The Way of Excellence
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Summary
Notes and Quotes
We are at our best when we are: Working without distraction on something that matters to us. Creating and contributing to the world. Engaging deeply with others. Sufficiently challenged. Using our unique skills. In a state of relaxed productivity. Giving something our all. In the presence of beauty.
Author's definition of excellence (bolds mine):
Excellence combines mastery and mattering. Mastery means developing skill and making progress in activities you deem worthwhile. It could result from learning a trade or advancing in a career, but it could also come from increasing the weight of your deadlift, writing poetry, building a table, making art, or learning how to play an instrument. Mattering is a sense that what you are doing has significance, that your contributions and progress are meaningful. Decades of research show mastery and mattering are key to a life well lived, or what psychologists call life satisfaction.
When you orient around excellence, you end up getting the best out of yourself on the things that matter to you most. Nobody can buy excellence or use power, authority, or intimidation to force their way into it.
Part 1 - Theory of Excellence
A model of human development called the four phases of competence does a nice job outlining how progress unfolds in nearly any endeavor. 1. Unconscious incompetence - you don't know what you are doing and you don't know that you don't know. 2. Conscious incompetence - you know you are bad and making mistakes at what you are doing 3. Conscious competence - you are doing your activity correctly but having to make an effort 4. Unconscious competence - You do not have to think while doing your activity. You are acting on feeling.
A profound example of unconscious competence comes from the three-time Grammy winner and international superstar violinist Hilary Hahn. When she described her experience onstage as a soloist, often playing in front of thousands of people, she told me she feels her way forward. “It’s not really a thing I’m thinking about. I’m not thinking, Oh, I should think about the accuracy of this particular passage, or Oh, how am I going to vibrate this note to make this effect? If I start thinking about that onstage using words instead of feelings, I’m already way behind in the music. It really is that you have to be completely in the note and not behind yourself or ahead of yourself because you’ll miss the moment, you’ll overlook all these things that are really interesting that are happening too fast for thinking.” It’s not just Hahn. As you’ll see in the coming pages, all of us can benefit from getting in touch with the feeling of excellence.
To be truly competent at something, you have to be able to do it without thinking.
“Skill is not an act or action, it is an interaction—between a person, their activity, and their environment.”
Research shows that the best way to learn something is to feel what it’s like to do it incorrectly and correctly. You feel the perfect golf swing, swim stroke, running stride, or tennis serve. You feel the keys on the piano or the strings on the guitar.
In reference to people who are excellent at their art/sport/skill:
Thinking may be a significant part of what they do, but when they are at their best, it is their feelings that take center stage.
Feelings are indispensable to excellence—they play a significant role in telling us when we are on the right track: We don’t think our way to excellence as much as we feel our way to excellence.
When pursuing excellence, you must think of how future you will feel as opposed to present you.
When it comes to the pursuit of excellence, we are often faced with the comfort, pleasure, or ease of short-term decisions that contradict our values and long-term goals. Anyone who has been tempted by staying in a warm and cozy bed instead of going for that brisk morning run knows this firsthand. The same is true when we are enticed by hacks, quick fixes, and shortcuts instead of committing to sustained hard work. We live in a world that encourages superficial seeking, yet it is unwavering commitment—including enduring some downright drudgery—that gives rise to genuine excellence.
We are what we do. And what we do should align with our values so that what we are doing aids who we want to be.
When we throw ourselves into worthwhile projects and pursuits, we engrave or stamp upon ourselves the type of person we are growing into.
Yes, you can burn out from doing too much. But you can also burn out from not doing enough of what lights you up.
Much of what ails us—distraction, automation, mechanization, burnout, isolation, alienation, and emptiness—can be overcome by the pursuit of excellence.
Part 2 - Core Factors of Excellence
Chapter 4: Care
Excellence requires intimacy
It requires minimizing distractions and getting as close as possible to your pursuit. It’s being in the pocket of a deadlift, song, or painting; it’s being immersed in developing an idea, leading a team, or learning a new skill. ^ref-12356
“The only thing in life that’s really worth having is good skill. Good skill is the greatest possession,”10 Jerry Seinfeld once said in an interview with The New Yorker. “I know a lot of rich people. So do you. They don’t feel good, as you think they should and would. They’re miserable. Because, if they don’t master a skill, life is unfulfilling.” ^ref-53820
You get satisfaction only when you develop a skill and do something well. If you don’t have a way to objectively measure how well you are doing, you will be unsatisfied.
In his 2009 book Shop Class as Soulcraft, the philosopher Matthew B. Crawford writes that “despite the proliferation of contrived metrics,” many jobs suffer from “a lack of objective standards.”11 Ask certain white-collar professionals what it means to do a good job at the office, and odds are they may need at least a few minutes to explain the answer, accounting for politics, the opinions of their boss, the mood of a client, the role of their teammates, and a variety of other external factors. But ask someone what it means to do a good job at their next marathon, on their next deadlift, or in their art studio, and the answer becomes much simpler. ^ref-55712
When we aspire toward intimacy with what matters to us, we overcome alienation and disconnection and feel more at home in the world. ^ref-11721
You can possess all the knowledge and talent in the world, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t care. Caring drives everything, regardless of what it is you do. ^ref-62684
Try a range of pursuits. Give it some time, but don’t be scared to quit until you discover something where there is fit—an alignment with your values and natural abilities, a curiosity and potential for growth. Once you’ve determined fit, then the focus shifts to grit. Remember that passion and staying power are not automatic; you develop them by persevering through ups and downs. ^ref-31471
Caring deeply about something means beginning to identify with it. You start saying, I am an artist or I am a chef or I am an athlete or I am a musician or I am a doctor or I am a parent. It goes from being something you do to being part of who you are. ^ref-47726
A common misconception is that by diversifying your identity you sacrifice in your primary pursuit. The opposite is true. Self-complexity allows you to identify with an activity without it becoming the whole of your identity. It ensures your care is not only strong but also enduring. It allows you to go all in, but with enough of a foundation that you can take risks. With self-complexity, you gain resilience, play to win instead of playing not to lose, and generally speaking, perform better. If you want to be really good at something, you have to be willing to fail. Being willing to fail is easier when you have a strong sense of self. Having a strong sense of self requires not fusing completely with a single activity or dimension. ^ref-43239