Archive for Work
Great Sermons on Work
Posted by: | CommentsI listened to one by Tim Keller this evening entitled Work and Our Character. As always, am better because of it. I also was reminded that the principles he sets forth in these sermons totally apply to the world of sports. Especially professional sports.
That being said, no matter what your line of work, you would do well to listen to these sermons.
Here are five of them from Keller on the topic of work that you can listen to or download for free from Redeemer Presbyterian’s website. I have listened to each of them and cannot recommend them strongly enough.
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.
A Few Thoughts (and links) about Peyton Manning
Posted by: | CommentsI haven’t seen the entire press conference (it can be viewed here or you can see the highlights and summer here), but man, I walked away from the extended highlights a bigger Peyton Manning fan.
A few things stood out to me in particular:
1) Peyton’s emotion flowed in large part from the fact that he genuinely served the Indianapolis community with his gifts. And that is exactly how it is supposed to be.
Sadly, this is the exception rather than the rule, but the beauty of it was that Peyton Manning understood instinctively that his gifts and opportunities didn’t belong only to himself, but to the community he served with those gifts. This is naturally how it is supposed to be for us all. No matter our line of work, we are supposed to enjoy our work more by understanding how it serves others. Peyton’s line to the fans, “I have truly enjoyed being your quarterback” strikes a sweet note in us all. He played for them, he served them by seeking greatness, and they knew it, felt it, and no doubt were thankful for it. If only we had more professional athletes who really understood this and embraced it for all its worth. It is the way things ought to be.
2) Sometimes good business may not be good business in the end. And Peyton Manning, to his credit, didn’t even mention that possibility.
Only time will tell, but I would certainly have liked to have seen Peyton Manning end his career as a Colt. And I can’t help but wonder if the Colts will regret the numbers determine their decision. They might be right in the end, but I tend to think that the community connection is often worth much more than professional franchise’s realize. No doubt the people of Indianapolis love the Colts, but how many of them love the Colts because of Peyton Manning? We shall see.
There is more that I could say, but those are two things that stood out to me while watching.
A few other stories worth reading: Rick Reilly writes his column as a thank you to Peyton over at ESPN. Well done.
And Gene Wojciechowski writes about whether or not the Colts will regret this decision. I tend to agree with him (as you can tell from my second point). It’s worth checking out. Maybe more evidence that business and sports aren’t the best mix this side of the New Earth.
In Pursuit of True Greatness
Posted by: | CommentsWright Thompson’s ESPN article on Vince Lombardi is a good one. Told through the tale of his Green Bay home, Thompson does a good job capturing him in limited space. Much of what he said reminded me of what I learned from HBO’s documentary, Lombardi.
If you haven’t seen the documentary, I highly recommend it. HBO did a great job capturing Lombardi in all his strength and weakness. And boy were there weaknesses. No doubt he was a great football coach, but in his own admission, he was not a great husband and father. As many of you may know, Lombardi was famous for saying his priorities were God, family, and football (in particular Green Bay Packers’ football). And no doubt those three things were closest to his heart. But when you really learn about him, it becomes obvious that football took first place.
His story is a sad one really. No doubt he won five championships and is remembered fondly in football circles. But those five championships cost his family a great deal of happiness and maybe even in a sense cost him his life (he died at 57). Either way, what is even more sad is that his story is far from unique. For no matter what one’s walk of life may be, when one is consumed with greatness in one area of life, the other areas of life cannot help but suffer. And when those areas of life are ones that should be among the most important, well, that is sad. Very sad indeed.
In this respect, I believe it is wise for us to recognize that although the Lord wants us to pursue greatness in certain endeavors, it is oftentimes unwise to actually become as great as you can possibly be. For it cannot be denied that in order to become the absolute best you can possibly be, you must make sacrifices. But more times than not, those sacrifices are not worth the cost. Family, friends, a life that honors the Lord and has time for others. These are vital. To deny them in order to become the best player I can possibly be or one day, the best coach I can possibly be at the highest of levels…well, long-term, it just doesn’t make sense.
That being said, I do believe there is often a way to do both. At least to a certain extent. And whatever that extent is, well, that is what we should be pursuing. In whatever our walks of life. And I really do mean whatever our walks of life. For there are plenty of pastors who make the same mistake as Lombardi. So also businessmen or teachers or whoever. We are all in danger, so we are wise to be alert, on our guard, always praying for wisdom and looking to the only One who defines what really matters in the end.
