I went to the Boston Bruins practice last week. I’ve been away from hockey for the most part over the last 10 years. Since September, I have been playing once per week. The practice was awesome to watch. Watching elite players practice skills and drills at a high level is enriching.
Part of me getting back into hockey ties to having an itch for my kids to play hockey. I know I can’t really control it. I can help influence it. The way I think about it is they will at least know how to skate. Who knows how far they take it from there. If they get into other things, I’ll be right there with them.
At work, you are either (1) executing someone else’s idea (2) executing your own idea. I’ve seen people early in their career be good at one and bad at the other. I’ve seen either direction to be honest. Someone early in their career could be good at moving on their ideas and not good at moving on others or vice versa. Personally, I was more natural with others so I had to work on idea generation over the years.
In order to progress, you need to do both. Awareness around which one you excel at is important and practicing the one that is less natural should be a priority.
My kids will be executing on my idea of learning to skate. At some point, they will execute their own too.