Monthly Archives: October 2014

A Difference Between the Top 10% and the Rest

I saw recently that one of my favorite business authors, Michael Lewis, was promoting the 25th anniversary of his first bestselling book, Liars Poker. In the interview with Stephen Colbert of the Colbert report, they listed off Lewis’ other bestselling novels. That simple “s” on the end of the word “novel” is interesting to me. How does someone get to a level of excellent production, and then stay there? How does someone keep churning out material that people want to read? All marketing and PR efforts aside, I’m curious about the nature of an individual as it relates to the quality of their work, and in this case specifically “work” should mean the “body of work,” not just one successfully published work.

On Monday, I came across an article about the principles of Warren Buffett who, not coincidentally, has had an equal streak of success over the past 25 years in his field, and finds his place not just in the top 10% of performers, but in the top 1%. (You can start making some snide jokes about him being in the top 1% but did you know that he’s a huge philanthropist? article: “Buffett Donates $2.8 Billion, Breaks Personal Giving Record”).

So this article is in a reference to a principle that Buffett has kept central to his life, and explains how he communicated this to his personal jet pilot, Mike Flint:

“Flint confirmed that he would start working on his top 5 goals right away. And that’s when Buffett asked him about the second list, “And what about the ones you didn’t circle?”

. . . To which Buffett replied, “No. You’ve got it wrong, Mike. Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.” (source: http://jamesclear.com/buffett-focus)”

Seems pretty harsh right? Either focus on those five goals or forget about it all together. Either you’re fully focused on what you want, or you’re not. Reminds me of the quote from Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption:

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”

This principle is seen in modern day sports with the disappearance of the dual-sport and three-sport athletes that once existed in history. It was not uncommon 30-40 years ago for an individual to be a star in two or three sports in high school, and possibly do two sports in college. The rare exception then were those who did it in the professional leagues, but this is almost unheard of today. It simply isn’t possible to compete at that professional level given that other athletes are wholly dedicated to a single sport, not to mention the time involved in preparing for that sport on a day to day basis and the wear and tear incurred on the body during the season.bo-jackson-1

I remember some parents of friends of mine that would shuttle their children around from practice to other practice and fill their weekends full of physical activity. Now, I think that is good for a child, and still possible for someone in recreational leagues and local community events, but the possibility from both a performance and a feasibility standpoint dramatically declines as the competition increases. We haven’t even addressed where academics fits into all of it.

So if this unadulterated focus toward a single sport might help to explain how people get to the top 10%, but how exactly do people bridge the gap between the 90% and the 10%? How do people improve year over year, stay disciplined and motivated, evade injuries and life-altering decisions, and arrive and stay at peak performance.

The answer, like many responses to great questions, is multifaceted and still mysterious, but
there have been some books that have sought to answer it. One is Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell, famous for saying that it takes about 10,000 hours to get to “expert” status, and as you have seen here on my blog, I think a better, more practical guide is the book that I’m a huge fan of: “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.” by Cal Newport.

In Newport’s book, he expands on Gladwell’s notion on “deliberate practice,” which is continually focusing on improving the weaknesses that will lead to higher probabilities of success, and how to integrate it into a daily routine. He also outlines how to keep focus, concentration and work intensity paramount in the quest for improvement in a given discipline. I have found some of his most salient advice of “No distractions, period.” to be extremely helpful when I work on translation projects or writing pieces. There simply are no workarounds to good work.

So let me turn back to Warren Buffett’s comment to his pilot Mike Flint. I think this is an example of the “No distractions, period.” lesson in a case study from real life. I think we all get that and we all nod our heads in agreement, we’ll say, “That’s good and true about making the top 5 goals a reality, I’m totally in favor of that.” But if you read in the article, Warren Buffett shows a bit of his discipline fanatic side when he responds to Flint. He says it’s not just the principle that’s important, it’s the decision, or rather, the emotional decision that counts.

It’s not enough to agree internally, or even say you agree verbally, but to really make any sort of change you must be willing to cut out what stands in conflict to those goals. That is a far more difficult decision to make than whether to open your mouth and utter the words, “Ok, got it. Just five goals. Totally understood.” Emotional decisions are tough, they are probably tougher to make because we’re not facing visible, tangible choices; we’re trying to choose between things we care bout immensely, things that are related to our life goals, our family, our friends, those we love. Those are the things that pull on the heart strings, the things that keep us awake at night because of adult-laden regret or child-like excitement.

I think the point of Buffett’s comment and the gist of this blog post is that what separates the top 10% from the rest, is not simply their discipline to stick to a schedule, but their tenacity to say no to a bunch of good things to focus on a great thing, a thing that makes a life instead of one that fills a day. That is hard. Actually, it’s really hard. There’s no way around it. It’s something I’ve come to realize over the past few years, that the difference between the 10% and the rest, is not just 90 points on a standard scale, it’s 90 marks on an exponential swing.

It isn’t a ladder at all, it’s a mountain that has to be climbed. If you want to make it to the summit you’ve got to pack your bag with only what’s necessary, and nothing more. Because what you put in your pack will either slow you down or help you get to the top.

