Practice this...

Play along for a second and fill in the blank from this quote:

"________ cannot be taught, only learned.”

While you are thinking about your answer, let me tell you a little bit about the origin of this dandy…

William Hogan wasn’t born on easy street or with a silver spoon. Nope, quite the contrary. At 9 he started selling newspapers after school to help make ends meet after his father committed suicide. At 17, he dropped out of high school and turned pro (if you can call it that). Over the next 10 years he had to work additional jobs because he wasn’t good enough at his so-called profession to pay the bills. In 1949, at 36, he was in a serious car accident that almost took away his ability to walk. Nine months later he found his way back to work and eventually went on to become one of the best in his business.

What’s his business you ask? Golf. What’s his secret you ask? A mindset more powerful than the cards he was dealt… he LOVED to practice, he loved beating on his craft hitting hundreds of thousands of balls, breaking down his swing and trying new things. Consequently William, better known by his middle name Ben, Hogan is still known to have the best swing in the history of golf. Here’s my humble, and much more wordy, interpretation his quote…

Any skill you want to develop: a golf swing, confidence, being a good listener, optimism, speaking from the heart… cannot be acquired by simply reading about it or listening to another. It’s only discovered, developed, honed and perfected by doing, by experiencing, by practicing.

So make the quote above personal, fill in the blank with the skill you WILL learn by doing. And if you’re practicing being bold and brave, share it below.