The 6 keys to being awesome at everything

I’ve been playing tennis for nearly five decades. I love the game and I hit the ball well, but I’m far from the player I wish I were.I’ve been thinking about this a lot the past couple of weeks, because I’ve taken the opportunity, for the first time in many years, to play tennis nearly every day. My game has gotten progressively stronger. I’ve had a number of rapturous moments during which I’ve played like the player I long to be.

And almost certainly could be, even though I’m 58 years old. Until recently, I never believed that was possible. For most of my adult life, I’ve accepted the incredibly durable myth that some people are born with special talents and gifts, and that the potential to truly excel in any given pursuit is largely determined by our genetic inheritance.

During the past year, I’ve read no fewer than five books — and a raft of scientific research — which powerfully challenge that assumption (see below for a list). I’ve also written one, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, which lays out a guide, grounded in the science of high performance, to systematically building your capacity physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

We’ve found, in our work with executives at dozens of organisations, that it’s possible to build any given skill or capacity in the same systematic way we do a muscle: push past your comfort zone, and then rest. Aristotle had it exactly right 2000 years ago: “We are what we repeatedly do.” By relying on highly specific practices, we’ve seen our clients dramatically improve skills ranging from empathy, to focus, to creativity, to summoning positive emotions, to deeply relaxing.

Like everyone who studies performance, I’m indebted to the extraordinary Anders Ericsson, arguably the world’s leading researcher into high performance. For more than two decades, Ericsson has been making the case that it’s not inherited talent which determines how good we become at something, but rather how hard we’re willing to work — something he calls “deliberate practice.” Numerous researchers now agree that 10,000 hours of such practice as the minimum necessary to achieve expertise in any complex domain.

There is something wonderfully empowering about this. It suggests we have remarkable capacity to influence our own outcomes. But that’s also daunting. One of Ericsson’s central findings is that practice is not only the most important ingredient in achieving excellence, but also the most difficult and the least intrinsically enjoyable.

If you want to be really good at something, it’s going to involve relentlessly pushing past your comfort zone, along with frustration, struggle, setbacks and failures. That’s true as long as you want to continue to improve, or even maintain a high level of excellence. The reward is that being really good at something you’ve earned through your own hard work can be immensely satisfying.

1. 

Pursue what you love

Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus, resilience, and perseverance.

2.

Do the hardest work first

We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away from pain.

Most great performers, Ericsson and others have found, delay gratification and take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the most energy and the fewest distractions.

3.

Practice Intensely

Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then take a break.

90 minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day.

4.

Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses

The simpler and more precise the feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments.

Too much feedback, too continuously, however, can create cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and interfere with learning.

5.

Take regular renewal breaks

Relaxing after intense effort not only provides an opportunity to rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and embed learning.

It's also during rest that the right hemisphere becomes more dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.

6.

Ritualize practice

Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the researcher Roy Baumeister has found, none of us have very much of it.

The best way to insure you'll take on difficult tasks is to ritualize them -- build specific, inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them without having to squander energy thinking about them.

It takes several hours of daily practice to achieve excellence, so prioritise

I have practiced tennis deliberately over the years, but never for the several hours a day required to achieve a truly high level of excellence. What's changed is that I don't berate myself any longer for falling short. I know exactly what it would take to get to that level.

I've got too many other higher priorities to give tennis that attention right now. But I find it incredibly exciting to know that I'm still capable of getting far better at tennis -- or at anything else -- and so are you.

Here are the recent books on this subject:

• Talent is Overrated by Geoffrey Colvin. My personal favourite.
• The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Genius in All of Us by David Schenk.
• Bounce by Mathew Syed

Posted on Linked In, written by TONY SCHWARTZ

TONY SCHWARTZ17 NOVEMBER 2010 

2013 Bodes Well for NZ Businesses

Business owners should be relishing the thought of returning to work in the New Year given that New Zealand business confidence is indicated to be well up on last year, according to the Grant Thornton IBR survey.

Pam Newlove, Co-Chair and Partner, Grant Thornton New Zealand Ltd, said that business confidence has lifted 22% on this time last year to 58%, well ahead of neighbours, Australia, where confidence was up only 7% to 31%.

“New Zealand business owners have accepted that the tough grind we’ve been going through over the last couple of years is the new norm and they are just knuckling down and doing the business.  They have learnt to be smarter about how they do business rather than lament the recent difficult times.  Successful operators are identifying their niche products or services and capitalising on opportunities and securing market share that way.

“Australia may not have suffered the level of pain that we endured during the global financial crisis, but with the slowdown of China and the fall in commodity prices, indicators have turned south in the ‘lucky country’ with a slew of major redundancies in some of the larger companies.

“Employment aspirations show that 34% of New Zealand companies are looking to employ more staff in 2013 compared with only 8% in Australia.”

New Zealand companies have almost twice the level of optimism currently being experienced in Australia when it comes to forecast revenues and profitability.

“Seventy per cent were expecting increased revenue over the next 12 months and 58% were expecting an increase in profitability. For Australia the figures were 36% and 34%, another indicator of the shape of their economy,” she said.

Lack of skilled labour (38%) red tape (31%) and a shortage of working capital (28%) were all cited as constraints to growing and expanding businesses.

“Red tape is interesting, although it is noted as a constraint, it is less of a concern in this country compared with many others.  Interestingly, New Zealand is often seen as an easier place to do business relative to other jurisdictions.

“The overall picture is one of an improving economy but there are some key messages that have come out of the survey. Businesses must look after and retain their good staff, continue to educate and upskill them and continue to invest energy and time into maintaining and managing customer relationships,” she said.

The global outlook

Hopes for a strong start to economic recovery in 2013 look to be diminishing as business confidence in mature economies continues to fall away caused by concerns over the United States ‘fiscal cliff’ and ongoing fears over the long-term viability of Eurozone is dampening growth prospects, according to the survey.

The IBR reveals that global business optimism stands at just net 4% heading into the New Year. This halts a rally in confidence seen in the first half of 2012, when global business optimism reached 23%, and brings it nearer to the 0% level observed this time last year.

The fall in global business optimism has been largely driven by a huge fall in the world’s largest economy, the United States. Optimism amongst US business leaders climbed to 50% in Q2 this year, but slumped back to -4% in Q4 – the lowest since the depths of the financial crisis. Expectations for increasing revenues (down 10 percentage points) and profits (down 9) both fell sharply over the past three months. This chimes with research from Grant Thornton US which suggests 40% of CFOs have delayed decision making because of fiscal cliff concerns. 

d Nusbaum, CEO of Grant Thornton International, said: “There is no question that protracted negotiations over how to resolve both the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone and the fiscal cliff in the United States have weighed heavily on business confidence over the past six months. With the economic outlook clouded by these issues, business investment becomes a much riskier proposition for many.

“The hope, both in the United States and around the world, is that these issues can be resolved and that this drop in confidence is temporary rather than the start of a longer decline.”

Great article written by crew at Grant Thornton