649: Does Being Exceptional Require an Exceptional Amount of Work by Cal Newport

this is optimal living daily episode 649 does being exceptional require an exceptional amount of work by cal newport of calnewport.com your very own personal narrator welcome to the podcast where blogs are read to you so you can take a break from staring at a screen for once and it is with permission from the websites if you're new here this is one of five podcasts where we narrate blogs for you now make this intro nice and short so let's get right to it and start optimizing your life does being exceptional require an exceptional amount of work by cal newport of calnewport.com the obama method in response to my recent article on misery poker a reader commented quote i wonder about the really exceptional people does barack obama build a realistic schedule maybe extraordinary stress is required to accomplish extraordinary feats unquote another reader added quote i think extraordinary sacrifices are required for great accomplishments unquote this is a fascinating argument study hacks as you know it's driven by the zen valedictorian philosophy which claims that it's possible to be both relaxed and impressive but these commenters are pushing back on this worldview it's one thing they know to have a successful college career that is also relaxed but is it possible to have an exceptional career without overwhelming amounts of work in this post i claim it is possible and i'll explain exactly how barriers and myths let's start with a myth that drives most people's thinking about what it takes to be exceptional the exceptional effort myth exceptional results require exceptional amounts of effort the logic here is obvious by definition if something is exceptional it's also rare if it's rare there must be some difficult barrier to achievement this we can't agree on but what is this barrier most people default to the simplest explanation the barrier that makes exceptional achievement rare is that it requires an exceptional amount of work this gives us the myth highlighted earlier for some endeavors of course this myth matches reality for example number one running for president number two aggressively growing a startup business number three becoming a standout junior associate at your law firm these exceptional achievements absolutely require lots and lots of work their criteria for success have amount of effort explicitly built in a young lawyer for example is judged almost exclusively on the number of hours he builds but here's the thing and this is the important part i claim that for most exceptional endeavors an exceptional amount of work is not required in other words the barrier to exceptional achievement is not the volume of effort but something else entirely the magic of deliberative practice last year chuck colvin a senior editor at fortune magazine wrote an article titled my talent is overrated it was a sensation he received so many letters that he soon expanded the ideas into a full-length book of the same name which was released last month at the core of the article was a simple proposition the real path to great performance is not built on natural talent or volume of hard work as colvin describes recent research has increasingly highlighted instead the importance of a very specific type of work called deliberative practice researchers claim that it's this type of practice not natural talent and not raw hours spent working that makes the bulk of the difference between exceptional people and the rest colvin provides five traits that define deliberate practice number one it is designed specifically to improve performance quote the essence of deliberate practice is continually stretching individual just beyond his or her current abilities that may sound obvious but most of us don't do it in the activities we think of as practice at the driving range or the piano most of us are just doing what we've done before and helping to maintain the level of performance that we probably reached long ago unquote number two it can be repeated a lot quote top performers repeat their practice activities to a soul-defying extent unquote number three feedback on result is continuously available quote you may believe you played that bar of the brahms violin concerto perfectly but can you really trust your own judgment in many important situations a teacher coach or mentor is vital for providing crucial feedback unquote number four it is highly demanding mentally quote continually seeking exactly those elements of performance that are unsatisfactory and then trying one's hardest to make them better places enormous strains on anyone's mental abilities no one can sustain it for very long unquote number five it's hard quote doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable and that's exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands unquote i want to draw your attention to point number four it is highly demanding mentally and further explaining this property colvin tells a story quote nathan milstein one of the 20th century's greatest violinist was a student of the famous teacher leopold hour as the story goes milstein asked hour if it's practicing enough hour responded practice with your fingers and you need all day practice with your mind and you will do as much in one and a half hours what hour didn't add is that it's a good thing one and a half hours are enough because if you're truly practicing with your mind you can't possibly keep it up all day unquote in other words deliberative practice is hard it demands we leave our comfort zone we need expert feedback we have to return again and again to the same trouble areas to get better but the one thing it's not is exceptionally time consuming it can't be you simply can't keep it up for 12 hours a day pulling it all together i'm fascinated by deliberative practice because it provides a missing piece to our ongoing conversation about becoming a standout recall for example our discussion of steve martin his path to becoming famous was defined by deliberative practice every night he would return to a comedy club and try to push his comedy a little bit further into new territory this was hard but instead of defaulting to easy laughs he relentlessly drove his routine forward we see similar patterns with our student case studies while tuff was working in australia he kept taking on projects that stretched him beyond his current ability within the marketing field the result was a rapid rise when he left the company begs him to say scott had a similar experience pushing himself to become an eastern europe expert once he arrived at law school he's now on his way to a fulbright scholarship here's my conclusion for most endeavors the path to becoming exceptional requires that number one you focus on one thing and commit to it over a long period of time number two during this period you consistently engage in deliberative practice again and again to cause a rapid rise in your ability this approach is consistent with the zen valedictorian philosophy the practice is hard but short if you're properly focused and can put in an hour or two of deliberative work on most days you can become exceptional doing more work isn't going to help neither will tacking on dozens of other activities or commitments so if your goal is to become a true star take a careful look at how you spend your time beneath all of your activities and faux busyness what really matters is the time spent buckling down and putting in the right type of effort to get better at what's most important to you everything else is just for show you just listened to the post titled does being exceptional require an exceptional amount of work by cal newport of cal newport.com this post always make me think which is why i keep narrating them i hope you like them too i'm gonna give you a break from promotional stuff today i actually gotta get going anyway thank you for being here as always have a happy rest of your day and i'll see you tomorrow where your 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