Hard Work Beats Talent When Talent Doesn't Work Hard

Lebron James Very little of collegiate athletes get the opportunity to play at the professional level. Out of all the NCAA Participants, 9.1% of baseball players go pro, 1.1% of men's basketball players go pro, and 1.4% men's soccer players go pro leaving it very difficult to make money playing sports (NCAA). To play the professional level, athletes must put in countless numbers of hours and overcome adversity. On average, players put forth 10,000 hours to play professionally and even more hours to try to become the best player possible (Palaima). Some players dedicate their whole lives to their favorite sport and still fall short of their big dreams. These people leave college without their degree and attempt to continue their sports career. But when this idea fails, they have no money and no college degree showing the fragility of careers in professional sports. Even though dreams of becoming a professional athlete sometimes do not come up in reality, when they do, athletes receive incredible paychecks to reward their hard work and dedication. For example, the average NBA basketball player makes a salary of 24.7 million dollars in their career (VisualNews). Unfortunately, 60% of NBA players spend their enormous paychecks at will which leads to debt after their career (Hartnett). Many of the other 40% save most of their money and spend it on important items for a successful life after their athletic career. An example includes the NBA player on the Cleveland Cavaliers, Lebron James.

Lebron James grew up in Akron, Ohio with the dreams of playing professional basketball. Throughout his years at St. Vincent- St. Mary High School, he won three state championships and numerous Most Valuable Player awards. As high school came to an end, Lebron decided to take his talents to the NBA. His knew his family needed money so he did whatever he could to help his single mother out (Stump). Lebron’s successful NBA career started on the Cleveland Cavaliers where in his first season he became the youngest player to win the Rookie of the Year award.

A few years later, Lebron James left Cleveland to play for the Miami Heat. There he won back to back NBA Championships in 2012 and 2013. After losing in the finals in 2014, Lebron decided to return to the Cavaliers and help end Cleveland’s long drought without a championship. He succeeded this goal and won the NBA Championship in 2016 against the Golden State Warriors (Biography.com Staff). Other than all his accomplishments in basketball, Lebron has also shown success through his family and community. Even though playing in the NBA takes up most of his time, family comes first for him and he tries to spend as much time as he can with them. Additionally he founded the ​LeBron James Family Foundation in 2004 to help out single-parent families in need (James). All in all, Lebron James had dedicated his life to basketball and has had a very successful life because of it.

Barack and Michelle Obama

All throughout his life, Barack Obama succeeded in all aspects of his life. Obama, born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961, grew up in an impoverished family. As problems within his family grew, Obama made it threw middle and high school to pave his way into college with the help of his grandparents. Relying on scholarships and student loans, he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, California (History.com Staff). After college, Barack moved to Chicago and joined charity organizations to help people in need. For example, He helped hopeless people to survive when their steel plants closed. Later, Obama attended Harvard Law School, where he overcome adversity to become the school’s first African American in the Law Review (Obama Foundation). The people of the United States elected Obama as the first black president on November 4, 2008. In America, the president must work to accomplish the goal living in a better America than before the election. As The President of the United States, Obama faced many difficulties in order to accomplish that goal. For example, the recession led to a very poor United States’ economy. To solve this, Obama worked hard to pass a $800 billion package to give America what it needed.

Additionally, Obama helped to decrease the unemployment rate. Before Obama, the unemployment rate constantly grew to 10% (Dimock). Throughout Obama’s presidency, the rate decreased to under 5%. All in all, Obama’s hard work helped change American for the better.

Barracks Obama’s wife also succeeded in their lives as well. Obama’s wife, Michelle Obama, grew up in Chicago in a low income family. A hard worker, like Barack, allowed her to succeed in school. She attended a difficult magnet high school where she participated in student council and graduated as the class salutatorian. After high school, she attended Princeton where she created a reading program to help kids. Shortly after graduating from Princeton, Michelle decided to study law at Harvard Law School. There she met her future husband, Barack (Obama Foundation). 20 years later, she became the first African American First Lady. Other than hosting dinners and events, The First Lady of the United States also acts as a helper to their husband. She takes on social issues in the world and attempts to fix them (González-Ramírez). When her time came, Michelle obama decided to take the role on decreasing childhood obesity and increasing education. For example, in her first year of office, Michelle worked with many elementary, middle, and high schools to encourage healthy lunches for students. Later in Obama’s presidency, Michelle pushed for better lives for veterans and their families. She expanded the opportunities for education and employment for them (History.com Staff). Over her time as the First Lady, Michelle made a difference in many people’s lives. Overall, Michelle succeeded in creating change for what she believed in through her hard work and dedication.

Movie Reviews

Michael Burry, one of the main characters in the nonfiction film, The Big Short, experiences tremendous success with his knowledge on the 2005 housing market. Believing that the housing market will crash soon because of its lack of stability, Burry creates a credit default swap market which angers many of his oblivious employees. His employees see this market as just something that wastes money. As the market shows signs of crashing, people start believing in Bury. For example, Deutsche bank salesman Jared Vennett and Front Point hedge fund manager Mark Baum. When the housing market finally crashes, these people become extremely rich.

