What does it take to be great?

Why most people in all walks of life develop for a while and then stop, but a small minority keep getting better for years?
Why are some people able to keep pushing themselves to improve day in and day out while others don't?
Can we achieve greatness through learning and hard work, or it's a natural gift- you've got it or you don't?

What makes Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods great? What made Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett the world's premier investor? What made Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs one of the world's most visionary and innovative business leaders? We think we know: Each was a natural who came into the world with a gift for doing exactly what he ended up doing. As Buffett said "I was wired at birth to allocate capital." It's a one-in-a-million thing. You've got it - or you don't.

Well, folks, it's not so simple. For one thing, you do not possess a natural gift for a certain job, because targeted natural gifts don't exist. You are not a born CEO or investor or a elite athlete. You will achieve greatness only through an enormous amount of hard work over many many years. And not just any hard work, but work of a particular type that's demanding and painful.

For most people, work is hard enough without pushing even harder. Those extra steps are so difficult and painful they almost never get done. That's the way it must be. If great performance were easy, it wouldn't be rare.