 

Do Not Compromise

I think some of the most popular advice people get is “Don’t give up!” but sometimes that can be slightly misguided right? Certainly there are some circumstances where it’s better to walk away like if a situation or a person compromises your values. That’s not called giving up, that’s actually labeled “not giving in” and can be just as hard or harder than not giving up.

This is another principle that I’ve seen exemplified in some of the writers and some colleagues that I’ve really come to admire. It’s the practice of a belief that something is so valuable that anything that comes anywhere close to tarnishing or damaging it should not just be avoided, but eliminated. I read about some famous writing schedules that impressed me:

“When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. . . .

You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that.” – Ernest Hemingway

“I keep a hotel room in my hometown and pay for it by the month.

I go around 6:30 in the morning. I have a bedroom, with a bed, a table, and a bath. I have Roget’s Thesaurus, a dictionary, and the Bible. Usually a deck of cards and some crossword puzzles. Something to occupy my little mind. I think my grandmother taught me that.     -Maya Angelou

I tend to wake up very early. Too early. Four o’clock is standard. My morning begins with trying not to get up before the sun rises. But when I do, it’s because my head is too full of words, and I just need to get to my desk and start dumping them into a file. I always wake with sentences pouring into my head.

So getting to my desk every day feels like a long emergency. It’s a funny thing: people often ask how I discipline myself to write. I can’t begin to understand the question. For me, the discipline is turning off the computer and leaving my desk to do something else.
-Barbara Kingsolver
source: http://jamesclear.com/daily-routines-writers)

One clear trend in all of these is that they have a daily writing schedule, that is deliberate and fixed. They do not compromise it. The thought of breaking rank or going AWOL does not enter their mind. They know that the work that they want to do, the good and the great work they must do, cannot be up for negotiation. It must not be left to chance. It is proper and just and right, and for that, it must be respected and planned out.

I love that in each of these there is a certain place that they do their writing. It’s as if that place becomes sacred. Nothing else must be done here unless it is for the purpose of which this place was designed. That’s quite remarkable isn’t it? Creating a specific and deliberate space. I want that.

But it certainly isn’t easy to set out the time and the place to do this! As much as we are creatures of habit it really is difficult to create new ones, or change bad ones. That’s why I’m continually amazed when I read about people’s daily schedules, and how they’ve done it day after day and year after year.

I want to be a non-compromiser when it comes to the good and true things.

Do not go silently into that good night

A friend asked me recently about the concert I attended for 30 Seconds to Mars and I suppose I summed it up with, “It was loud.”

Jared Leto is the leading front man of the band, and by most accounts of the American Dream he is successful. In addition to being accomplished actor and rock star, he still looks good as a 42 year old. I’m amazed at what he’s been able to do in the life he’s been given, and how he continues to make it new and real with his stage presence like in Lima, Peru the other evening. There are thousands and thousands who’ve joined the official “Echelon” fan club and feel uniquely attached to him. I don’t know if any of that has to do with that with his current hair style he looks like Jesus, but that night it seemed like his love for them was mutual.

I first began to listen to 30 Seconds to Mars because my brother let me borrow an album. Their 2005 album “A Beautiful Lie” marks a trip to the Southwest 30-seconds-to-mars-concert-1desert I made with my brother in 2007, of which a picture hangs in my room. I remember most of those songs as a soundtrack to the strange and alien-like territory of the Arizona desert. They all sound like freedom, of a wide expanse of sky and tanned earth, of new possibility, and I know that the trip, my brother, and those songs are the landmark of a time period that set in motion the dramatic changes I would make in the years to come.

I had always wanted to see 30 Seconds to Mars in concert for their music and for experiences like the desert, and it took almost seven  years after that first listen for me to finally see them live. I carry with me certain desires that I just can’t let go, especially if I know they are possible. Seeing 30 Seconds to Mars for their music, for the mark they helped make seven years ago, for the completion of a goal was why I went to see the show that night, and it was everything I needed it to be.

My thoughts were illuminated by the army of synchronized stage lights as Jared sprinted like a boy out of school for the summer. It felt and sounded like a hundred explosions, and part of me thinks that’s part of the energy released by the fans who waited years for the band to come. (They had never visited Peru, up until this date.) I thought about all the waiting, and the excitement and the fact that in approximately an hour and a half the concert would finish. I thought about what I’ve done (and not been able to do) in Peru and it all just seemed to make me a bit sad that someday it’ll be over.

What an injustice. We spend so much time waiting for something important to arrive, and when it does, it touches lightly on our stop, and speeds on to it’s next destination. It feels so disconnected: the time waiting, and the time experiencing. Maybe that’s my problem, that it seems to be related, but really it’s so callously independent. I hope that’s what Jared recognizes too. That we, like him, wait for something, and that we know, ashamedly, that it will end quickly. Are we ashamed that we were bound by something we had to wait for, or because we felt we had no choice in the matter?

