What it takes to be World's best ! and not world-class !

I happened to log on to www.musicindiaonline.com and was listening to one of musical pieces by Pandit Harprasad Chourasia and Ustad Zakir Hussain. I was wondering since then what it takes to be world's best.

Manan joined golf classes and was telling me about some fundae how many shots he takes to get the ball to the hole. We were wondering together if it was possible for us to become good golf players some time in our life. What if we dedicate our rest of life to it ?

Can we do something ? Then we went to wikipedia to actually see the career of world's best...Tiger Woods !!

At that age when he first held the golf clubs, I used to play in soil in my house garden. I knew nothing about the world. I had not heard of some of the world's famous sports. I don't remember if I was able to speak properly. I was a small kid. I would not expect much from a kid who is 3 years old. Yes I am talking about a three year's old age. Tiger Woods was playing gold at the age of three.

We went to another world's best. Michael Schumacher. Schumacher began kart racing at the age of four and a half. He used a homemade kart built by his father, Rolf, who managed the local karting track in Kerpen, Schumacher's home town. He obtained his first license and began racing competitively by the age of twelve. ( go check wikipedia )

We went to third world's best -- Arnold Schwarzenneger
As a boy, Schwarzenegger played many sports, but discovered his passion for bodybuilding when in his mid-teens his soccer coach took the team for weight training.

And later I went to profiles of so many world's best !

Lev Davidovich Landau
Recognized very early as a child prodigy in mathematics, Landau was quoted as saying in later life that he scarcely remembered a time when he was not familiar with calculus.
Warren Buffet ! Buffett filed his first income tax return, deducting his bicycle as a work expense at the age of 13 !

Roger Federer
Roger Federer started playing tennis at the age of eight.

Albert Einstein
When Einstein was five, his father showed him a pocket compass, and Einstein realized that something in "empty" space acted upon the needle; he would later describe the experience as one of the most revelatory events of his life. He built models and mechanical devices for fun and showed great mathematical ability early on.

Sachin Tendulkar!
We all know that he was in Indian team at the age of 17 ?! may be 16 !
List goes on...there are so many examples.

I got a definition for ``world's best ''. They are truely amazing in their class. They are far ahead than the world class. I would say that there are two categories of highly talented people in the field they work. Usual and only them !

Truely speaking...am a firm believer that you will be able to recognize world's best at age when normal children would be playing in sand. They show it right then that they will become world's best some day.

Are they gifted and they did recognize what was for them at the right age ? I say yes !! Right age !
I am amazed at all the world's best ! God bless them

~

So when I left this post up to this point, I got responses from a couple of people ! saying what one can read in the comment !! dude ! I started my schooling at the age of 3!

Age is necessary but not the sufficient thing ! For 1 Federer, there are 1000s who could not make it to that high ! For each Schumacher, there are 100s who crashed on road ! Almost all people start education at the age of three !

Then what is it ? Passion ? Hard work ?! Inherent talent ??!!

Here is what one of my friends had to say ! Truely inspirational to me now ! I would go down to take some excerpts verbatim from his mail.

Its not just about starting early, which is always true coz these people are precocious, but also about sustaining the passion and having an innate skill at their respective craft.

If I were to generalize the champs at various endeavours it would be based on common features -- innate confidence of ability at given endeavour, unnaturally quick & advanced understanding of nuances (as compared to others of same age) and determination to excel (hunger for success).


Now I would give examples of people who could not recognize at the right age, what they had to do, but with hard work they could still get it !

Narayan Murthy !
Dhuribhai Ambani !
Shahruk Khan !

Would you say they are not world's best ?!

The post is still open ! ~ R