Understanding Greatness

Hi, I’m David and my mission in life is to prepare people for the future of work.?

In this week’s edition of the newsletter the theme revolves around understanding greatness. When we applaud the top people in any field, we often fail to appreciate that their success almost always came after many years of deliberate practice. However, what we also fail to appreciate are the circumstances that brought out the best in them. For example, if you ask most people what are the most admired Presidents the United States (U.S.) has ever had, the three names that will come first to mind are (and polls corroborate this supposition): George Washington – the first U.S. President and one of the key Founding Fathers; Abraham Lincoln – the man who held the Union together; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt – the longest serving U.S. President in history, unless the U.S. amends its Constitution. Without a doubt they were all great men who rose to the occasion when their country needed them the most. But what else do these three men have in common? They were the individuals holding office at the time of the three major wars that impacted American history: American Revolution (Washington), American Civil War (Lincoln), and World War II (FDR). Their heroism was partly a product of their skills and partly a product of their circumstances. As historian and philosopher, Will Durant, once said, “Greatness arises only when tested.” Below are some insights and thoughts that will help you better understand what greatness is.

Timeless Insight

“Greatness arises only when tested.” – Will Durant

There are many cases in which individual characters have had a significant impact on history (e.g. Alexander the Great, Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, etc.). However, such extraordinary individuals are a product of circumstances. In other words, rather than attributing someone’s impact on society solely on his/her merits, it is demand that brings out the best in human beings. Some recognise and seize the opportunities that life brings them, others are either paralysed or consumed by them. What would Elon Musk have been if he had remained in his native South Africa? He would probably still be considered a genius by some (and a villain by others), but his impact in the world wouldn’t have been the same. When he moved to Canada in 1989, at the age of 17, with $2,000 in his pocket, a backpack with a few clothes, and a suitcase full of books, he faced tremendous demands upon him. He lived with a second cousin in Saskatchewan, working odd jobs at a farm and lumber mill to make ends meet and save up to study at 加拿大女王大学 , where he enrolled in 1990. Through hard work, and a bit of luck, he got a scholarship to study at the prestigious Wharton School of the 美国宾夕法尼亚大学 , fulfilling his childhood dream of moving to the United States where, in his words, “there was cool technology and things happening.” The rest is history, and now Elon Musk is one of the most successful people in the world. Greatness is in all of us, but only if we rise to the demands of life. In other words, greatness arises only when tested. So, next time life gives you lemons, be grateful for the hidden blessing.?

Food for Thought

At some point in our life, we have given up on trying to get better at a skill and settled for being mediocre as opposed to being great. Why don’t we push on until we achieve mastery?

Let’s say you want to play the guitar. In the beginning, it’s a rewarding learning experience. You start to take lessons and notice immediate progress. Your teacher comments on your talent and you see it being actualised into skill on a consistent basis with seemingly little skill. You pick up the elementary aspects in no time. But then the rate of progress diminishes. Improvement becomes harder and harder, and eventually, you reach a plateau.

A plateau can come from a few different places: we can either stop putting in the effort, the time on task needed to turn skill into accomplishment, or we can simply exhaust our talent.?

At some point we run out of that potential to be actualised into skill through focused effort. It’s at this point that people get comfortable and focus on turning the skill that they’ve acquired into accomplishment, instead of focusing on turning their talent into additional skill. For the aspiring guitarist that might mean learning to play a few more complex pieces that will help him/her to get out of his/her comfort zone and further develop his/her skills.

The only thing that is going to get someone who is proficient in something out of their plateau is to isolate some small component that needs improvement and concentrate there.

If you’re myopic and only look at the next moment in time and you base your decisions on ‘what am I going to get out of this in the next nanosecond’ versus ‘what do I have to put into this in the next nanosecond,’ then when you hit a plateau, your natural conclusion is to quit and move on to the next thing. If you’re able to think about things in much bigger chunks, you can make better long-term investments of your time and effort.

Johannes Eichstaedt, a researcher at the 美国斯坦福大学 ’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, believes that human achievement is the function of a set of variables:

“We think about achievement, skill and talent sort of like distance travelled, velocity and acceleration,” he says. In his model, achievement can be thought of as the sum of all your accomplishments. This is a value that never decreases and is constantly building over time. Skill is velocity (i.e. the rate at which achievement is attained). Johannes Eichstaedt sees talent as acceleration, the rate at which skill increases. Think of it as achievement potential.?

To get an increase in skill you multiply talent by units of time using deliberate practice. The less talent the harder you have to work. This is where grit plays an essential role.?

Gritty people put in the effort to move from talent to skill and then from skill to achievement. This model may also help explain why people with high IQ’s (or talent in Eichstaedt’s model) can become skilled with little effort but also how people with an average IQ can get to the same skill level, through hard work and focused effort. The model underscores why it is so important to teach grittiness to kids (Angela Duckworth has a great TED Talk on the topic).?

According to Eichstaedt, Duckworth and other academics, the main ingredients for accomplishing great things are: talent and a tenacious pursuit of one’s objectives.

When we applaud the top people in any field, we often fail to appreciate that their success almost always came after many years of deliberate practice. They may have ultimately benefited from a lucky break, but their extensive preparation meant they were ready for it. Great achievements tend to come later in life or even near the end of someone’s career. Short-term intensity cannot replace long-term commitment. Crucial changes take place over long periods of time. Physiologically, it’s impossible to become great at something overnight.?

Article of the Week?

The Ultimate Deliberate Practice Guide: How to Be the Best

Caricature of the Week

Source: Condé Nast

Thank you for reading and keep on growing!

David

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