A friend of mine in Sweden was telling me a story of his daughter who wanted a puppy. They were driving to a ski slope (in the summer) so he could off-season train by running up it. His daughter has a lot of confidence in her abilities and said, "if I beat you to the top, I get a dog" and her father said, "you can get two dogs". He added, "I won't wait, I have to train"

She was excited.

From the get go she went balls out and after 50 metres was destroyed. My friend ran to the top and then back down where his daughter was crying. Not from losing but because her lungs and throat burned and her heart "was going to explode".

Her dad said, "When you are at soccer practice and say you are tired, you aren't. Now you are tired. Now you know the feeling of giving your all."

While he ran several times more, his daughter recovered quickly and continued on at her own pace to the top. 

While they still don't have a dog, at some point she will be able to outrun her dad.

![20_MARCH_16_siilinkari walk-31.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmeQcS2fcVeRngUHRhiLNWWzJDiyiEhurpgxjkaJjb3b8u/20_MARCH_16_siilinkari%20walk-31.jpg)

Today for me, it is filled with training deliveries and catching up on what I have missed since I have been out of the office a full week on assignment. They are webinars today which is both easier to deliver, and harder as there is no immediate feedback. I have only delivered one so far and am still learning.

There are a lot of things going on in my life at the moment both on the work and personal fronts and time is a previous resource. The time I do have spare I spend with my daughter playing and being silly wherever we happen to be. 

What is interesting for me is that much like my friend's daughter, it wasn't so long ago I had no idea what I was capable of when it came to volume of effort in. I only thought I was tired, it wasn't the reality. 

The second interesting thing is that as my work volume over the last 6 years has skyrocketed, it has actually become somewhat easier, the units of work cheaper to produce. This is probably because as my work increased and diversified, so did my skill set a date skills compound against each other to create higher return for energy in. The best way to save time is to improve your skills in that area, not avoid them. 

Most people focus on the parts of life they enjoy meaning that when it comes to skill development, they are lacking in areas they don't like but need. Then, they wonder why they aren't getting the results they want.

From my perspective, it is beneficial for me to learn wide and far without drilling too deeply into a skillset unless required, even if I enjoy it. Doing what you enjoy is the recommendation but people use it as an excuse to avoid what they don't, even when the cost of avoidance created more problems than the gain from the enjoyment.

There are opportunities everywhere to learn but of course, if one knows themselves well enough, choosing the source and methods can be optimized to enhance the process and speed of uptake. Again, many people have avoided taking the responsibility of their own learning and instead use their lack of skill as a demonstration that it is actually someone else's fault.

The thing is, no one can get a skill for you. Of course, some people like to live their life vicariously, live life via proxy and feel that they have value because they surround themselves and engage with people who are actually doing something - even if they aren't doing anything themselves.

We all have hills to climb in life and we can all tackle them out own way and at our own pace. There are also many people sitting at the base talking about all the reasons they aren't going to start. Starting isn't hard to do, unless you think it is.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
<sub>(posted from phone in the cafeteria)</sub>