wrong!
It wasn’t until 11 years in the mortgage business that I began to develop my full recruiting potential by fully understanding how to recruit leading with “Attractive Leadership.” When my dedication increased I began to turn my recruiting efforts into a science experiment. Over the course of two weeks I built out a 32 step system inside a whiteboard CRM tool.
This included….
Perfecting my vision
Understanding my core values
Planning out my recruiting activities through the next 12 months.
It was here that I dramatically moved away from selling the company value proposition and moved towards sharing my individual leadership value proposition with recruits.
This only happened because of my dedication to becoming the best recruiting leader in my company and in my markets. It was here that I began to move away from my “talent” and move towards “dedication” to becoming the best.
As the Michelangelo story goes, one day Bertoldo found Michelangelo working with a sculpture that was significantly below his abilities. Bertoldo took a hammer and smashed the work into small pieces while shouting “talent is cheap! Dedication is costly!”.
If you are committed to success you must first count the cost. Many have incredible potential but few actually commit themselves to the time, energy and focus that it takes to achieve that success.
To win against the best you can’t simply rely on talent to get you there. That may take you 90% of the way and for most that is acceptable. BUT IF you are committed to becoming the 1% you will have to give more than you have ever given.
Sustainable growth comes through the lens of sacrifice.
Go beyond your talent!
Your legacy is worth “all in” dedication