During my senior year of college and college basketball, we won the state championship and went to the nationals. That was the first time in Indiana Tech University history that a team did that. We were a great team must say but the one that stood out the most out of us never get to be in the team to go to the Nationals and play against the best teams in the USA.

Julius Martin was his name and he was by far the most athletic player I have seen. We had to do these crazy drills that were really hard and I remember how my feet were burning after every practice and how I could bearly walk, but Julius, even after 4-5 hours of workout would still shoot hoops and go to the weight room after it. I just could not believe that somebody could have such stamina and strength.

Besides his great athleticism, he was also a great player bust still could not play for the team and compete with us in games. He could play for us only in friendly matches and everybody would immediately notice he is few levels about us but he could not play in an official game and you know why not because of his grades.

Yes, grades. To compete at a college level you need to have a certain grade point average in order to play basketball. we were there to be students and learn something and then to be basketball players but Julius did not see it that way. I think that he knows that he was better than us and that somebody will notice him and give him a shot for the NBA or some good team in Europe but that never happened.

He did have the talent for sure but he was lacking in hard work and consistency in other areas.

You see hard work beats talent every time when talent does not work hard

You see just having talent is not enough, you need to have an all-around game. So just to be a talented athlete was not enough, you needed to have good grades or the system will not let you play, those were the rules.

He was focusing too much on basketball that he loses sight of all the other areas he needs to be good as well in order to keep playing basketball.

So because of the grades he was left behind and could not compete with us and colleges didn’t want him and professional teams didn’t want him as well. Last I heard he is living in Atlanta and working in marketing.

I try to talk to him a few times back in the day and try to direct him that he needs to be working for the grades as well and how we need him in our team but i guess he was too stubborn to listen.

Let’s see how the same thing apply to business.

You can have great talent, let’s say you have a beautiful voice, and you can sing, but can you send an invoice?

Can you book your own gigs?

Can you market yourself?

Do you know how to negotiate?

You see there are many levels above just being talented that will get you success.

Yes, talent is important, but not as important as hard work.

Work on the things you are good at to make them even better but look at the bigger picture as well. If you are great at singing keep singing but learn how can you reach people that will pay for your talent so that you can make a living out of it.

I meet some really talented people in my life thus far, none of them took it to the next level due to lack of hard work or lack of bigger picture and they were always “blindsided” by some problem they didn’t expect but they should-

Nurture your talent but work hard on other areas as well to get to your goals.

Darko Bilandžić
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