Optimize With Brian Johnson | More Wisdom In Less Time

Geoff Colvin’s Talent Is Overrated is a great book.   It falls into the “Effort Counts Twice” / Deliberate Practice bucket of how to reach our Peak via Grit, etc.   It’s packed with great stories about, as per the sub-title of the book: “What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else.”   (Here’s a short hint to the answer: “No matter who they were, or what explanation of their performance was being advanced, it always took them many years to become excellent, and if a person achieves elite status only after many years of toil, assigning the principal role in that success to innate gifts becomes problematic, to say the least.”)   (Note: That doesn’t mean Talent Is IRRELEVANT, just OVERRATED when compared to extraordinarily hard work. Again: See Effort Counts Twice for Angela Duckworth’s math on the subject!)   So…   Today I want to share one of my favorite stories from that book.   Here it is.   Colvin tells us: “A study of figure skaters found that sub-elite skaters spent lo