“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”
Mapping the human genome was one of the greatest scientific achievements in our lifetime. It revolutionized what we know about the human body, and it unlocked the potential for countless discoveries related to our health and well-being. In many ways, our DNA defines who we are, but in so many others, we can all make sure it doesn’t.
Long before any at-home DNA testing came out as a way to learn about our own genes, the 1997 movie, Gattaca, with Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, envisioned a world where people’s DNA would be used to determine their abilities and their limits. In this dystopian society, people were conceived using genetic selection to ensure that they possess the best DNA traits from their parents. Ethan Hawke’s character, however, was born outside of this process, and thus, he was seen as inferior to his brother – with whom he would compete in open water swimming. When they would race each other out into the lake, Hawke would always turn around first to “save something for the way back” because he was told that his genetics limited how far he could swim. Spoiler alert, but later in the movie, Ethan Hawke refused to turn around first and not only beat his brother in the competition but ended up saving him from drowning. When his brother asked Hawke how he did it, Hawke replied, “I never saved anything for the swim back.” It turned out that DNA was not the final determinant of Hawke’s, or his brother’s, abilities – because Hawke didn’t allow it.
This science fiction movie has come much closer reality over the past three decades. We can now see our own DNA traits by simply providing a saliva sample to 23andMe or Ancestry.com. In case you haven’t figure this out yet, I am an early adopter of technology, so naturally, soon after I learned about 23andMe, I was excited to submit my sample. The results of my DNA test explained a lot – or so I thought. I was more likely to have high blood pressure – check! More likely to have type 2 diabetes – check! And more likely to have high triglycerides – check! The test was a built-in excuse for so many of my comorbidities that I ignored the obvious – that my sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy diet cause all those conditions.
That said, there was one result that stood out more than any other to me – the genes that determine my muscle composition are uncommon in elite athletes.
When I first saw the results of this 23andMe test, I thought it explained a lot about my body — until I later learned that a DNA result does not define what I can achieve.
In my mind, based on where I knew my body was at the time, this explained why I always had below average muscle. Much like Hawke’s character, I assumed there were limits to how far I could go in my workouts. For instance, I previously mentioned that until this year, I had never been able to do a single pull-up in my life. When I saw my test, I believed that my DNA explained this.
But as I worked hard over the past decade to make changes to my health and fitness, one mantra that I clung to (made famous by the NBA star, Kevin Durant) was, “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” Taking that approach, I built more muscle than I ever imagined and got healthier in all respects. I can now do 10 pullups at a time! So, what occurred to me is . . . screw 23andMe!
That new outlook gave me the mentality needed to evolve much like Hawke’s did both in fitness and at work with a few strategies in mind:
Compete with yourself . . .
Our tendencies are often to compare ourselves to others. In fitness, I can look around and see many friends who achieve results that I cannot – and may not ever – reach. It happens for me in all of my activities – golf, strength training, climbing, running, etc. For each of those activities, it would be self-defeating – at least for the time being – to go out there any try to do what I physically cannot. At the same time, each time I go out for one of those activities, I know what I have achieved before, and the goal is to beat it. Sometimes progress is slow, while at other moments, each time out brings a new level, or a new PR (personal record). Either way, when my concentration is on improving, there’s a realistic target, and hard work pays off. When it is on the impossible, not only is the target unachievable, but there is no way to even place the proper focus of my work, leading to inefficient and wasted efforts.
The same is true in work. I recently had a conversation with a colleague who is a rock star associate at my firm. Talking about her career path, she compared herself to a top trial lawyer we work with saying she’s not at that level. That trial lawyer is 20+ years her senior, and my response was that the comparison is not to that lawyer today, and that she is likely everything that lawyer was 20+ years ago. If she just keeps pushing herself to keep going beyond where she is today, focusing solely on what’s next for her, then over the next several years she may find herself looking back on that conversation realizing not only is she that trial lawyer, but she really was all along.
If you are not improving, you are declining . . .
We all have our routines both in fitness and in life. As a runner, I sometimes find myself in a routine of going for the same run over and over. My body knows the distance and the pace for that run. I know that I can do it, and I am comfortable with it. Going farther and faster is uncomfortable – and it can be scary. But as I’ve said before, sometimes improving requires getting comfortable outside of my comfort zone. Doing that same run over and over may feel like maintenance, but it’s not. The body adapts and even though the distance and pace remain constant, the body’s physiology is not. My heart rate may not elevate as much as when my body was first unfamiliar with that run. At first, achieving that level required my body to push itself to a new level. Maintaining it requires the body to do less to get there, and thus it is declining.
Again, this is true at work. A great second-year lawyer may not be a great fifth-year lawyer, and that’s most often the case when that lawyer doesn’t take on new and unfamiliar roles. Whatever the career, if one keeps doing only what they’ve become comfortable with, then years later that becomes a weakness. Maintaining the success of a second-year lawyer means a decline when looked at in the lens of a fifth-year. The only way to avoid that regression is by taking on new and uncomfortable projects and testing your limits. Maintaining is declining.
