The Truth Curve

Writing, for me, is very much like getting into a cold pool.  Every cell of my body resists.  I dip my toe in and it’s way too cold and my body screams to turn back, to go home where the temperature is comfortable.  My body wants warmth and pleasant sensations, not extreme experiences.  I watch how others just dive right in.  I rationalize that they are not as sensitive to the cold as I am.  But I stand in the shallow end, first with just my feet, then up to my knees, then waist, chest, and finally, I dip my shoulders under and begin swimming.  Once I begin, I wonder why in the world I didn’t just dive in.  Swimming is so exhilarating and I get angry with myself for wasting ten minutes getting in.  I then resolve to dive in next time.

But next time, it happens again.  No matter how many times I go through my ten-minute pool acclimation procedure, it doesn’t get any easier.  Every single time, I experience resistance.  For me, writing is the same way.  Writing is scary, boring, and hard.  I don’t know why I do it when I’d rather be curled up in bed, reading.

William James said in The Varieties of Religious Experience:

Sometimes no emotional state is sovereign, but many contrary ones are mixed together.  In that case one hears both “yeses” and “noes,” and the “will” is called on then to solve the conflict.  Take a soldier, for example, with his dread of cowardice impelling him to advance, his fears impelling him to run, and his propensities to imitation pushing him towards various courses if his comrades offer various examples.  His person becomes the seat of a mass of interferences; and he may for a time simply waver, because no one emotion prevails.  There is a pitch of intensity, though, which, if any emotion reach it, enthrones that one as alone effective and sweeps its antagonists and all their inhibitions away.  The fury of his comrades’ charge, once entered on, will give this pitch of courage to the soldier; the panic of their rout will give this pitch of fear.  In these sovereign excitements, things ordinarily impossible grow natural because the inhibitions are annulled.  Their “no! no!” not only is not heard, it does not exist.  Obstacles are then like tissue-paper hoops to the circus rider–no impediment; the flood is higher than the dam they make.

I say this: when the desire to do finally outweighs the desire to not do, you do it.  I don’t know how or why this push happens but eventually it happens.  And I’m always glad in retrospect that it happened… both when swimming and when writing.

What are you resisting doing? 

Tags: Laziness, Procrastination, Psychology, Writing // Add Comment »

“Talent is cheaper than table salt.  What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

- Stephen King

In a previous article, I made the argument that it is deliberate practice - that daily slog through the unpleasant and the difficult - that gets you to success.  If success is overwhelmingly comprised of hard work, like Stephen King suggests, then does talent matter? 

I would say, yes.  Here’s why:

Let’s assume that talent comprises a small part of success and that it really is hard work that accounts for most of one’s success.  Then why bother with talent at all?  It’s so limiting, after all.  Why not be and do whatever you want to be and do regardless of the talents that you were born with?  A lot of us (especially in my generation) grew up with the notion that you can do “whatever you set your mind to.”

Even if talent accounts for a small percentage of success, it’s visible to us.  We’re able to pick out the Picasso from the Shmicasso.  Now, Shmicasso may be creating paintings exactly like Picasso (or so it seems) but there will always be something about Picasso that makes his work brilliant and that of Shmicasso just average. I don’t know how we know but we do know and we see the difference.  Perhaps when Picasso chooses to put a yellow line here, it’s brilliant. Shmicasso instead puts the yellow line over there.  We can’t put our finger on it but there is something about that yellow line that gives the Picasso painting a sense of “just-rightness” but makes the Shmicasso painting seem just average.  Shmicasso’s work may look competent and solid but it doesn’t wow us, and all because he misplaced the yellow line on the canvas.

I don’t know what talent is exactly; it has always struck me as a mysterious gift.  But I believe it is about having the right judgment.  Talent is the ability to generalize from one situation to another without the benefit of previous experience.  It is the ability to use intuition about what is good and what is not good.  It is about making the right aesthetic or strategic choice nearly all the time.  The person who has no talent in a certain domain can be taught the rules or steps to follow and he will follow them, do well and turn in a solid performance.  But as soon as there is a twist or an unexpected situation, the talentless person is lost; he does not know what to do because it’s not in the steps or rules he learned.  He can’t improvise.  The talented person, on the other hand, knows what to do even though he has never faced that exact situation before.

So what?  If you do not have the talent but work hard enough and succeed, then isn’t that enough?

Is it?  Is it enough to be average in something?  Are you okay with being average?  Godin argues that you should be the best; that average is not a good use of your limited time.  Not only is this not a good use of your time but you would also be depriving the world of your unique contribution.

