“Make the difficult look easy and the easy look beautiful.”

This was advice from my days as a magician and while I can’t pinpoint the person who spoke this truth, its message resonates across all walks of life.

It’s the masters who make a lifelong practice look easy that entice us to follow in their footsteps.

“Wow, I’d love to be able to do that.”

The pulp fiction writers of the thirties, for instance, who sat at their typewriters pounding out several thousand words a day consistently for years on end—while selling their stories along the way (one draft, few, if any, edits).

Their work ethic was crazy compared to today’s writer, which is why I look toward them and wonder how they managed. It’s something I strive to live up to (although the days of sitting in a bookstore window writing a short story in front of a live audience are probably gone).

Reading about it, they made it seem easy.

Musicians who spent thousands of hours practicing in front of live audiences make performing look like nothing. Just get up there and give ‘er.

Then there’s the teacher who can meet the need of every student in their class without breaking a sweat.

Don’t forget the athlete who performs at their sport as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

While we think we can just go out there and be those people, we need to remember they are making it look easy. What we fail to see are the countless hours, failures, struggles, mistakes, small victories, iterations and years of progress to get to where they are today.

But, they all give us something to strive for and more.

However, when you get there, you owe it to others to inspire them in the same way.

Keep making the difficult look easy and the easy look beautiful.