Don’t save anything for the way back . . .
On the subject of being an early adopter of technology, the day I first learned what a Peloton was, I went out and bought one. I had never even been spinning before in my life and didn’t even know what spinning was. My cardio workouts were never with an instructor and were short runs, long walks, or doing a simple ride on an exercise bike. A spin class is different from a simple ride on a bike, and the instructor takes you through different challenges. Early on, I was doing a ride that was quickly pushing my limits. I might have been halfway into the ride when I felt like I wouldn’t make it to the end. I even thought I might not survive it. At the moment those thoughts crept in, and I wondered if I should go slower to avoid collapsing, the instructor – Emma Lovewell – motivated the class by saying, “if you don’t feel like you can’t do this, you’re not doing it right.” At that moment, a light bulb went off, not only for that ride, but for all future workouts. First, I was relieved to know that the fact that I thought I was going to die, was how I was supposed to be feeling. I guess I wasn’t going to die. (Of course, I need to add a disclaimer here that, you should consult with a medical professional before pushing yourself to certain levels you may be unsure of.) But in that moment where Emma made that comment, I was reminded of Gattaca, and I said to myself, “don’t save anything for the way back!” It turns out, I made it through the entire ride – certainly a level I had never done before. That unlocked so many more workouts where I now knew to push myself to do what I didn’t think I could.
Similarly, at work, there are times when it piles on, and don’t I think I can handle it all. I find myself running on fumes after long days, sleepless nights, and no time off. We all need to find time for rest, recovery, and life, but there are also times when I have to put those thoughts aside and not save anything for the way back. Looking back, those moments at work are much like the moment on Emma’s ride where I come out learning that I am capable of much more than I had thought I was. In the moment, the feeling of needing to save something was based on my own fear of failure, but in reality, not leaving anything in the tank is what led to my success.
As simple and obvious as these lessons seem when looking back on them in the big picture, the clarity never seems to be there in the moment. In his best-selling book, Outliers, Malcom Gladwell wrote about the benefits of hidden advantages. As an example, he showed the story of elite Canadian hockey players having a disproportional number of athletes born during the months of January, February, and March – even in descending order with more born in January, then February, and then March. It turned out the same was true in European soccer players. The reason for this statistical anomaly turned out to be because the selection process for young all-star teams, which began at the age of nine or ten was based on an age cutoff that was set at January 1. The nearly one-year age gap between a child born in January and another born late in the year represented an enormous difference in physical maturity, and those born early in the year who benefitted from that advantage were most likely to be the ones who moved up the ranks the following year.
These hidden advantages occur all around us in many areas, but in each one, there are outliers. In many ways, I am an outlier both in the path I took towards my career and with the changes I’ve made to my fitness. One of the common reasons for both was because, at some point, I refused to accept what I seemed to be destined for. My journey towards becoming lawyer working in big law did not take the one seen in most of my peers. I went to law school late in life – seven years after graduating college and then waiting tables. I started at a lower tier school that was not one where lawyers got hired from at big firms, but a year later, I transferred to UCLA – a top-tier school. If there were a 23andMe result for where I was supposed to end up, it would have said I was less likely than average to achieve what I did. For some others, who started at top-tier law schools right out of college, their result might have said they’d end up at a big firm, even when they didn’t.
As we go through life, our instincts may be to stay within our limits and what we know our abilities to be. Those perceived limits come from our experience and even our DNA. Some may be real, no doubt, but many are not. Looking back on my 23andMe results, I no longer have high blood pressure; my blood levels are not diabetic, and my triglycerides are perfect. Ok, maybe I still don’t have the muscle composition of an elite athlete – at least not yet – but after years of training, I am now above average in that category according to my body composition tracker. So, I’m not going to go and compare myself to LeBron James and say I can never get there. Rather, I will compare myself to me and keep improving on that. Who knows how far that can go? All I can say is that I won’t let any DNA test define that for me, as it clearly does not define many of my other health traits.
That said, there’s one other result that I didn’t mention that may be spot on after all . . .
Although it looks like my DNA test explains some of my recent adventures, I previously wrote about a time where I was paralyzed by a fear of heights. One does not have to let even this DNA test define their fears.
So, in fitness, I live like an athlete because I am one. At work, I become an expert in whatever the subject is for each case. I may not know anything about a complex scientific issue – including DNA – when I open a file for the first time, but I try to master it from the minute I crack it open.
On that note, here’s a nerdy fun fact to leave you with . . . Gattaca was named from the letters GTAC which represent the four bases of DNA molecules. Guanine, thymine, adenine, cytosine. Each DNA sequence contains base pairs of these molecules that bind to each other. Guanine binds with thymine (GT), and adenine binds with cytosine (AC).
Aaron