However, if you just have talent but don’t work to develop it, then you won’t even get out of the starting gate.  People with far less talent will beat you and enjoy success.  Their work won’t be particularly brilliant but at least it will be done.  Having talent and not using it is like sitting on a diamond mine and never doing anything with it.  By itself, the diamond is worthless: it’s a lumpy rock that has little value.  It only has potential.  The value is in the cutting of it.  How you cut it and set it brings out its brilliance.

True success and satisfaction will come not from your ability to work hard but from your ability to identify your unique talents and then work hard to bring them out.  Now that is a powerful combination.

Tags: Productivity, Success, Talent, Work // Add Comment »

A while ago, I watched a male cardinal sitting on my backyard fence.  He was scanning the horizon for something, probably for a female to woo.  How majestic and self-assured he seemed, yet foolish in his smugness.  Didn’t he know that his bright red color was going to attract the attention of every predator in the vicinity?  Doesn’t he know that his coloring is a weakness? 

He didn’t seem to be working on overcoming this weakness as far as I could tell.  He had only one thing on his mind and that was to attract a mate.  For the cardinal, his color, song, and display are meant to make him attractive.  He sings with gusto and puts all his energy into finding a mate despite the danger.

And therein lies the paradox.  Weaknesses and strengths are inextricably tied.  Every strength will have a weakness associated with it and every weakness points to a potential strength. 

How is this so?

First, pick one of your weaknesses.  What is it?  What have people complained about your whole life?  What do others find inconvenient or annoying about you?  What have you always considered to be one of your weaknesses?  Are you messy?  Lazy?  Hasty?  Are you critical?  Stubborn?  Stingy?

Your weakness is a byproduct — if you will — of a strength.  The strength shows itself in the methods and style you use to accomplish something.   Just as an organism produces waste products in the processing of food and in the creation of action, your strengths produce byproducts.  Whatever you are trying to accomplish in pursuit of a goal will have some sort of byproduct.  Some byproducts are positive of course but some are negative.  It is these negative byproducts that come across as weaknesses to others. 

Examine the weakness that you picked and ask yourself, “What am I trying to accomplish that causes this weakness?”  What are you trying to do or what are you working towards?

Perhaps you’re action-oriented (a strength) and you like to get things done.  You sit down with your to-do list and you just move through all the items with great speed.  Great, isn’t it?  Well, in your effort to get things done, others might see you as hasty or inaccurate.  You’ve gotten things done but maybe the things you got done have mistakes.  Does your boss write in your review every year that you’re not “detail-oriented” enough?  Or that you make too many mistakes?  This is a clue that your strength is “getting things done” but the byproducts are inaccuracy and lack of detail.

So what can you do with this knowledge?

If you are at a point in your life where you’re not sure what your strengths are or what you might be good at or what profession or calling your should pursue, take an inventory of your weaknesses.  Weaknesses are often easier to identify than strengths.  Then follow the trail back to the source.  What strengths do your weaknesses point to?  Once you’ve identified your strengths, you can figure out which profession might be best for you or how you can tweak your existing job to make better use of your strengths.

Once you’ve identified your strengths, what do you do about the weaknesses?  The answer is to mitigate them instead of trying to eliminate them.  People focus much of their attention on eliminating their weaknesses and not enough on developing their strengths and that’s a shame because success in life hinges on one’s ability to put one’s strengths to work and not on one’s ability to quash weaknesses.  Eliminating weaknesses is virtually impossible since the best way to eliminate a weakness is to weaken or eliminate the associated strength.   

For example, one of the most important issues facing us today is global warming.  How come no one is suggesting eliminating all the factories and going back to horses and buggies?  Because no one wants to give up the strengths — mass production and fast locomotion — to reverse global warming.  Instead, everyone is trying to mitigate the byproducts (the weaknesses).  Ideas range from growing and eating one’s own food to making more fuel-efficient cars to purchasing carbon offsets.

You should do the same with your weaknesses (no, not by purchasing weakness offsets… though that would be great if there were such a thing).  Ask yourself what you can do to mitigate your weaknesses.  How can you soften your hard edge so you’re not seen as abrasive or slow down so that you’re not seen as too hasty?  In what ways can you get assistance on the job so that you’re working from your strengths but managing your weaknesses so that they don’t interfere with your strengths?  Perhaps you can team with someone who has complementary strengths.  If you’re a doer who goes through the to-do list in short order, then pair up with someone who’s a thinker and will think through the consequences of the actions before moving forward.  If these tactics don’t work then you might consider the possibility that you are in the wrong job or career.

So, identify your strengths by looking to your weaknesses for clues, then work from your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses so that they don’t interfere with your strengths. 

Tags: Growth // Add Comment »