Super Heroes:
Beatles: 10,000 hours of performing to be great – who has 10,000 hours and such talent?
Fighter Pilots: Can listen to combat instructions on the radio while they’re engaging an enemy plane in a dogfight while paying attention to the controls – who has that rare set of skills?
Vince Lombardi: “Only perfect practice makes perfect,” – how can you practice perfectly in an imperfect world?
Models: Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Leonardo DaVinci…etc. Not even they are perfect!
Mere Mortals:
Toba Beta (comic writer): “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice reduces the imperfection.”
Malcolm Gladwell: “Basketball is an intricate, high-speed game filled with split-second, spontaneous decisions. But that spontaneity is possible only when everyone first engages in hours of highly repetitive and structured practice – perfecting their shooting, dribbling, and passing and running plays over and over again – and agrees to play a carefully defined role on the court…spontaneity isn’t random.”
Lorii Myers (author): “If you dread ending up in the bunker, practice these tricky out-of-the-sand shots until you master them. Think of it as insurance – we all have learned that, once you know you can make that shot easily, you will seldom need to!”
Oliver Sacks (author of “Musicophilia”): “The combination of mental and physical practice leads to greater performance improvement than does physical practice alone.”
Jack Kornfield (author): “The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner’s mind.
Ray Charles: “I really feel that if you’re gonna be good, you gotta practice… Practice whatever the hell you do.”
Frank Giampaolo (tennis champion): “Spectacular performances are preceded by spectacular preparation.”
Michael Jordan: “You can shoot eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, all you become is good at shooting the wrong way.”
Your brain: Focus in not an unlimited commodity – what will you focus on?
Models: You and me.
