I recently spent some time between conference sessions with indie musician Hannah Elizabeth Smith. The night before, she had thrilled the crowd with her masterful main stage performance. While we chatted she was messing around on her guitar with skills so impressive and seemingly easy for her, I just had to shake my head and laugh.

Thinking of Malcom Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of practice to master anything, I asked 20-year-old Hannah if she thinks she has 10,000 hours of guitar practice in. After some quick mental math she said “I think it’s a lot more than that”.

Calling her gifted would be an insult. She’s spent a big fraction of the waking hours in her life practicing guitar. That’s earned, not given.

Almost anyone can be “gifted” at almost anything, if they put in the practice time. That includes you, and that means “not gifted” is no excuse.

This week, for the first time, I did a session with a personal trainer. I learned things about my posture and how I tense up that seem obvious in hindsight. The thing is, I’ve been hanging out with my body for 35 years and I never noticed those things. In five minutes my trainer did.

Our brains are made to notice change and contrast, not things that have always been that way. And things look different from the other side of your eyeballs.

Recognize your blindness to yourself and ask trustworthy people to be mirrors for you.

If you set your mental GPS to head straight for “make money” and pursue it with passion, you won’t get good guidance, and you probably won’t reach that destination.

If you set it for “solve this customer problem” or “make the world a better place” and pursue it with passion, you’ll probably succeed and open doors to making a lot of money.

Nobody is interested in paying you so you can make your dream of making money come true. Lots of people are interested in paying you for solutions to their problems. Create and sustain success with focus on those you serve.

Your energy level is a valuable signal. Who energizes you? What quickly wears you out? What recharges you?

An energy drain can be a signal about an unresolved conflict that you might want to stop coping with and let go or make change. It might mean you are doing too much output, or not arranging for the inputs and the rest you need.

An energy boost can be a signal you are fulfilling your passion, doing your best work, or connecting with someone who is good for you.

Instead of riding the waves of your energy unaware, pay attention to when they happen and why. Use this insight to illuminate and inform your choices.

Technology and transportation have brought global competition to every skill, process, and product. It’s hard to be more precise than a robot, or more efficient than a computer. It’s hard to compete with cheap-labor countries, even for skilled work. Being good at something a million other people (or machines) do more cheaply, is not a recipe for a good time.

Smarter, faster, cheaper is hard (but not impossible) to win.

There’s another way to stand out from the crowd. When you create something new, lead something that might fail, go public with your message, interact with vulnerability — when you do scary things you give yourself an enormous advantage

There are many fantastic opportunities whose price of entry is the unusual willingness to be afraid and go forward anyway.

P.S. I aim to practice what I preach. My latest scary thing is workshop speaking at conferences. I’m kicking that off with three sessions at the National Worship Leader Conference next week.