Jared Vennett makes a profit of 47 million from his swaps, and Mark Baum waits to sell his loans that end up reaching one million dollars.

Michael Burry’s bet of one billion dollars on his idea, became an overall profit of 2.69 billion. Only a few believed in Burry’s assumptions. Burry worked hard and forced himself to overcome stress in his daily life to finally come to a conclusion that would make him money. The Big Short expresses that success does not come easy.

Most of Burry’s employees did not believe in him. He worked in an environment where very few people trusted him. He lived in his office and worked hard to ensure his success with the, difficult to understand, housing Market In the last episode of the Star Wars Trilogy, ​The Return of the Jedi​, the rebels succeed in destroying the Empire. After Luke Skywalker attempts to rescue Han Solo from the empire, the empire sentences Han and Luke to death by feeding them to the Sarlacc, a hungry creature.

When the day comes of their supposed death, Han and Luke survive by fighting off many of the empire’s soldiers and escape. Later The Empire captures Luke once again and tries to convince him to fight for them. Luke fights the main sith lord of The Empire, his father, Darth Vader, in a lightsaber duel. During their fight, the rebel scarcrafts work to destroy the empire’s space weapon, The Death Star. As he begins the dominate Luke in their fight, Vader knocks Luke the the ground and the The Emperor, Darth Vader’s leader, tortures Luke because he continues to refuse to join him. Reluctant to allow The Emperor to kill his son, Vader throws him into the midst of space. The rebel spaceships finally break the shields of the death star and flies into center of the weapon to explode it. As the Death Star starts to fall, Luke escapes after leaving his injured father behind to die. Overall, Luke Skywalker and the rebels work extremely hard to accomplish their goal of bringing peace to the galaxy. All in all I would rather watch The Return of the Jedi because of its interesting plot and characters.

Book Reviews

In the nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith brutally murdered four people of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. They killed the father, Herb Clutter, the mother, Bonnie Clutter, the daughter, Nancy clutter, and the son , Kenyon Clutter, with a shotgun and left no clues behind for the detectives. They only left the bodies tied up with ropes and blood everywhere in the house.

With no clues left, the case forces the main detective, Alvin Dewey, to dedicate his whole life towards solving the investigation. His wife constantly complains to him about their family not having a regular life due to the case’s constant annoyance on Alvin. After a couple of weeks, Floyd Wells, a cellmate of one of the murderers, told police that he knew that Dick and Perry murdered the family. After hearing the news, police tracked the murderers for about a week before arresting them in Las Vegas. Through his friendship of Herb Clutter, Alvin Dewey wanted to accomplish the challenge of solving the intense murder case. He wanted to succeed. He knew that people need to dedicate themselves and work hard to succeed and that is exactly what he did. He prioritized the case over everything else in his life and achieved tremendous amounts of success when the police finally arrested the two murderers.

In the fictional novel To Kill A Mockingbird, in a racist town in Alabama around the Great Depression, one of the main characters, Atticus Finch, agrees to defend an African American on trial for raping a white woman. After agreeing to the trial, Atticus’s children, Jean Louise and Jem, experience hard lives due to the anger of other families. For example, kids from other families bully them at school, and a father of another family attempts to injure them while they walked home from the school one night. Throughout the days leading up to the trial, Jem and Jean begin to agree with the father that racism should not exist. On the day of the trial, the kids watched from the colored balcony. Even though Atticus proves Tom, the African American on trial, as innocent, the jury still convicts him. Although Atticus did not win the trial, the lawyer still succeeded. Through all his hard work and dedication, Atticus showed the community the problems of racism. He showed that whites treat African Americans very poor, and that the community needs to make a change. He took heat from the other white people in the community just to try to make change for what he believes in. Overall I would rather read In Cold Blood because I find murder mystery stories very interesting.

Interview

This interview includes a conversation with my sister Bree and I about her sucess in life. I picked Bree as my interviewee because of her constant dedication towards her goals.

Bree attended Huntsville High School in Alabama from 2010 to 2014. Currently, Bree attends the University of Alabama and studies elementary teaching. After she graduates, Bree plans to move to Cleveland, Ohio to teach in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. In the interview, I ask her three questions about her thoughts on success in general and her thoughts on the success she encounters. Overall, her responses express the idea that hard work leads to success.

Question One: Do you consider yourself a successful person and why?

“I think success can be defined in many different ways, but in my opinion, I believe success is the ability to meet the goals that you set for yourself. Using that definition of success, I believe I am a successful person because of the goals I not only set, but achieved in life.”

Question Two: Do you believe that hard work has lead to your success? If so, can you explain an example or two?

“Without hard work, success is viewed as luck. In order to truly be successful, it takes drive, motivation and hard work. With that being said, I do believe that hard work has led to my success of each goal I have set for myself. For example, one goal I had as a teacher was that each one of my students would make an 80% or above on their math test that was coming up.

In order to achieve my goal, I had to take time to create and plan lessons that would meet each student where they were in order to get them where they needed to be. I had to put lots of dedication into making the material fun and relevant to my students’ lives while also teaching rigorous content. If I would have slacked off and taught lessons that were in a textbook that were irrelevant to my students needs and lives, I would not have met my goal and been successful in my teaching. Success follows hard work.”

