I didn’t think I was competent as an accountant. I could’ve climbed the career ladder in accounting. “I knew what talent was because I saw the lack of it in myself.I could get better, but I’d never be good.” - Fran Lebowitz You could be better but you know you won’t be great.įran Lebowitz communicated this on the decision to quit playing the cello instead of practicing more as her mother implored. That’s because most are mediocre versions of other people. Quitting is hard because you have to admit you aren’t going to be the best.
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To be world-class in being ourselves sounds easy.
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The irony is that being the best version of ourselves-playing a game that is unfairly in our advantage-is the only way we will be world-class. What we can only hope to be is the best in manners we can control. When you don’t quit something you aren’t aspiring to be the best at, you are admitting you are fine being mediocre or choosing to live in ignorance of it. Think about Charles Darwin’s period of exploring the Galapagos islands to sitting down for years to write the Origin of Species. “Quitting creates scarcity scarcity creates value.”Įveryone (person or business, which is a group of people) will have various periods of exploration coupled with a period of focus to execute on the exploratory data collected. This doesn’t mean exploring in various elements didn’t help, I’m sure it aided them, but when the time came, they had to focus.
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Remember those who became the best in the world at their chosen field were not people incapable of excelling in other areas. It’s all around the simple and crucial idea that to the best in the world at something, you need have quit doing a lot of other things. It’s 80 pages dedicated to the topic of quitting and persevering that thing you don’t quit. Book Notes & Rating: “Gives you things to think about when confused” / 10