As you might imagine, I've been asked repeatedly what my assessment is
of the factors differentiating the highly successful from the less successful.
The comparison isn't against the unsuccessful, which an entirely different
dynamic, but against those who do well but aren't the best, the thought
leaders, the champions.
You can easily read how it's a kibillion hours of practice (I find that
to be nonsense), or heredity (perhaps appropriate in swimming or basketball),
or IQ (I know too many smart failures), or education (I went to college and
grad school with a lot of people who were no better off after the experience).
Some people advocate coaching and some trial and error, and some sheer passion.
My general conclusions is that perseverance is the key, all else being
fairly equal, and that perseverance is based on disciplined focus and
resilience. (The closest work I'd recommend is Andrea Duckworth's excellent
Grit).
Focused discipline is the ability to stay the course, to limit and
overcome distractions, to handle multiple priority projects at once without
sacrificing any. The operative word here is "priority." Focus
requires the jettisoning of the non-priority, and if everything is a priority
then nothing is a priority.
Resilience (see my book co-authored with Dr. Richard Citrin, The
Resilience Advantage) is the ability to accept temporary, unavoidable pain
without allowing voluntary, endless suffering to intervene. It's the ability to
get back on the horse, to apologize, to return to the scene of defeat, to learn
from failure.
I'll tell you here and now that most people aren't happy with my
conclusions, because perseverance and resilience are within the control of the
performer. They are not functions of DNA, or the right school, or particular
life experiences. You can probably improve at both right now.
But do you choose to?
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