The Glance for August 30, 2010: Tony Schwartz on the price of excellence (both less and more than you think)
August 30, 2010
How many times have you quit before you began to get better? I'm too embarrassed to think about it. Schwartz gives very specific recommendations about how and when to practice. Can you guess what he says?
HBR Blogs: Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything, 2010-Aug-24, by Tony Schwartz
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.