As Henry Rollin said, I don't have talent, so I just get up earlier.

The thing that people think about becoming great, about doing the extraordinary,

is that it's just meant for some people and not meant for others.

And they spend their time making other people extraordinary

as a way to let themselves off the hook.

Because if somebody is just gifted, if they were blessed by God,

if they were touched by an angel,

and they just have something that you don't, and something that you never will have,

then it's fine for them to be great and you to be ordinary.

But the reality is it's not how it works.

But somehow, the cultural narrative has become one where we celebrate natural talent.

That if somebody is grace by God, that if they have something divine about them,

that they're somehow better, that it's more beautiful than the scrappy person

who's had to work for everything they've ever had.

The guy who simply acknowledges, like Henry Rollins,

that he doesn't have more talent than the next person.

He's simply willing to outwork them.

He's willing to set the alarm to get up, to do whatever it takes,

to find his path, to create that skill, to outwork talent,

to show that by putting in that energy and that effort,

there's a magnification effect that is far greater than anything that could be given to you, bestowed upon you.

You have to grab it, you have to take it, you have to have a level of intensity in your life.

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