What Makes Somebody Great?

I think there are many things that can make an individual great. However I feel one thing in particular that really separates the good from the great is the person's ability to keep making themselves better.


Take for example Sydney Crosby. Coming into the NHL in 2005 most people expected him to be amazing. Even Wayne Gretzky called him the "Next One". As expected Sydney had an incredible first year. He scored 39 goals and hit over 100 pts. Most NHL players wont come close to 100 pts in a season in their entire NHL careers.
But Sydney wasn't looking to just be good. He wanted to be great. That season he finished with a plus/minus of -1. Not very good for Crosby's standards. That off season he worked incredibly hard to improve his defensive game and the next 2 years he went +10 and +18 and has never been a minus player since.

In his second year he was criticized for his face off win percentage. Since that year he has been in the top 5 in the league in face off win percentage.
In his third year he took his team to the Stanley Cup Finals but fell short in the end to Detroit. Obviously this wasn't good enough for someone like Sydney Crosby, so the next year he took his team to the cup finals again against Detroit but this time walked away as a champion. He also won Olympic Gold with Team Canada less than a year later.

By this time most people, (including some of the best players in the NHL) would say Crosby was doing pretty good for himself. He had won every trophy you could in the sport of Hockey at every level he played. He had been the league MVP and won many other individual awards. But once again this was not enough.
After they won the cup Crosby was again criticized for his lack of goals scoring. He had never scored 40 or more in a single season. What does he do? He practices all off season and was tied for 1st for goals scored at 51 by the end of the season.

Sydney Crosby is a remarkable example of someone MAKING himself great. He never relies on past performance or what he has accomplished in the past. He is constantly focusing on making himself better. Even this past year after being the best current player in the NHL in every category, he improved himself again and was on track to break all of his previous records until he suffered an unfortunate concussion to end his season.

Now, I'm not saying you have to go out and be Sydney Crosby in order to be great. But you do need to be constantly striving to improve yourself, daily, weekly and yearly. All throughout your lifetime. Take the lesson from Crosby and push yourself to be the best.
Remember, If you want to be a World-Class individual you need to have the actions of a World-Class individual.