Brian Johnson shares a lesson from SOCOM about how elite performers practice fundamentals until they can't get it wrong, while average ones stop once they get it right. The difference is relentless repetition until mastery becomes automatic.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In our last plus one, we chatted about the first soft truth and reminded ourselves of the fact that people are more important than hardware. More specifically, we chatted about the fact that you and your family and friends and colleagues and clients and communities are the most important part of our mission to help create a world in which 51% of humanity is flourishing. And by the year 2051, I repeat, if we're going to have a shot at fulfilling our mission, we need you to close the gap and be your best self. Then we need you to share your wisdom and discipline and love and courage and gratitude and hope and curiosity and zest with your families and friends and colleagues and clients and communities. Today I want to continue our discussion of some big ideas I picked up from my day at SoCalm. I took 10 pages of notes. I asked General Fenton if I could share some of the wisdom I gained with you. He told me I could, and he encouraged me to do so. So let's get to work. We'll start on page one with one of the very first things I wrote down during his introduction. After establishing SOCOM's commitment to helping his force and their families be the best they can be, General Fenton said that they are relentlessly, all caps, relentlessly trying to improve. Now I got goosebumps. I started to type the next line. He said that they train over and over and over again until they never get it wrong. Now, we've discussed this idea many times, reminding ourselves of the fact that the average performer practices the fundamentals of their craft until they can get it right, whereas the elite performer practices those same fundamentals of their craft until they can't get it wrong. But there was something about the way General Fenton communicated it that struck me at a profoundly deep level. It was so palpably obvious that this wasn't a nice and warm and fuzzy pep talky kind of thing to say to fire us up for a moment or three. It was an absolute practice truth and an absolute necessity for these individuals to perform at the highest levels when it mattered most. And that's today's plus one. I repeat, the average performer practices the fundamentals of their craft until they can get it right. Whereas the elite performer practices those same fundamentals of their craft until they can't get it wrong. How about you? Here's to raising our standards and embracing the mastery of the most basic fundamentals of our lives, such that we know we can do what needs to get done, especially when we're at our worst, and it matters most. It's time to move from theory to practice to mastery. Together. Today.
