Malcomb Gladwell, the author of Outliers, I’m sure will want to add that to his resume.

This isn’t a book review, but I did want to take a moment and reflect on chapter I found particularly interesting relative to finding balance. Since I’m new to blogging, I’m not going to spend much time doing more than recording a few thoughts.

I must confess that I picked up the book because I liked the subtitle, The Story of Success, and what I read inside the jacket. I also knew that his previous two books were pretty good so I thought I would give it a shot over the holidays and see what factors he thinks contribute to a person’s success.

Outliers is written with lots of stories, which is very good for me. By the second chapter titled The 10,000 – Hour Rule, I was hooked. While the concept of “paying your dues” isn’t new, I was completely fascinated with how the 10,000 Hour Rule applied to the Beatles, Bill Joy (The author of UNIX and founder of Sun Microsystems) and Bill Gates.

Where does 10,000 hours come from? According to Gladwell, it’s the magic number of hours of practice to achieve world-class mastery of anything. Neurologist Daniel Levitin says that in study after study of fiction writers, basketball players, concert pianists, master criminals, and composers, to name just a few areas,  it seems that 10,000 hours of “practice” is the amount of time it takes the brain to assimilate all that is necessary to achieve true mastery.

So I’ve been stuck on this all week. I would assume most of us want to achieve mastery in something yet what are we to do? 10,000 hours is a crazy amount of time. It’s ten years! Does that mean I have to settle for pretty good  or not so bad?

As I embark on this journey into the blogosphere I have to wonder: How do you develop mastery of anything without sacrificing everything?

And so my journey begins. Only 9,999.5 hours to go.

-CW Ceran

Adversity provides the resistance necessary to develop the strength to overcome great obstacles.

This strength consists of self-confidence, perseverance, and, very importantly, self-knowledge.

For if you do encounter a setback, it is a clue to a personal weakness.

You may have been hasty in judging a competitor, or you may have been too timid in your vision of what needed to be done.

Let adversity be your guide to understanding where you misstepped and which qualities you need to cultivate.

No one rejoices in disappointment, but if you are success-conscious, you can turn the situation into a chance for improving your character, an opportunity you otherwise would have missed.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

The audio starts at :30 and the video at 1:15

—John Wooden, Legendary UCLA Basketball Coach

If you are like many Americans, you will be tuned in to the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in the months of February and March. It is amazing to watch—with much awe and respect—as these elite athletes sled, ski, jump and skate, with speed, precision and grace.

In observing these Olympians and Paralympians (as well as other elite-level athletes), their physical and technical prowess is glaringly evident. The speed and agility of speedskaters and downhill skiers, the strength and technical skills of bobsled and luge athletes, the technical profi ciency of snowboarders and the endurance and technical precision of figure skaters is apparent to all who observe their performances.

Knowing the physical and technical strengths of elite-level athletes can be an asset to any developing athletes who are working to enhance their skills. But you already know this, right? It is what you do on a consistent basis—you identify the physical and technical skills you need to better develop to improve your performance, then address them in your daily training.

Less evident, however, are the mental skills and characteristics that play a role in the performance of Olympians, Paralympians, and other elite-level athletes. When watching these athletes, we cannot see their thoughts, focus, confidence, anxiety, attitude and self-talk like we can see physical  and technical characteristics.

Because of this, there may be a tendency to only equate performance to observable skills and disregard the other skills that also impact performance—things like mental skills. If we can’t observe these mental skills, how do we know they impact performance? That is a good question.

Over the years, there has been much research that has looked at whether there are psychological characteristics that are correlated with successful athletic performance. From this research, we have a better understanding of the psychological skills and characteristics that seem to relate to successful performance.

Note that it is not suggested that having these characteristics cause the ensuing performance, but rather they seem linked to the ensuing performance. Regardless, having an awareness of the skills that relate to enhanced performance can be an asset to you

as you strive to enhance your own athletic performance. Without further ado, let us take a look at these mental characteristics related to successful athletic performance, as summarized by Krane and Williams (1):

• High self-confidence

• Arousal management

• Feeling “in control”

• Total concentration

• Focus on the task at hand

• Productive perfectionism

• Positive attitude and thoughts about performance

• Strong determination and commitment

• Detailed planning for competition that includes setting goals, imagery and practicing coping skills

Read slowly and repeatedly through the list. Which characteristics describe you? Which characteristics should you work to develop and/or improve? Make use of this research and hone your mental as well as your physical skills. 

Suzie Tuffey Riewald, PhD, NSCA-CPTS

1. Krane V., and Williams J. Psychological characteristics of

peak performance. J. Williams (Ed.), Applied sport psychology:

Personal growth to peak performance (pp. 169 – 188),

New York, NY: McGraw Hill. 2010.

Feb 2, 8:06 pm EST

MIAMI – Across America on Wednesday, high school football players will sign letters of intent with various college programs, a memorable day for all. Peyton Manning(notes) vividly recalls signing with Tennessee; Drew Brees(notes) speaks of the excitement of going with Purdue.