I remember reading Dylan Thomas in college. My English professor enjoyed him and T.S. Elliot, so that’s how I got introduced, but for most of America we know of his famous poetry because a stanza was once paraphrased in Independence Day. It’s from the same poem I remembered in college, and the one I drifted towards this concert night, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Dylan wrote it about his experience of his dying father, but the words, so brilliantly infused with emotion, have been used by coaches, leaders and politicians for decades:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

(source: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/do-not-go-gentle-good-night)

I returned to the thought about the magnificence of a person like Jared with this notion of things ending much sooner than we think they should. I think consciously or unconsciously he knows that; like many people great and 30-seconds-to-mars-concert-2popular, and others great and still unsung, they realize that life indeed is so very short, and ends before we’re comfortable with it. Indeed, we are not the masters of our time.

For that reason, I believe that when Jared and his brother, Shannon, arrived for their first concert in Lima they did it in such a fashion of extravagance of sound and energy to prove to us that even though an end will eventually cap the evening, and the thousands of miles and mountains of hours, indeed the years waiting for their arrival, will all feel like the brush of the wind from the passing of an express bus, they will stand before the multitude of eager and spellbound fans and will not go quietly into that good night.

Because if death marks its end with silence then we must be loud to mark the time we were alive.

The concert, then, was very loud. It was loud for the thousands of fans who waited for their first arrival to the country, it was loud for the band to see the love and Echelon banners flown in the multitudes, and it was loud for me to bring completion to something I wanted to be a part of for so long.

Most importantly, it is yet another reminder that there is still too much silence in my life. That there will be a time to be quiet, but that time is not now.

the “What” and the “How”

I think we all know “what.”

“What” is fundamental. Knowing “what” is easy. What we want and how much we want of it.

It’s knowing “how” that really gets us anywhere, but there’s a crucial key to this – it’s not so much “how” you intend to do it, but “how” you are doing it. One is about planning, where anything can happen – including nothing happening – and the other is about “doing” which is actually wants happening.

As soon as we’ve moved passed the knowing “what” and the knowing “how” we can go to the “how” it’s getting done. This kind of “how” has been a recurring life theme for me.This is truly the difference between thinking about something, and wanting it, and then actually saying you’ve done it. I can put many things on this list that I haven’t done as much as I’ve wanted to: reading, writing, and practicing Spanish (and most recently Portuguese). What I’ve found is that there is always a barrier, or in fact many barriers, but the one I want to write about is the “feeling accomplished after just the planning stage” barrier.

That’s what gets me. I can dream up, and plan out all that I want to do with my time during my weekdays or my free time, and I feel satisfied. That’s dangerous you know? Because nothing comes of it. Nothing happens unless something is set in motion and is done.

Sometimes I get so caught up in strategies, technologies, tips and tricks that I end up spending more time optimizing what I’m kind of doing instead of really doing what I intend to do, and oddly enough what it final comes down to is just a simple decision: doing it. Don’t think, don’t plan, don’t optimize, don’t strategize, don’t worry, don’t complain, just do. Just do it without thinking.

What is easy, doing is how it’s done.

 

The Voice and an Orchestra

Since I’ve been in Latin America I have immersed myself into the local music. If you look at my playlists you’ll find artists from all over South and Central America in the genres of merengue, bachata, and of course tons of salsa music. I’ve seen that learning to love the local music  is a surefire way to experience and enjoy a community in every town and city in the world. Music is  a main outlet for the values and expressions of a culture, and as many have said, “Listen to what the music is about, and it will show you MarcAntony1what a culture appreciates.”

You may be thinking of some of the more negative examples from the dominant channels of music in our culture which showcase people who look like celebrities but carry none of the talent. Their music is formulaic, the lyrics are empty and derogatory, and all of it is manufactured for consumption. Here’s is just one of many articles that speak of this new business. The Song Machine – “The hitmakers behind Rihanna.”

Essentially, the artist never has to dip into personal memories, be they mountain or valley experiences, they just show up to learn the melody and sing it good enough so someone can auto-tune it to the studio producers’ liking. The concert experience, then, is just going to hear the digitally perfected album played over loud stadium speakers with thousands of shouting voices that drown out the song. Now, I admit, I will go to just about any concert, so this element MarcAntony2doesn’t destroy it for me, but what bothers me is that the principle that music is an expression of a culture is now so absent in the performance of the music. Is that what we value?

Enter one of the great salsa voices of our time, Marc Anthony, the top selling tropical salsa artist of all time, who like many salsa singers, sings with a complete band. Marc sings live accompanied by an orchestra of talented professionals. Real people, playing real instruments, in real-time. You have to see it and hear it to believe it, but yes, there are still performers who do it the old fashioned way. They make real music live.

It had been a dream of mine to see Marc Anthony live since I set foot in Latin America over four years ago. He has one of the truest, purest voices that I rank up there with Michael Buble, and Josh Groban. You have to hear it live to take it in. His voice is the story of pain and joy, of happiness and despair, and this past night it was pure celebration.

And then there was the orchestra, comprised of the best instrumental talent of men and women that we have today. Trumpets, trombones, saxophones, guitar, bass, piano, full drum set and Latin bongos. The orchestra alone was worth the price of admission, but together it was one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever been to and I got to share it with my girlfriend and thousands of other Marc Anthony fans.

Here’s what it was like, but you’ll have to multiply it by two or three times to get the real effect:

I know you’ve heard his most recent hit: