<26> Mundanity of Excellence

1/24/25

똑같은 거 더하는 게 실력을 늘리지 않는다. 양적인 점프가 아닌 질적인 점프가 필요하다. 끝내주는 실력은 타고난 게 아니라 자잘한 많은 것이 몸에 배어 계속 훈련과 거듭남을 통해 이뤄진다.

This is another all-time favorite reading that materially changed my life. I remember instantly falling in love with this paper many years back and I so wished then that I read it when I was growing up. Written 35 years ago in 1989, it discusses the notion of excellence through an ethnographic study of stratification amongst Olympic swimmers. A hedge fund manager recommended it and I remember him telling me that, “I ask my new joiners to read this and we have an hour-long discussion on my question: What does excellence mean to you?” My three key summary points are the following (and no, this isn’t AI-generated 😊):

1. Excellence does not result from quantitative changes in behavior. Simply doing more of the same will not lead to moving up a level in that sport.

2. Qualitative change involves modifying what is actually being done – competing in a regional meet instead of a local meet; eating vegetables and complex carbo rather than fats and sugars; entering one’s weaker events instead of only one’s stronger events. Qualitative improvements involve doing different kinds of things.

3. 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.

Mundanity of Excellence by Daniel Chambliss

Question: What qualitative jumps would you like to implement in your affairs?

질문: 어떤 질적인 점프를 당신의 인생에서 시도해 보시겠습니까?

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1. Problem Statement

· Observer Problem: When top-rank coaches, for instance, talk of what makes success, they are often thinking of the differences between athletes whom they see within the top level of the sport.

· Excellence: “Consistent superiority of performance”

2. What does not produce excellence?

· Excellence is not a product of socially deviant personalities. Athletes are more self-confidence but such confidence could be an effect of achievement, not the cause of it.

· Excellence does not result from quantitative changes in behavior. Simply doing more of the same will not lead to moving up a level in that sport.

· Excellence does not result from some special inner quality of the athlete. “Gift” or “Natural ability” are terms generally used to mystify the essentially mundane processes of achievement.

3. Where does excellence come from?

· Qualitative differentiation from other (swimmers), not through quantitative increases in activity. Levels of the sport are qualitatively distinct. Quantitative improvements involve doing more of the same thing.

· Quality – character or nature of the thing itself. Qualitative change involves modifying what is actually being done – competing in a regional meet instead of a local meet; eating vegetables and complex carbo rather than fats and sugars; entering one’s weaker events instead of only one’s stronger events. Qualitative improvements involve doing different kinds of things.

4. Manifestation of qualitative differentiation

· Different levels of the sport are qualitatively distinct – Olympic folks don’t just do much more of the same things that summer-league country-club swimmers do. They do things differently – strokes are different, attitudes are different, groups of friends are different, parents treat the sport different, etc. etc.

· Differences include: a) Technique; b) Discipline; and c) Attitude.

· Between winner and 8th place finisher, only 2.2% difference in time but small quantitative difference produces an enormous qualitative difference (of consistent winning in major int’l meets).

· Stratification is discrete, not continuous – “working their way up” does not occur – no amount of extra work at “C” level will get you to “AAAA” without a concurrent qualitative change in how the work is done.

· It happens by changing the kinds of work – beyond the initial improvement of strength, flexibility and feel, there is little increasing accumulation of speed through sheer volume of swimming. Requires qualitative jumps.

· Generals (Carl von Clausewitz – On War) rise quickly. Especially in wartime, when battlefield performance is the vital need, there is no long period of apprenticeship before one achieves the highest ranks, no tedious “accumulation” of knowledge or skills.

· Quantitative changes do bring success but only within levels of the sport.

· Several worlds exist, each with its own patterns of conduct – top is what they regard as the top, and their definitions of success have the broadest political currency. Each world has its distinctive goals.

· Some people don’t even begin to shine until they reach the higher levels.

5. Why talent does not lead to excellence

· His excellence becomes a thing inside of him which he periodically reveals to us, which comes out now and then; his life and habits become reified.

· Talent is indistinguishable from its effects – most of them are said to be “natural” or “gifted” after they had already devoted a great deal of time and hard work to the field.

· When their history is studied, seems to have overcome sharp adversity in their pursuit of success.

· Talent = layman’s slang for “unexplained variance”

6. Mundanity of Excellence

· 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.

· Gaines was not noticeably faster than several of the other swimmers in the race, but with this one extra tactic (spending years watching starters), he gained enough of an advantage to win the race.

· Meagher made two quite mundane changes in her habits, either one of which anyone could do. Examples include:

· Things can overwhelm you if you think too far ahead.

· In pursuit of excellence, maintaining mundanity is the key psychological challenge. Have standard rituals to reduce “choking” risks.

· A college commencement speaker believing that somehow the larger audience requires a larger message, that he must be a superhuman to speak to them, with a message grand and inspiring … and he panics. Just another speech, and not a life-changing event.

· Michael could not maintain his sense of mundanity. He never accepted that a dissertation is a mundane piece of work, nothing more than some words which one person writes and a few other people read.

7. Conclusions

· Excellence is a qualitative phenomenon.

· Talent is a useless concept.

· Excellence is mundane.