So my ten year old asks me as we leave one of his baseball practices, "What does it take to make it in the big leagues?",  and I immediately remembered an ESPN excerpt on Larry Fitzgerald (yes I know he is in the NFL, but a professional athlete no less) arguably one of, if not, the best receiver in the NFL.  It was about Larry Fitzgerald's off season training.  I thought it a great way to explain it to my son. Even though Larry Fitzgerald is already the best current player, he did something I thought extraordinary; he hired undeniably the best NFL receiver ever, Jerry Rice to personally train him to make him better than himself.  It is one thing to put in hard work and extra training in the off-season, it is another to have the enough passion to not only put in the extra hard work, but to have the modesty to know you can still learn from the best, and even more importantly, you can improve yourself to continue to be the best.  As I explained to my son, there are those that make it far as athletes because of skills and hard work, and natural talent, but the ones that become professional athletes must have enough passion to push themselves and to recognize that they can still improve. I think it made a large impression on my son, but as is often the case when I have deep conversations with  a ten year old, I eventually relate it to my professional life as well. Although I never had the ability or the passion to become a professional athlete, I always had a huge passion to be the best luxury builder, and the most skilled watershape designer and installer.  We often are in competition with other builders/designers in multiple facets of our business, and we are very successful in being awarded those projects when we are able to prove our talents and passion to the clients.  Our capture success rate is near perfect when we have meet with clients face to face.  It is not our pricing structure, as we are rarely the least expensive.  We are usually very similar in price, but our passion shows through and through when we meet with the clients and they recognize how personal we take each and every project we are involved in.  It is the passion that drives me to absorb as much information as possible from the best in the Industry.  The likes of Paulo Benedetti, David Tisherman, Brian Van Bower, Randy Beard, and Skip Phillips, literally recognize the world over as the best in the business. It is that passion that drives me to read almost every industry magazine (Builder, Custom Home, Aqua Magazine, Watershapes, etc.) cover to cover, and gives me the ability to take and keep the information I have learned in memory and put to use.  It is the passion that drives us to be at the forefront of technology, design ideas and concepts.  It is the passion that makes it easy to upstage our competitors, who usually have either lost their passion or never had it.  The lack of passion keeps them from being able to create the visual delights and create designs that are truly one of a kind.   We are in an industry inundated by followers, one that is easy to enter, easier to underestimate a projects real cost and complexity, and easier yet to ruin the reputation of an entire industry by repeating those bad habits.  One thing Red Rock Contractors, and Red Rock Pools and Spas will always do, use our passion to be our guiding light, allowing us to deliver the unexpected, show our talents, and delight our clients.