“Genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains.”

— Thomas Carlyle, Essayist, satirist, historian 1795-1881

“I’ve been working on my career now for five years and I’m pretty much convinced that success is basically a matter of getting up earlier and staying later at the job…”

— Anonymous young businessman in Seat 11-B – Flight from New York to Pittsburgh

We think Excellence means extraordinary care with the details. Done well, it’s genius.

The trouble with excellence is that it makes the difficult appear easy – offhanded even.

As young people see excellence in the workplace, in the media, they don’t see the weeks, months, days and hours of practice, refinement and analysis required to craft a winning result.

As they find their way onto the varsity, they don’t realize that the time and effort required to get to the top are going to be greater than they may have expected. (What about those “overnight success” stories? Exactly!)

The tendency is to settle somewhere short of excellence. They start too late, don’t think it through, and don’t adopt a process to guide their practice and preparation. They decide to hang it up the night before the meeting without a rehearsal, forget to designate a teammate to wrangle the equipment.

So, when the time comes and the chips are down, there’s a room full of people who are going through the motions together for the first time, and it shows something short of excellence.

It’s not that the winners are geniuses, smarter or just naturally better. They put in fifty per cent more time, getting the strategy, idea, structure, words, opening, visuals, examples, materials, team, overall look, and packaging… and rehearsals to make it go right, along with the logistical plan to get everyone on deck in advance of the meeting.

And they keep going — even to anticipate the tough questions they might receive and the best answers they might provide, and which teammates might be called to deliver.

Then they rehearse.

Applications

1.  In your own life, start by asking what you expect to achieve this year. Build the plan, now.

2.  In your family or social life, consider whom you may serve, and what new adventures you may enjoy. Plan, now.

3.  In your career, consider what growth you intend to achieve, and what changes that will bring about. Start planning, now.

It’s been years since that flight, but I believe my seatmate in Seat 11-B was correct…

Genius. The infinite capacity for taking pains. Always.

Start now, stick with it, and make it look easy.