Question Three: What plans do you have for the future to continue being successful in your life?

“As a first-year teacher, I have plans to grow and learn in my profession. In order to continue to be successful and achieve more of the goals I have for my life and my students, I will never settle and stop learning. I have plans to attend professional development seminars where I can learn new strategies to use in my classroom. I hope to continue working hard and trying to better myself every single day.

Works Cited

Biography.com Staff. “LeBron James.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 24 Jan. 2018, www.biography.com/people/lebron-james-399748​.

Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.

Dimock, Michael. “How America Changed During Barack Obama's Presidency.” Pew Research Center, 10 Jan. 2017, www.pewresearch.org/2017/01/10/how-america-changed-during-barack-obamas-presidency/​.

González-Ramírez, Andrea, and Michelle Obama. “What Does The First Lady Do, Exactly?” What Is The Role Of First Lady, What FLOTUS Does, 18 Jan. 2017, www.refinery29.com/2017/01/135816/first-lady-role-melania-trump-michelle-obama?bucketed=true​.

Hartnett, Tyson. “Why Athletes Go Broke And What We Can Do About It.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 5 May 2015, ​www.huffingtonpost.com/tyson-hartnett/why-athletes-go-broke-and_b_6812864.html​.

History.com Staff. “Barack Obama.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, ​www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/barack-obama​.

James, Lebron. “The Official Website of LeBron James.” The Official Website of LeBron James, ​www.lebronjames.com/​.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York :Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. Print.

McKay, Adam, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, and Steve Carell. The Big Short. , 2016.

Marquand, Richard, Lawrence Kasdan, George Lucas, Howard Kazanjian, Alan Hume, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy D. Williams, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Sebastian Shaw, Ian McDiarmid, Frank Oz, James E. Jones, Dave Prowse, Alec Guinness, Kenny Baker, Denis Lawson, and John Williams. Star Wars: Episode Vi. Beverly Hills,Calif: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2004.

NCAA, smeyers@ncaa.org. “Estimated Probability of Competing in College Athletics.” NCAA.org - The Official Site of the NCAA, 15 Mar. 2017, ​www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/estimated-probability-competing-college-athletics​.

Obama Foundation. “About the Office.” The Office of Barack and Michelle Obama, barackobama.com/about/.

Palaima, Thomas G. “The NCAA and the Athletes It Fails.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 17 Apr. 2011, ​www.chronicle.com/article/The-NCAAthe-Athletes-It/127181/​.

Stump, Scott. “LeBron James on His Mother: 'She Gave Me Strength' .” TODAY.com, 14 Oct. 2016, www.today.com/news/lebron-james-his-mother-she-gave-me-strength-2D11929449​.

VisualNews. “Visualizing the Yearly Salary of Professional Athletes, NBA Players Average $5+ Million a Year.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7 Dec. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/visualnewscom/visualizing-the-yearly-sa_b_4184716.html​.

Biography ​Drew Beckwith, an 11th grader at Chagrin Falls High School, has accomplished an incredible amount of success throughout his life. Drew faces many challenges; however, through his determined lifestyle, he overcomes these challenges and succeeds. Through his hardwork and dedication towards school and sports, he has earned a 4.0 GPA in high school and a letter in two sports. Beckwith, born in Anniston, Alabama on November 17, 2000, succeeded at playing sports all throughout his childhood. He participated in many recreation leagues, including baseball, football, basketball, and hockey, where the coaches always selected him for the all star team. While reaching many achievements in sports, Drew also maintained all As throughout elementary school and middle school. In fact, as a seventh grader, the Hampton Cove Middle school principal awarded Drew the ribbon given to the top ten students in the school. As a child, his parents knew he would grow up very successful. His dad always said, “Drew is never the shiniest penny. He is not the smartest in the school. He is not the pitcher throwing 90 miles per hour or the 6 foot 5 inches football star, but he will always deliver when you need him to.”

When transitioning into high school, Drew realized he could not continue to play every sport he enjoyed. He decided to just focus on two: football and baseball. The preseason of both football and baseball require tremendous amounts of hard work and countless hours. The football season begins the day after the season before ended with most players, including Drew, begin to train for next season. The team experiences many hours of weightlifting to ensure a successful next season. As summer approaches, Drew starts to feel anxious for the season. To end the summer, the team starts practicing two times a day in August. This past year, through all the dedication towards football, Drew helped the team win six of its ten games. Unfortunately, the team fell just short of the playoffs. After football season ends, other than worrying about the next football season, Drew starts preparing for a successful baseball season. The preseason of baseball starts off with workouts at six in the morning before school. The baseball coach puts the team through rigorous workouts to prepare for the pressure that baseball brings. As March approaches, the baseball team starts its three hour practices everyday after school. Through all the hard work of the players last year, the baseball team held the top ranking in the state for almost three weeks. Other than excelling at high school sports, Drew also succeeds greatly in academics. With tough classes and sports to deal with, Drew has received an accumulated weighted GPA of above a 4.0. As he grows more into adulthood, Drew knows to continue his constant success in his life, he needs to work hard.