We are ALL Ice Skaters

From the introduction to the new edition of my book Truth in Action

People have skill development completely wrong. They presume if they are good at something, (and therefore marked out as ‘talented’ in that area) it will quickly become easier and they won’t struggle as much. Perhaps for the initial period of any learnable skill, that might be true. But at some point, it gets hard for everyone. Around that time, what separates the successful, is that they refuse to give up.

No one is prepared for that moment, but the ice skater feels it more than most. She has to fall on her face over and over again to become exceptional. In her field, you simply can’t achieve excellence without it. It’s just we all assume that getting better must feel good. People who are good at something, must find it easy and therefore pleasurable. But if it felt good, everyone would do it.

Amateur ice skaters practice the things they are already good at every week. The professional ice skaters practice the things they are bad at every day. And it hurts. To fall on the ice. It hurts. It bruises. And they get back up and they do it again. Not because they are impervious to it, but because they know that through the pain and struggling comes excellence.

If we want to become good, I mean REALLY good, the best actors we can possibly be, we have to be Ice Skaters.

But it won’t feel good while we are getting better. But the reason that we put up with the pain of failure is because every bruise in practice offers the chance of glory in performance.

And those that give up on the way – smile at them kindly as you skate past.

We are all Ice Skaters. Skate. Fall. Get Up. Learn. Skate. Fall Again. Or as Samuel Beckett may have put it: “Fail. Fail Again. Fail Better.”

COACH