How To Become Great

Jerry Rice is one of the best wide receivers to ever play the game of football, some even claim he was the greatest of all time (also referred to as the G.O.A.T). He holds a number of NFL records, including most career receptions, most career yards, and most career touchdowns, that will probably stand for a very long time. (And if you don't have a clue about American football, let me assure you that these are pretty impressive records).

In his book The Genius in All of Us, David Shenk includes a chapter entitled The End of 'Giftedness' (and the True Source of Talent) in which he gives the reader some tips on how to become great. Using the story of the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as an example, he convincingly shows that becoming very good at something doesn't have anything to do with the genes you inherited.

Instead it's all about the process of working hard and practicing smart that gets you ahead. Here's how he describes it:

"In other words, it is practice that doesn't take no for an answer; practice that perseveres; the type of practice where the individual keeps raising the bar of what he or she considers success." (p. 56)

Researchers call this 'deliberate practice' because you're not just practicing for the sake of doing something in hopes of somehow getting better if you just stay at it long enough. People who practice deliberately know exactly what they're doing and are always looking to get better. It basically sounds like Shenk is describing a perfectionist as he goes on:

"Deliberate practice requires a mind-set of never, ever, being satisfied with your current ability. It requires a constant self-critique, a pathological restlessness, a passion to aim consistently just beyond one's capability so that daily disappointment and failure is actually desired, and a never-ending resolve to dust oneself off and try again and again and again." (p. 57)

So how did Jerry Rice do it? Was he born with a natural talent for running fast and catching footballs like no one else before him? Was his dad a professional football player who passed on his athletic genes to his son? The answer to both of these questions is no (his dad was a brick mason, by the way). Rice became great because he wanted to. Because he would let nothing get in the way of becoming the best wide receiver in the history of American football. Watch the video to see and hear for yourself how determined and perfectionist he really was in the way he approached the game of football.

(If, for some reason, this video doesn't work, you can also watch it here)

The good news is that you don't necessarily have to have that kind of ambition at a very young age (although it helps). Take Michael Jordan as an example: he was a pretty average basketball player up until he didn't make the varsity team in high school at age 15 - which was just the kind of motivation he needed to become the greatest (in my opinion) to ever throw balls into baskets.

For once I'm going to let someone else have the last word - David Shenk:

"Who else has the potential to scale such heights? Conventional nature-versus-nurture wisdom says very few people, but the exciting lesson from GxE (genes multiplied by environment) and from Anders Ericsson's research is this: no one knows. We do not - and cannot - know our own limits unless and until we push ourselves to them. Finding one's true natural limit in any field takes many years and many thousands of hours of intense pursuit. What are your limits? (p. 60)