#davesdailychallenge (157): All The Things That Cannot Be Seen. If you’ve been following me for awhile now you know how I feel about the “grind”. You’ll know by now that I consistently reiterate the value of learning resilience as well as developing your ability to recognize, and therefore combat, resistance in all its forms. This quote from Tony Robbins is an excellent baseline of these ideas and why it is so important to nurture within yourself a love of the work that is necessary to reach the success that I know so many of you crave. I want to take this notion a step further, however, and drive home some of the ideas that we’ve discussed in the past during this daily challenge series. Primarily, I want to discuss the notion of what it really means to “…practice in private” and the emotional maturity needed to make this practice worthwhile. A few months ago I wrote about the one piece of advice that I give to every single young person I mentor or work with. It is the single most important thing I did with my early professional years that has led to my abilities to perform in my chosen arena. That advice, in a nutshell, is to seek tremendous challenge with their first professional endeavor. Why do I say this? I do so because with this pursuit and all of the follow-on self-discovery, maturity, skill growth, opportunities, and empathy gained you will have the capabilities to reach the pinnacle of your abilities later on in your career. If you settle for status quo challenges, that are anything but, you will not gain the emotional maturity to understand yourself or scenarios well enough to reach your fullest potential. Tying this into the original idea and quote, the “private practice” that occurs in the dark while everyone else sleeps or the grind that happens after others have reached their perceived limits is where the magic really happens. Many won’t have the guts to own the night or love the work that is necessary to reach the potential you know you have. Don’t confuse what I’m saying here. I’m not your motivational speaker. I’m not your life coach and I’m sure as hell not selling you snake oil. We are awash in technical skills training but we aren’t talking enough about the underlying mental and emotional strengths that are necessary to make the “private practice” worthwhile. Do that and you will be rewarded.