LeBron James, Marek Hamsik, Michael Phelps, Peter Sagan, Stephen King, Ernest Hemingway, Arnol Schwarzenegger, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk.
When we think of excellence, we think of people like them.
We also think, “I can never be like them, what they do is beyond my capability.”
There’s a really cool research paper out there called The Mundanity Of Excellence by sociologist Daniel Chambliss.
It’s well-written and thought-provoking; you'd better read it even if you don't swim and never intend to.
Daniel spent six years studying swimmers at all levels, from the Olympics to club teams and found out that what makes elite swimmers elite is the amount of time they spend on THE MUNDANE.
He means “mundane” as doing "the ordinary stuff."
We don’t think of "excellence" and "ordinary" together, do we?
Interestingly, those who reached the top of the podium in the swimming world got there not by reaching incredible heights in the big moments, but by being consistently disciplined in the small ones.
They stuck to the basics and pursued perfection with a relentless, sustained drive while having fun.
What others see as boring–swimming back and forth over a black line for two hours, say–they find peaceful, even meditative, often challenging, or therapeutic. Coming into the 5:30 AM practices at Mission Viejo, many of the swimmers were lively, laughing, talking, enjoying themselves, perhaps appreciating the fact that most people would positively hate doing it. It is incorrect to believe that top athletes suffer great sacrifices to achieve their goals. Often, they don’t see what they do as sacrificial at all. They like it.- Chambliss on the attitude of top-levelswimmers
This ad is beyond any comparison with other ads.
It lets us see exactly what Michael Phelps has built his legacy on; a lifetime of going dark and becoming invisible, both literally and metaphorically – a lifetime of training in the relentless pursuit of greatness.
It reminds us of the importance of doing the monotonous tasks, every single day.
"It's what you do in the dark that puts you in the light" is such a powerful tagline, a nod to the mundanity of excellence.
Excellence is mundane. Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions; only the fact that they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence. - Chambliss on qualitative improvements & consistency
The best swimmers spend more time in the proverbial trenches performing the repetitive mundane tasks to be successful.
It’s the early mornings in the pool, the intense focus on just a simple flip turn, how specific they would get in wrapping that, nuancing that and finding what could shave off half a second off of their time. (Here's the riff on deliberate practice)
To be great in any domain it’s not just the sexy moments when you’re in front of the camera, but it’s what you day-in, day-out - the mundanity of excellence that matters and learning to fall in love with that part of the journey is such an important factor if you want to succeed.
These past seventeen months have separated those with grit and those without it across many endeavors.
Most things we might wish to excel at are within our grasp.
We just need to have the mundanity of excellence.
How about adopting that attitude and giving that goal a try?
P.S. Like what you’re reading here? Well, you have three choices really.
1. Get more stories straight to your inbox. Subscribe in the page footer below.
3. When you are ready to level up, hire me.
Comments