Another example of deliberate practice: Cary Grant.
The other day I was making the case to a friend that Cary Grant was both the best and the most significant movie star in the history of Hollywood. I fully believe this, but after the fact I realized my wording came from a Benjamin Schwarz review in The Atlantic, in which Schwarz quotes David Thomson, who called Grant “the best and most important actor in the history of the cinema.”
After I sent that Atlantic link to my friend, I stumbled across this monumental Pauline Kael summa on Grant’s life and career. I managed to pull myself out of it after a few thousand words; as much as I love Grant (and love Kael’s writing), there are simply too many other things that need doing in a day. But before I abandoned the piece, I came across this gem, which meshes with everything I’ve read about deliberate practice:
ARCHIE LEACH found his vocation early and stuck to it. He studied dancing, tumbling, stilt-walking, and pantomime, and performed constantly in provincial towns and cities and in the London vaudeville houses. . . . The music-hall theatre became his world; he has said that at each theatre, when he wasn’t onstage, he was watching and studying the other acts from the wings.
How are you promoting the habits of deliberate practice in yourself? In your organization?
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Related posts:
- Deliberate practice in the working world.
- The work ethic of Will Smith: “deliberate practice” in action.
- This is how you get better: deliberate practice.
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Thanks for posting – I’ve always been a big fan of Cary Grant. I’m looking forward to reading that Pauline Kael article when I get a few minutes (or longer)
Tim – this is a great post. We’ve learned from Seth Godin how important it is to be doing things on purpose. The more you deliberately consider your actions, the less likely you send a conflicting message to the market.
Thanks for stopping by the SAMBA blog. Your point was well taken. It’s how I’ve always felt about startup talent. A great developer can more easily learn to be a great CEO manager type than the manager could become a great software developer.
In Buddhist practice (Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness: Walking the Buddha’s Path ) it is NOT intellectual conviction about esoteric matters that result in Enlightenment but turning that into emotional conviction and then into sustained practice of a well-defined set of disciplines. Interestingly this has been confirmed by modern cognitive neuroscience Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves. Yet, if you’d care for other authorities try Edison (success is 99% perspiration) or James, “Talks to Students” and “Talk to Teachers”.
Yet beyond Colvin, Gladwell wraps a similar thesis in the broader context – where you end up is constrained by your context and initial conditions.
With regard to deliberate practice therefore how do you find that sustainable motivation for the 10K Effort required to become expert ? If the opportunities presented to you don’t trigger it ?
Dave — You’re asking the big questions at the end of your comment, and in fact they tie in with what Allan says just above: what motivates a software programmer to learn the finance, marketing, people skills, etc. required of a CEO?
What motivates a great sports peformer (Armstrong, Schumacher, Jordan, et al.) to keep pushing long after there is nothing left to prove?
What motivates some to rise from meager beginnings to greatness?
I don’t have the answers — but these are the big questions. And any company that figures out how to evoke even a shred of this kind of motivation from its people . . . wow. The sky’s the limit.