Paths to the top: We all want to be the best we can in whatever we decide to dedicate our lives to. In my time coaching I've seen many people who got to the top of their respective sports. The thing that always strikes me about them is how DIFFERENT they are from each other in many superficial ways – looks, body type, personality etc and how SIMILAR they are in a few important ways. The most important similarity they all share is their dedication to a mindset of FOREGOING A CURRENT PLEASURE OR EVEN ENDURING CURRENT SUFFERING IN THE EXPECTATION OF A GREATER FUTURE REWARD. This mindset of current privation in favor of future reward is one of the great commonalities they all share. The pattern of their lives is to identify a distant and difficult goal in an industry or area about which they have genuine passion and to lay down a flexible routine that enables them to build the skill set required to attain that distant goal – all this is made possible by a mind that is perfectly comfort with the idea that hard and desolate times now are normal and expected for a golden future. This is not a sufficient condition for greatness but it is certainly a necessary condition. I cannot even conceive of a great person achieving remarkable things without this mindset as their foundation
