… Mozart became Mozart by working furiously hard.

Understand that people development works best through inspiration, not authority.

… Trust is the most fundamental element of a winning team.

Trust is accumulated slowly and lost quickly.

The idea of epiphany is a dreamer’s paradise where people want to believe that things are easier than they are.

“Inventions” as we know them often are repeated, incremental improvements or adaptations of what already existed.

Intrinsic motivation is still best, and extrinsic motivation that’s controlling is still detrimental to creativity, but extrinsic motivators that reinforce intrinsic drives can be highly effective."

Humans are lazy

Generally, humans are lazy and have a finite amount of time and energy. These reasons are why “The Greats” are minorities in their respective domains. For these same reasons, those who are great at something, probably sacrifice even being average at something else; we don’t get to see that though. Colvin actually doesn’t mention this, but rather focuses solely on what makes The Greats, exceptional.

Colvin offers studies that show greatness doesn’t involve magic in any capacity, but does involve good timing, passion, persistence and a lot of time spent hyper-focused. The story of many greats starts with being introduced to their domain relatively — compared to the average age of those in the domain — early in life by a family member who was also interested in and able to teach the fundamentals of the domain.

As a brief aside, we often set people up for mediocracy from a very early age, by telling children what is impossible, how things are, are not and should be. Also at a very young age is when a person is, often unconsciously, building their mental model of the world. Therefore, they are unconsciously internalizing the data points that are presented to them. This time can be used for defining limits or a work ethic that will allow them to redefine what is possible.

The Greats are often surrounded by many people who had a vested interest in their success. Those surrounding persons have to be willing to make sacrifices and sometimes choose to dedicate their life to that person becoming great. Still, in all cases, it took many years — often approximately 10 years, hence the “10-year rule” — for that person to become generally identifiably great. Colvin suggests that it’s more than passion and the investment of time. Anyone can be passionate and “put in the time”.

Colvin spends a majority of the book talking about how instead of “putting in the time”, one must practice in a state of extreme mental focus in what is called “deliberate practice”.

Deliberate Practice

Practice with you fingers and you need all day. Practice with your mind and you will do as much in 1 and a half hours.

-Leopold Auer

Repeated deliberate practice — no matter what it is that one is practicing — is almost entirely mental and so mentally taxing that one can only endure for a couple hours at a time. Studies show that mentally we can only endure about 4-5 hours of deliberate practice per day. One requirement of deliberate practice is that the thing being practiced be able to be practiced repeatedly with quick feedback.

Colvin mentions a study of top violinists who were categorized as “good”, “better” and “best”. Of these groups, the differentiating factors were: their age when they started, the amount of solo, deliberate practice, sleep and time of day when they practiced. The greats started playing at a younger age and their practice compounded over time. They understood the importance of sleep and how energy levels affected their ability to focus during deliberate practice. Therefore, they often practiced in the morning and early afternoon (after a nap). In dedicating their lives to their respective domain, The Greats often scheduled their lives around their practice.

Deliberate practice also often involves a teacher who can see you in ways that you cannot see yourself. Whether this lack of ability to see ourselves is due to physical limitations or self-biases. This teacher also often knows when to push you past your abilities until you are uncomfortable, but still capable. Colvin calls this “zone” where you are uncomfortable, but still capable, the “learning zone”. He identifies two other zones; the “comfort zone” and the “panic zone”. Neither the comfort or panic zone are ideal for one’s learning. The paralysis that occurs in the panic zone also occurs when goals are unachievable. Top performers have very specific goals and focus on the process, rather than the outcome.

In the end though, one will only make changes that one believes.