The Real Advantage to Life
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast where we forget about yesterday. We don't worry about tomorrow. It's what are we going to do today? This all matters because you've only ever had or will ever have the fantastic twenty four hours a day you're about to embark on. Hopefully this episode is going to give you some daily dose of wisdom that you can take action on today to improve your life.
Speaker 1:And remember, all it takes is one day at a time. Good morning everyone, new week, new day. Straight in today, Rina's book came across this really interesting statistics on this like ten thousand hour rule for max three, right, and I'm sure a lot of you hear that. But it's interesting now they come across more like in real world examples of how it's true. So they were looking at like NFL I'm not sorry, the Canadian Hockey League and they were looking at like the professional players and, like, looking at the stats of them, you know, date of birth, players, like, whatever.
Speaker 1:And what they found was the majority of the players were born. So the the cutoff point for, like, the school year or whatever, the the playing season in Canada is the first of Jan. They found out that the most of the kids were born in Jan, Feb, March or Jan, Feb, March, April. And the reason is obviously because if you're born right as close to the cutoff and you're and you're, like, six, seven years old, you've got, like, twelve months of growth on someone who's born in December who would be in the same cohort as you. Right?
Speaker 1:So they they look at us and they're like, Katie. So what's happening? And what happens in Canada was they get when you're younger, you're five, six, seven years old, and they think you've got talent, they push you into like a special talent group or whatever they do and then you get more training, right? And because they were like twelve months more developed, they were stronger or whatever, they weren't more talented as players, they just were you know, they were older. And then they said they they looked at other sports.
Speaker 1:This is the same thing happening in soccer and stuff in England. Same thing happening with other sports and NBA. Same thing happening with the Czech Republic football team. Most of them are born within three months of the cutoff date of the of the school year and I think it's September, October, November. And the same with the basketball team as well.
Speaker 1:So like what's going on? Like why why is this happening? And the only country that didn't have this happening was Denmark because Denmark didn't put kids into like special training groups or like elevated them to like, okay, you're very good, so you're gonna go and train with extra coaches until 10 years old. So they give the kids a chance to kind of all catch up into the growth levels and not have like someone who is seven years old, like a year older than someone in the same age, obviously they're going to get more opportunity and show their bet and then they shouldn't be given more training. But really the interesting thing when it comes down to it wasn't the talent stuff and all that, it was just the fact that early on in this journey if you were giving the kids more time to train because they were plucked out to being better simply because they're older, over the course of the next ten years until they're going to university college they had accumulated way more hours of practice than the people who weren't pushed into these training groups and stuff.
Speaker 1:The more like, you know, this when you go to county training, you get all these training things and you're better and you're in the top team, you get more game time. It was all about the fact that they managed to get more practice and more game time because of those early decisions. Right? And they looked at they looked at this in sport, they're like, right, it's happening. And guess what happens everywhere?
Speaker 1:Music. Right? It even happens in business, entrepreneurship. Look at Bill Gates. Bill Gates, yes, very clever man.
Speaker 1:But guess what? Bill Gates when he went to when he was 16, 17 in the in his high school, I think he was younger maybe. His first high school. They were one of the only high schools in The United States to have a super mega expensive computer that someone could use at the same time as other people, not like in a line and waiting for other people to finish. And it was so expensive that the rich, the wealthy middle class own, parents were paying for them to use it.
Speaker 1:And then once that finished, they were actually able to Bill was act Bill Gates was actually able to go and use, be a tester for this local company as well. And then he was able to go into the University of Washington, which is near his house to code another computer three till 6AM. So he still needed to drive. By the time it got to university time when he dropped out of Harvard, I think it was, and the PC era began, he had accumulated so many hours of coding that nobody else had, that he was so far ahead, that's how he took advantage and, you know, grew Microsoft. And that's the really the crux of it, like, yes, they work hard and stuff.
Speaker 1:And it's not to say like you'll never succeed unless you were born in these certain circumstances, but it plays such a huge role. And they looked at the founders of companies, Silicon Valley companies, like Apple, Microsoft, Sun Computer Systems, they were born in like 1955, '19 '50 '6, '19 '50 '4. So they had that like perfect you know years they were born and they look back into entrepreneurs in the 1800s in America and most of the big entrepreneurs, the big steel works and stuff, they were born in 1830s and they have that chance. So there's a huge amount of this thing happening right but what really is the crux of it isn't like the specific time you're born in the star sign, but it's just like how many hours can you accumulate until there's a big opportunity that comes and then can you then take advantage of that opportunity due to your experience with all those hours worked? That's kind of what they looked at.
Speaker 1:But it's actually quite liberating in a way you think about it because if it is only all about the hours per written, we now know if you've got kids come in, if you've got a kid, it's all a numbers game in terms of making sure they get enough practice. So they looked at the middle class families, lower class families. And the middle class families, if a kid was like, hey, wanna play trumpet. They were like, yes, let's get you trumpet lessons twice a week. Take advantage of it.
Speaker 1:We'll take you. Lower class families, working class, the typically and they looked at us was the parents would just be like, look, go and play with, go and play do what you want. Didn't really push them into any specific way and there's pros and cons to both ways of upbringing. But it is a numbers game. And it's a numbers game for you when it comes to health and fitness.
Speaker 1:Think you're gonna master macros in three weeks no, you've to do it, you've got to get the hours in, you've got to get the days in, same as training, same as the mindset stuff right, it's all about time put in and it's very liberating, you don't have to be a super genius, you don't have to be genetically disposed to be someone who is a runner or is someone who trains or is someone who is good with the macros. It's just all about the time you can put in the hours you can put in and accumulate those hours. You don't have to get 10,000 to be a master. Right, you have to be like an expert right, but you can put the hours in and know that putting those hours in is what the difference is and nothing else. Data shows it, it's the hours in and nothing else.
Speaker 1:Yes, you can have people who are like genuinely talented and stuff. But if those people with talent don't put the hours in either, they're not going anywhere. And that happens all the time. There's a quote on this about, like, talent works. A talent means nothing if can't remember.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna butcher it. But this has been floating about. We've known instinctively is all about the hours put in. And then I watched another I watched this like film on the weekend as well. I think it's called The Professor and the Madman.
Speaker 1:It's about a true story of how the Oxford Dictionary was actually came to be and it's a huge story. Like I can't believe I love coming across stories I guess, we take it for granted, took seventy years by the way from idea to get it done and the guy that did it was a Scottish guy and he basically was like right because so much history we got to go through and find the source of every word, have to have it, we have to do every century. He sent a letter out to the colonies and the letters went out to this guy who was in a, I think like a mental health jail or something like that And he had basically he was in America and he was a doctor and he had I think he had killed someone by mistake and all that stuff. And he was going through like he couldn't sleep at night, like he was going through all these like crazy episodes. He got the letter and he was like luckily a good reader and he begged for books to read, he begged for book to read and he started reading these books and he started finding quotes and he was he got so good at this, he was one of the biggest contributors to the dictionary, he was sending thousands and thousands of words.
Speaker 1:But what stood out to me in the film and looking up into it was he was saying he was saying look I need this work because it makes the demons go away. This work, this reading, this ambition, this plan, this thing bigger than me is making the demons go away at night. And then he was able to put his mind into the work as opposed to letting his mind just like ruin himself, right? And this is in How to Waiting Friends, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living as well. Being busy doing and I mean busy in a good sense, not just being, like, busy for the sake of it.
Speaker 1:Being busy into a task that's bigger than ourselves and we can dive into has got meaning, and we can put meaning into it, can do wonders for you. Doesn't have to be a full time job. I know people are like, well, I can't just leave my job Scott. I know I know I know I'm not saying leave your job stuff but even if it's a hobby something you can do part time or whatever like on like after you work or something you can do that doesn't feel like work there's a like a project. If you can really dig like jump straight into this and it could be your fitness, it could be that your hobbies know the building your body in your mind and nutrition that could be it and then you can help other people in your surrounding like your family and friends within that's the bigger mission but really it's to try and think of someone like that so if you are worried or like at the moment maybe you're feeling a bit lost mental health is I'm not diagnosed any mental things you're whatever but I think it's important that we do understand the power that like good, the work we think is important, we do it because that's ultimately what humans have done since we've evolved and become who we are we've come together and we've worked on stuff not just for ourselves but for society in general, right?
Speaker 1:Everything humans have done has been asked to make our little tribe a better life better and it's grown and expanded since then. Obviously there's been greedy people who try to take more than they should and all that stuff. But in reality, that's what humans have always done is to build on what's been given to us from the people of the past, the brains of the past. Look at where we've gone now, electricity, Internet, roads, railways, planes, satellites, phone calls, iPhones, Kindle, books on demand, computers, heating, air conditioning. Where else we go?
Speaker 1:Gas and electric, no homes like boilers. We moved away from coal obviously. What else do we have? There's just sort of like microwave oven kettle. There's just so many things that have been built upon other people before.
Speaker 1:That's all we've always done as human beings doesn't it? That's literally what we've done. Keep building and building building this is kind of like ballooning up and up and up and this ideally will end up being in better places all the time but sometimes it won't happen but hopefully that's helpful, so first of all it's all about the hours you put in and this is another day to try and put the hours in again. Another day to put the hours into your nutrition and training, you you work whatever it is. Don't look at it as, oh god, I gotta do this again.
Speaker 1:It is literally adding to that tally mark. Think of those tally marks you're doing like another day tick tick tick and eventually you're gonna master it. Right? And then if you do wanna think about something to put your mind at ease or you've got struggles and stuff, think about picking up a hobby that you can really put yourself into. It can be something bigger than you, charity, but whatever it is, look for something to do, and it seems to be the missing ingredient in many people's lives at the moment is like if you hate your job or whatever, it is good to go your head into something else.
Speaker 1:And, that's it. Get your OBT done, and have a good day and kick start this week in the best way possible, and I'll speak to you tomorrow. And that's it. Thank you for listening to the one day at a time podcast with your host, Gottfleer. Hopefully, you understood something I said.
Speaker 1:I hope that some wisdom kind of distilled through into your mind, and I want you to now action it today. I don't want you to think about tomorrow. I don't want you to think about yesterday. I don't want you to think about leaving a review on this podcast. I don't want you to think about going to another website.
Speaker 1:What I want you to do is as soon as this podcast ends, you will take action and make the most of today. Ground yourself today. Follow the one day at a time philosophy, and your life will change.
