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.