+1: #955 Falling on Your Butt

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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. Jeff Colvin's Talent Is Overrated is a great book. It falls into the Effort counts twice, deliberate practice bucket of how to reach our peak via grit, etc. Bunch of links referencing plus ones and notes in that paragraph. It's packed with great stories about as per the subtitle of the book, what really separates world class performers from everybody else? Here's a short hint to the answer. I quote no matter who they were or what explanation of their performance was being advanced, it always took them many years to become excellent. And if a person achieves elite status only after many years of toil, assigning the principal role in that success to innate gifts becomes problematic, to say the least. Note that doesn't mean talent is irrelevant, just overrated when compared to extraordinarily hard work. Again, see, Effort counts twice for Angela Duckworth's math on this subject, that plus one is linked. So today I want to share one of my favorite stories from that book. Here it is. Colvin tells us, I quote, A study of figure skaters found that sub elite skaters spent lots of time working on the jumps they could already do, while skaters at the highest level spent more time on the jumps they couldn't do. The kind that ultimately win Olympic medals and that involve lots of falling down before they're mastered.

Aha.

Stretching out of our comfort zones into our stretch zones, but not into our panic zones for the win. Colvin then tells the story of Shizuka Arakawa, who won the gold medal in figure skating at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. As you may know, she rocked some crazy move called a layback Ina Bauer, which basically required her to bend backward almost double with the feet pointing in opposite directions leading into a three jump combination. You can watch her gold medal winning performance in a link I share on the plus one. Note the move we're talking about occurs at the 1:45 mark. And note too, if you aren't moved to tears of joy as you watch such a beautiful expression of human excellence, then, well, I don't know what to say other than re watch it. Now, when most of us watch something like that, it simply looks impossible to do. And for most of us it pretty much is. But as we watch that performance in awe, we would be wise to remember that Shizuka, who won the gold at 24, had been training for 19 years. 19 years, consistently pushing her edges, falling down again and again and again. In fact, Colvin calculated the number of times she probably fell and says landing on your butt 20,000 times is where great performance comes from. And that's today's plus one ineffably elegant grace. It's the byproduct of being willing to inelegantly fall on your butt. On cold ice, no less, 20,000 times. Olympic cameras back on you. Let's cruise back into our respective metaphorical ice skating rinks to train like world class performers as we wear our falls like metals and remember this parting wisdom from Colvin. The evidence offers no easy assurances. It shows that the price of top level achievement is extraordinarily high. Perhaps it's inevitable that not many people will choose to pay it, but the evidence shows also that by understanding how a few become great, anyone can become better. Above all, what the evidence shouts most loudly is striking liberating news that great performance is not reserved for the pre ordained few. It is available to you and to everyone.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optymyze with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize Me.

Hey guys, this is Brian with a quick little P.S. i'm really excited to let you know about an event we're working on. Plan is to make it the premier self optimizing event of 2020. We're calling it Optimize 2020. You the modern hero. Basic idea. Five days, 101 world class luminaries. One million people. You can learn more and get your tickets to the online and offline event at Optimize Me 2020. Again, that's Optimize Me2020.

Hope to see you there.