--- title: How To Keep Your Competition on The Back Foot date: 2006-03-10T18:23:22Z modified: 2006-03-10T18:23:22Z permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/how-to-keep-your-competition-on-the-back-foot/" type: post status: publish excerpt: "" wpid: 539 categories: - Uncategorized timestamp: 2006-03-10T18:23:22Z tags: - Uncategorized --- Be Diego Maradona. Seriously – [check out the photo](http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/patrickf?entry=lies_damned_lies_and_linguistics), courtesy of Mr Finch. Just look at it. Go back and look at it some more – that’s six men marking one, and who knows – how many markers are coming in from outside the picture? Look at the lumpenfeet of the opposition, see the balance and poise of Maradona, who has all the time in the world to do whatever he needs to… The reason the competition is stymied though, is not because of Maradona’s skills, but because of the fear of them. It was the fear of what he _could do_, rather than what he _was doing_, that made playing him so hard. The Maradona picture got me thinking about Kathy Sierra’s post the other day – about how [we can all become expert at something](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/03/how_to_be_an_ex.html), even something we think we’re not cut out for. Perhaps Kathy, but natural talent can’t be ignored. Believe in nurture, sure, but you can’t rule out nature. Pushing a rock up hill is great exercise and will make you stronger, but pushing a snowball downhill can also be very rewarding. It is balancing the two approaches that makes us well rounded. Sometimes a player is touched by [the hand of God](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hand_of_God_goal.jpg). Patrick’s blog is a good [Friday blog](http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/patrickf), twining (thats twining, not twinning) subjects as disparate as the GPL, Premier League Football, poor punctuation in national newspapers that call for better punctuation, and um… [sports bras](http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/patrickf?entry=robbie_fowler_sports_bras_and).