Where They Hide The Great
How bad do you want it?
How much will you give?
The answers to these two questions will do more than guide you; they will reveal you.
Because your desire to achieve and your willingness to sacrifice for that achievement will most likely determine whether you are a 100-percenter, a 95-perecenter, or a 90-percenter. Whether you are a person who got the job done, or a person who almost got the job done.
Someone who makes things happen ... or someone who lets things happen.
The difference in top achievers is often small gradations. Extra effort here, or there, or then. Repeatedly.
Many people in this life are 90-percenters.
They do a good job, but not a great job. They do 90% of the work, but not 100%.
It's easier to be a 90-percenter. But I'm not sure it's better.
You wouldn't enter a 100-yard race and stop at the 90-yard mark, would you? So ask yourself why are you doing that in your work or your love or your life.
The last 10% is where it gets really hard.
The pain enters a multiplicative level. You will hurt.
But that's where they hide the great.
Keep moving.
"Difficulty is what wakes up the genius (ingenium mala saepe movent), which translates in Brooklyn English into, 'When life gives you a lemon ...'" — Nassim Nicholas Taleb, "Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder"