Archive for Quotes
Moral Bankers
Posted by: | CommentsIn his book, Broken-Down House, Paul Tripp comments on Matthew 6,
You see, we are all moral bankers. Every day we make a dozen or a hundred or a thousand little mundane investments in the hope of gaining some kind of return. You may not consciously think this way, but this is what you are doing. Every person living is pursuing some kind of treasure. Your actions, reactions, and responses in any given situation or relationship represent your deposits, your attempts to secure whatever in that moment is valuable to you.
So what do your deposits say about what is most valuable to you?
God Does Not Settle for ‘Good Enough’
Posted by: | CommentsHere is a quote from Paul Tripp’s book, Broken-Down House, that would would probably do well to review everyday. I know I need the reminder.
God does not settle for ‘good enough.’ He loves us too much to sit back idly while we struggle with personal weakness, failure, and sin. He is not satisfied to leave us at the level of immaturity and foolishness we find ourselves in today. He has a character goal for you to attain in this life, and by his unrelenting grace and mercy you are going to get there. He is God. We are made in his likeness. His ultimate goal for us in this life is that we be further conformed to his image. So he will not stop doing good to us – good in the most important sense of the term, however painful it may be at times – for as long as we are on this earth.
Deliberate Practice
Posted by: | CommentsAnother good book that focuses on the topic I have addressed the past few days is Geoff Colvin’s Talent is Overrated. In it he says,
The factor that seems to explain the most about great performance is something the researchers call deliberate practice. Exactly what this is or isn’t turns out to be extremely important. It definitely isn’t what most of us do on the job everyday, which begins to explain the mystery of the workplace -why we’re surrounded by so many people who have worked hard for decades, but have never approached greatness. Deliberate practice is also not what most of us do when we think we’re practicing golf or the oboe or any of our other interests. Deliberate practice is hard. It hurts. But it works. More of it equals better performance. Tons of it equals great performance.
He naturally goes into greater detail on what ‘deliberate practice’ actually consists of. Before breaking in down in detail, he summarizes deliberate practice in this way:
Deliberate practice is characterized by several elements, each worth examining. It is activity designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously available; it’s highly demanding mentally, whether the activity is purely intellectual, such as chess or business-related activities, or heavily physical, such as sports; and it isn’t much fun.
I think both he and Malcolm Gladwell are right on in their books. They are both good reads, no matter what your area of expertise may be (or whatever it is you may want it to be).
Ten Thousand Hours
Posted by: | CommentsMy beautiful wife is currently reading through Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. It’s a great book, and one that has application to what I wrote yesterday. She reminded me of this quote,
The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.
“The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associate with being a world-class expert – in anything,” writes the neurologist Daniel Levitin. “In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice-skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. Of course, this doesn’t address why some people get more out of their practices sessions than others do. But no one has yet found a case in which true, world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”
As Gladwell makes plain in his book, this isn’t the whole story, but it is certainly a big part. At the very least, it makes me feel better about shooting those long-distance threes.
C.S Lewis and the New York Knicks
Posted by: | CommentsSo the New York Knicks are (not surprisingly) a huge mess after the return of Carmelo Anthony and the addition of J.R. Smith (the real addition being his actually getting in normal shape). Mike D’Antoni just resigned. And they obviously have chemistry issues that go far beyond the system of the head coach. The pieces of their team just haven’t fit. At least, all the pieces of the team together, for they have played better when they have had less pieces.
Owen Strachan offered some great insights as to why.
This article over at ESPN also gives more insight into what is going on behind the scenes.
So what’s the lesson in all of this? There are many. Here are a few big ones that stand out to me and that I have had to deal with head on myself throughout the years.
1) Oftentimes in basketball, less is more and more is less.
More talent doesn’t often lead to more success. Oftentimes less talent prevails and too much talent causes more problems than you can imagine. A few key pieces of high level talent are absolutely necessary. But beyond that, chemistry, humility and the joy of playing a role are huge keys. If you have too many guys who have to play the way they want to play, well, who is going to win? Answer: No one.
Aren’t the Knicks obvious evidence of this?
2) The ability to bring out the best in each other is not easy to come by, no matter how genuinely individuals want to do it.
Sometimes there just isn’t a good mix. The players may genuinely want to make it work, but no matter what they might do, it just won’t work. Look at the Knicks. Are they full of bad guys? I don’t think so. Do they all want to win? I believe so. But you have players at different stages in their career whose strengths just don’t seem to be able to fit well together. Is it their fault? Maybe to some degree, but ultimately, I don’t think so.
I mean, I was saying this stuff the moment they got rid of all those good players in order to get Carmelo. It just didn’t make sense. If you have ever been a part of a great team (one that fit well together), you could see this coming from a million miles away. New York traded away some great ‘chemistry’ pieces in order to get one great star who has spent the last several years playing a lot of one-on-one ball. And they thought Carmelo was going to fit into D’Antoni’s game? Come on.
Again, I don’t think Carmelo is just out to get his. I am sure he genuinely wants to win. And to a certain degree, I believe he is willing to make some sacrifices. But asking a great player like himself to sacrifice what he does best doesn’t make sense…for the team or for him.
When it comes to the make-up of a good team, I think C.S. Lewis’ words about friendship are very applicable here.
Reflecting on the loss of his good friend Charles Williams he wrote,
In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s [J.R. Tolkien’s] reaction to a specifically Charles joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him ‘to myself ‘ now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald.
And so it is for a great team. The individual players bring out the best in each other. They are more together than they can be apart. Their personalities and styles of play, strengths and weakness, complement each other. And they like it that way and appreciate each other for each player’s unique contributions. The best teams understand this instinctively. The worst may understand it, but just may not be able to apply it the way they would like.
There is certainly more that I could say, but that is enough for today. Maybe I will offer a few more points tomorrow, because the Knicks really do serve as a great object lesson for what does or doesn’t make for a great team.