Pierre Garcon remembers the day also. Six years ago, national signing day came and went and the now Indianapolis Colts wide receiver didn’t get a single scholarship offer. He was 6-feet tall, with a frame that would eventually carry 210 pounds and legs that could run the 40 in 4.5 seconds or less. And no one wanted him.

He’d played tight end at Leonard High School in Greenacres, Fla., just up the road from where his Colts will take on the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV on Sunday. He was good, but hardly great. He didn’t work that hard on the field and was playing out of position. Even worse he was saddled with a messy academic transcript, the result of what Garcon now admits were freshman and sophomore years of doing little to no school work.

On signing day, football was moving on without him.

That reality hit hard. Garcon knew he was blessed with physical gifts and was kicking them away. He saw his mother, a Haitian immigrant often working two jobs. She took anything she could get, from picking tangerines in the fields of Florida to getting extra hours at a local post office. He saw his older sister sacrifice her dreams to help raise Garcon and his other two sisters.

So Garcon came to two conclusions: Yes, he screwed up; no, he wasn’t giving up.

At a recruiting camp, Garcon had caught the eyes of some coaches from Norwich University, a small, mostly military school in Northfield, Vt. “They were very interested,” Garcon said. After signing day, the coaches heard he was unattached and called. Garcon took his only option and headed north.

The culture shock was palpable. The campus is filled with cadets and discipline. The community is tiny and surrounded by mountains. And then there was the weather. “It was cold in Vermont. Very, very cold,” Garcon said.

Garcon went to work, both academically and, of course, athletically. He had the same goal as he always had – the NFL. He went through training sessions with that single focus, he just didn’t dare admit to anyone, lest he get mocked. Norwich is arguably the bottom rung of American college football, about as far from the Super Bowl as you can get.

“I never told [anyone] because I didn’t want to set myself up for failure,” he said. “I knew it was possible though. Nothing is impossible. That’s why I kept working.”

After one season he transferred to Mount Union, in Northeast Ohio. It was just a Division III school, a long way from Florida State or Alabama, but the coaching was top notch and the team a powerhouse at that level.

Three strong seasons, including two consecutive years being named D-III All-American, put him on the NFL’s radar. The league has a saying about a stopwatch not lying and Garcon could really run. His production – a career 64 offensive touchdowns – impressed. The Colts decided to take a flyer on him in the sixth round, the improbable journey had been reached. Sort of.

“It’s not about playing in the NFL, it’s about staying in the NFL,” Garcon said.

What he found waiting for him was the most demanding quarterback in football. Peyton Manning was willing to give him a chance but would accept no excuses while doing it. If Garcon thought he worked hard to make it this far, then Manning was about to redefine the concept.

In personal offseason one-on-one sessions, Manning likes to take his young receivers and work them until they drop – curls, hooks, outs, over and over until they are done correctly. Then they do it again the next day. The good news for the rookie is they have an all-time great working with them. The bad news is he expects them to meet his standards.

“You have to pick things up really fast, learn things really fast,” Garcon said. “It was nerve-wracking.”

The two players had taken opposite paths to the NFL. One is the son of football royalty (Manning’s father Archie was a two-time Pro Bowler in the 1970s), a star-in-the-making from the first spiral he ever threw. The other bootstrapped his way up from nowhere.

Yet when Manning asked for effort, Garcon gave it. When Manning demanded a quicker learning curve, Garcon kept up. The Colts locker room was impressed.

“You rarely hear about a guy that plays D-III football [getting] drafted,” said running back Mike Hart(notes), a former Michigan star who was a rookie with Garcon in 2008. “He comes here [and] it’s kind of like, ‘Who’s this guy?’ ”

His first year he was a backup, catching just four passes but showing enough progress the Colts brought him back. It was that offseason that everything changed. Garcon built muscle and speed and mastered the playbook. He caught 47 passes this season, including four for touchdowns. In the AFC championship game, he had a record 11 grabs for 151 yards and a touchdown. He’s in the NFL to stay.

“[My mother] doesn’t work any more,” Garcon said with a smile.

Garcon pulls in a TD pass vs. the Jets in the AFC title game.
(Scott Rovak/US Presswire)
Garcon is now the patron saint of second-chance football players. Not everyone runs a perfect pattern to the NFL. Not everyone turns scouts’ heads at first chance. Not everyone studies as they should.

“I didn’t have the academic qualifications,” he said. “I just wasn’t as motivated as I should’ve been. The first couple years in high school, I just thought, ‘do whatever.’ With the route my college career was going, I knew it would be a lot harder.”

Garcon is proof that the long road can be the best road. “I think that really made him better,” Hart said. “If he was a first-round draft pick, I don’t think he would have done the work that he did. It paid off.”

Garcon realized early on that you can’t change the past, just the future. He’s sheepish about his failures, but proud of his resolve. He doesn’t hesitate to credit his mother and sister for leading by example. He now looks at the devastation back in Haiti and it’s reinforced how lucky he was to be born in America and get a shot at such an education, let alone play games for a fabulous living. And he knows how he almost booted away an incredible gift.

“I always imagined it,” he said. “I always dreamt about it.”

Six years ago, no major college team wanted Pierre Garcon because he’d given them no reason to want him. Sunday he plays for the Super Bowl.