akrish

What separates the good from the great? Is it talent, sheer work-ethic, or a mixture of both? I know from experience that you can’t achieve greatness just through work-ethic; I used to spend countless hours training so that I’d be a “great” soccer player, and I’d say I never made it past the “good” stage. I’ve had this debate with some of my friends and family, and I’ve always steadfastly held that you need both talent and drive to make it big in anything. I’m not exactly sure what’s really changed my viewpoint from then, but I think now I’d also add that you need scrutinizing attention to detail, along with work-ethic and maybe some talent, to become great in almost every activity that you engage in.

So why attention to detail? Let me proceed with a short anecdote to maybe clarify my point: I practiced my clarinet for the first time in about 5 months today. I decided yesterday that I’m going to audition for the University Wind Ensemble this coming semester so I need to be practicing everyday for that audition. I didn’t sound all that great, but I haven’t forgotten anything and I’m really excited to hear myself getting better over the next couple weeks. On the whole, I still retained a lot of the dexterity and technical ability that I had before, but I noticed a bunch of small things that I was unhappy about and need to work on. However, I don’t remember ever mastering these details in my playing (or even trying to master them for that matter), which made me ask myself: “Why hadn’t I mastered them when I used to play clarinet every day?” When I practice now, these minor things are so glaringly wrong to me that I devote my time exclusively to fixing them, so how come when I used to practice, I didn’t notice or care about the same mistakes I was making. I’m pretty sure the reason was that they’re really hard to fix, and I don’t like to do things that I find to be really hard.

So back then, I learned to shrug off these egregious mistakes and I thought that I was on my way to become a “great” clarinetist. But when I look at it now, I realize that without scrutinizing these flaws in my playing and working to fix them, I have no hope of becoming great. Without paying particular attention to the hard things that I hadn’t already mastered, I was just going through the motions, and even though I would put in the time and practice, it wasn’t really getting me anywhere. I was a “good” clarinet player, and to become “great” I needed to focus on the subtle details that were adversely affecting my sound.

Here’s another situation: I’ve spent a decent amount of time designing websites. With web design, due to the sheer number of sites out there, there’s a huge disparity between the “well-designed” sites and the “amazingly-designed” sites. When I visit a website, I immediately know if it’s amazingly-designed (unfortunately, this disparity makes the “well-designed” sites just suck) and I’m sure most people have the same impression. The thing with web design is that ever single pixel of your page must be scrutinized, or your presentation will be awful. I know that I’ll never be even good at it, because I don’t have the patience to fix really minor issues that literally make or break a web site. In this regard, attention to detail (along with serious work-ethic and passion) is essential to being a good web designer.

I’m not entirely sure if what I’m really talking about should be called attention to detail; maybe it should just be lumped in with work-ethic. But it’s working smart; fixing the things that are hard to notice and even harder to fix. It’s a willingness to take on the most difficult of challenges rather than circumvent them or take the easy way out. I think I notice the details that are hard to fix, but I really don’t enjoy working on these things and usually just completely avoid them. My standard web design thought is, “It looks ok, I can probably just leave it like that,” when I know that there are tons of flaws with my website. Greatness comes from noticing the really minor problems, and then putting in the time to overcome them.

I think college has helped me pretty significantly in my attempts to achieve greatness. First off, I know that I have a much more determined attitude and a lot more drive than I used to do. I can see it in the way that I’m running with a lot more motivation and enthusiasm than I used to. I also see that I have a lot more patience with working on things that I find really hard. I noticed that today when I was practicing clarinet. I definitely wasn’t like this in high school though, and even though I’m not exactly where I want to be yet, I’m pretty happy with how college has helped me out.

I guess maybe all you need for greatness is some talent and a lot of hard work. But work ethic does include attention to detail and serious drive to address all those details that you find. I’m pretty sure everyone has the capacity and ability to work, and I also like to think that everyone is talented at something, so maybe then everyone has the ability to become great.