Matt Brewer
Contributing Writer
Direct Energy/Success Academy

July 24th of this year was a great day for many reasons but one in particular: the NFL is back. For those that are not fans of football, many teams have begun their organized team activities (OTAs). For every team in the league, optimism is high and everyone has a chance to win the championship, maybe not Cleveland. Rookies get a real taste of what their new life will be like, recently acquired players get to know their new teammates, and Bill Belichick gets to show off his new sleeveless hoodie. Soon the preseason will start, and football fans of the country will rejoice.

The best thing about football is the absolute necessity to make every game count. In baseball, basketball, and hockey, you can go on a 10 game losing streak and still manage to make the playoffs. In football if you have a 10 game losing streak, you start looking ahead to the next season. This dire need to win now puts a huge emphasis on practice and immersing yourself in the game. That is why in the NFL they usually take the team to a college campus and isolate them in dorm rooms.

You can draw from sports and business many parallels. We are all trying to win. Win over the customers, compete against other companies in our industry, and compete against our co-workers. However, experience teaches us most employees come to work, put in their 8 hours, leave to relax, watch television, and put their kids to bed.

Now imagine if you were isolated to a dorm room with a curfew and no access to television and your laptop/tablet only had work information loaded. How would you spend your time? Maybe read a book, keep a journal of your day, order a few pizzas, and see if you can eat yourself in to a food coma?

The point is to make is where and when do find time to practice your skills. If you had nothing else to do, you would have a lot of spare time to learn a new skill. Sadly, most people do not find that time, but as technology continues to improve, more and more places are starting to offer self-paced learning to improve your skillset on a wide array of topics. Books are still a great resource to learn new skills. There are websites dedicated to learning university courses at no or a minimal cost.

Denise Park from the University of Texas at Dallas conducted a 3-month study of 221 randomly selected adults age 60-90 to engage in a particular activity for 15 hours a week. Some of the participants were given a new activity such as digital photography or quilting, while others were given activities that were familiar to them such as crossword puzzles or listening to classical music. At the end of three months, Park and colleagues found that the adults who were productively engaged in learning new skills showed improvements in memory compared to those who engaged in social activities or non-demanding mental activities at home.

“The findings suggest that engagement alone is not enough,” says Park. “The learning groups were pushed very hard to keep learning more and mastering more tasks and skills. Only the groups that were confronted with continuous and prolonged mental challenge improved.”

“The harder you practice the luckier you get” is a great quote from Gary Player that sums up the importance of practicing and learning a new skill. We all want to be great at what we do, some are willing to work harder than others are and it will ultimately show. Talent will only take you so far, it is the work you put in when nobody is watching that makes all of the difference.