SECRETS OF GREATNESS

LIVE THE LIFE BEAUTIFUL!

Fortune magazine has titled its October 30, 2006 issue as the Excellence Issue. It explores the Secrets of Greatness.

The conclusion of its article ‘What It Takes To Be Great’ is that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. Painful and demanding practice and hard work is the secret to success.

Greatness is achieved through demanding and painful hard work over many years. Most accomplished people need around ten years of hard work for becoming world class. Greatness in any field requires constant ‘deliberate practice’.

Talent has little or nothing to do with greatness. Excellence is not a consequence of possessing innate gift.

Even if you possess some natural gift, high-level performance is not possible without experience or practice. Many prodigies don’t achieve greatness.

Motivation is the key to constant hard work and practice.

In another article, ‘12 Peak Performances’, it talked to twelve successful people - a global trader, drill instructor, test driver, gambler, scientist, pro athlete, rock musician, security expert, movie star, venture capitalist, chief executive and concessionaire.

Some of the conclusions derived from the discussions are :-

1. Practice makes perfect. This is the explicit or implicit refrain of practically all the 12 persons interviewed.

2. Have obsessive quest for self improvement and staying focused.

3. You can not get locked into a mindset. A lot ­of people just keep adding to a bad position.

4. A failed experiment is actually rich source of information. People tend to focus on positive results, but people who are successful are often those who also learn from the negative.

5. Stress yourself out. You can not go out and expect to do well when the pressure is on if you don’t put the pressure on yourself in practice, in the off-season, or when nobody else is there.

6. Be obsessive over the data especially analyze data relating to your practice, experiment, experience or business.

But…

7. If you spend too much time analyzing reams of data, you become paralyzed and never make interesting decisions.

8. Buckle up for a wild ride if your job demands it.

9. Embrace ambiguity.

10. Think more.

LIVE THE LIFE BEAUTIFUL!