Practice.Practice.Practice.

We get rewarded in public for what we repeatedly practice and develop in private. One of the hallmarks of the greatest artist, athletes, and businesspeople is their passion to be the best in their chosen profession. They sweat the small stuff and deliberately practice for a long period through reps, laps, road work, sessions, pitches, etc. As Greek Philosopher Aristotle once observed “We are what we repeatedly do; excellence is then not an act but a habit”. We play the way we train to bleed less in war; you would have to sweat more in training. When Puerto Rican cellist Pablo Casals was asked why he continued to practice the cello three hours a day at 93, he answered… “I’m beginning to notice some improvement.

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.”

There is an old joke about someone trying to get to Carnegie Hall and he spots another man carrying a violin case. He asked “Sir, how do I get to Carnegie Hall? The other fellow smiles and says, “Practice, Practice, Practice.”

I am presently averaging 80-90 hours of monthly time spent in the gym exercise. As part of my daily morning routine, I shoot basketball, swim, run on the treadmill, play pickleball and cycle. Starting my day with this exercise regimen has greatly impacted my health and, most importantly, gives me something to look forward to daily. I am constantly training for a challenge – marathon, triathlon or run. Practicing daily has taught me many life lessons, such as sacrifice, determination, persistence, endurance, resilience and consistency.

The journey to truly superior performance is neither for the faint of heart nor for the impatient. The development of genuine expertise requires struggle, sacrifice, and honest, often painful self-assessment. There are no shortcuts. It will take you at least a decade to achieve expertise, and you will need to invest that time wisely, by engaging in “deliberate” practice—practice that focuses on tasks beyond your current level of competence and comfort. You will need a well-informed coach not only to guide you through deliberate practice but also to help you learn how to coach yourself. Above all, if you want to achieve top performance as a manager and a leader, you’ve got to forget the folklore about genius that makes many people think they cannot take a scientific approach to developing expertise.

Not all practice makes perfect. You need a particular kind of practice—deliberate practice—to develop expertise

To people who have never reached a national or international level of competition, it may appear that excellence is simply the result of practicing daily for years or even decades. However, living in a cave does not make you a geologist. Not all practice makes perfect. You need a particular kind of practice—deliberate practice—to develop expertise. When most people practice, they focus on the things they already know how to do. Deliberate practice is different. It entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can’t do well—or even at all. Research across domains shows that it is only by working at what you can’t do that you turn into the expert you want to become.¹

We have only a certain amount of time available to us, and how we choose to spend our days is significant. We’re also aware that there are things we would like to do and experiences we would like to have before we die, many of which are desires we’ve suppressed for months or even years. We feel the ticking of the clock, and the accompanying sense that we may be missing our opportunity to make a contribution to the world. However, we often ignore these impulses as a result of the relentless pragmatics of life and work.

It’s easy to get lost, and wake up many years later in a strange land asking yourself, “Who am I, how did I get here, and how do I go back?

The only way to avoid this scenario is to instill consistent practices into your life that keep you on a true and steady course. An ounce of preventative discipline today is worth a pound of corrective action later. ²

Podcast

When robots recycle with Matanya Horowitz of AMP Robotics | How I Built This with Guy Raz
Mary’s Gone Crackers: Mary Waldner | How I Built This with Guy Raz

Meditations

Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Interconnectedness
Many of us go through periods where we feel alone or isolated regardless of how many people we are surrounded by. Often the cause has to do less with our external world and more to do with what is happening within.
Remind ourselves of the interconnectedness of all things; no matter how separate we may feel, we share a common experience.