When we see someone on top of their game in whatever area, sport, design, writing, whatever, we often say that he/she is natural. We think that they did not have to work hard at their craft because it comes naturally to them. That couldn’t be farther from truth. It is always hard, hard work and perhaps certainly obsession with what they do. I like following quote from article about top surfer from Hawaii Clay Marzo that I read recently:

Kai Barger, a fellow Maui surfer and the current ASP world junior champion, recently called Clay “the best out of all of us, and it’s all natural. He never had to work at it.”

But Kai is wrong. Although Clay’s body appears to be perfectly designed for the sport—he has a long torso and short legs, which gives him a low center of gravity and the ability to crouch in tight barrels—his real secret is that he’s always in the water. If Clay isn’t surfing (and the only time he’s not surfing is when there are no waves or it’s a moonless night), then he’s probably watching slow-motion videos of himself surfing, which he’s been known to study for ten hours straight.