Embrace the near win
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0:02 - 0:04I feel so fortunate that my first job
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0:04 - 0:06was working at the Museum of Modern Art
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0:06 - 0:10on a retrospective of painter Elizabeth Murray.
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0:10 - 0:12I learned so much from her.
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0:12 - 0:14After the curator Robert Storr
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0:14 - 0:15selected all the paintings
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0:15 - 0:18from her lifetime body of work,
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0:18 - 0:22I loved looking at the paintings from the 1970s.
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0:22 - 0:24There were some motifs and elements
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0:24 - 0:28that would come up again later in her life.
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0:28 - 0:29I remember asking her
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0:29 - 0:32what she thought of those early works.
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0:32 - 0:33If you didn't know they were hers,
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0:33 - 0:36you might not have been able to guess.
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0:36 - 0:39She told me that a few didn't quite meet
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0:39 - 0:42her own mark for what she wanted them to be.
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0:42 - 0:44One of the works, in fact,
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0:44 - 0:45so didn't meet her mark,
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0:45 - 0:48she had set it out in the trash in her studio,
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0:48 - 0:50and her neighbor had taken it
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0:50 - 0:53because she saw its value.
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0:53 - 0:56In that moment, my view of success
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0:56 - 0:58and creativity changed.
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0:58 - 1:01I realized that success is a moment,
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1:01 - 1:03but what we're always celebrating
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1:03 - 1:07is creativity and mastery.
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1:07 - 1:11But this is the thing: What gets us to convert success
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1:11 - 1:13into mastery?
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1:13 - 1:16This is a question I've long asked myself.
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1:16 - 1:18I think it comes when we start to value
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1:18 - 1:22the gift of a near win.
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1:22 - 1:24I started to understand this when I went
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1:24 - 1:26on one cold May day
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1:26 - 1:29to watch a set of varsity archers,
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1:29 - 1:31all women as fate would have it,
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1:31 - 1:33at the northern tip of Manhattan
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1:33 - 1:36at Columbia's Baker Athletics Complex.
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1:36 - 1:40I wanted to see what's called archer's paradox,
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1:40 - 1:43the idea that in order to actually hit your target,
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1:43 - 1:47you have to aim at something slightly skew from it.
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1:47 - 1:49I stood and watched as the coach
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1:49 - 1:52drove up these women in this gray van,
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1:52 - 1:55and they exited with this kind of relaxed focus.
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1:55 - 1:58One held a half-eaten ice cream cone in one hand
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1:58 - 2:01and arrows in the left with yellow fletching.
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2:01 - 2:03And they passed me and smiled,
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2:03 - 2:05but they sized me up as they
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2:05 - 2:07made their way to the turf,
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2:07 - 2:08and spoke to each other not with words
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2:08 - 2:11but with numbers, degrees, I thought,
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2:11 - 2:12positions for how they might plan
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2:12 - 2:15to hit their target.
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2:15 - 2:17I stood behind one archer as her coach
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2:17 - 2:19stood in between us to maybe assess
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2:19 - 2:22who might need support, and watched her,
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2:22 - 2:24and I didn't understand how even one
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2:24 - 2:27was going to hit the ten ring.
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2:27 - 2:29The ten ring from the standard 75-yard distance,
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2:29 - 2:32it looks as small as a matchstick tip
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2:32 - 2:34held out at arm's length.
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2:34 - 2:38And this is while holding 50 pounds of draw weight
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2:38 - 2:40on each shot.
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2:40 - 2:43She first hit a seven, I remember, and then a nine,
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2:43 - 2:44and then two tens,
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2:44 - 2:46and then the next arrow
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2:46 - 2:48didn't even hit the target.
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2:48 - 2:50And I saw that gave her more tenacity,
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2:50 - 2:53and she went after it again and again.
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2:53 - 2:56For three hours this went on.
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2:56 - 2:58At the end of the practice, one of the archers
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2:58 - 3:01was so taxed that she lied out on the ground
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3:01 - 3:02just star-fished,
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3:02 - 3:04her head looking up at the sky,
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3:04 - 3:07trying to find what T.S. Eliot might call
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3:07 - 3:11that still point of the turning world.
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3:11 - 3:13It's so rare in American culture,
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3:13 - 3:16there's so little that's vocational about it anymore,
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3:16 - 3:19to look at what doggedness looks like
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3:19 - 3:21with this level of exactitude,
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3:21 - 3:23what it means to align your body posture
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3:23 - 3:26for three hours in order to hit a target,
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3:26 - 3:31pursuing a kind of excellence in obscurity.
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3:31 - 3:33But I stayed because I realized I was witnessing
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3:33 - 3:35what's so rare to glimpse,
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3:35 - 3:39that difference between success and mastery.
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3:39 - 3:42So success is hitting that ten ring,
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3:42 - 3:44but mastery is knowing that it means nothing
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3:44 - 3:47if you can't do it again and again.
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3:47 - 3:51Mastery is not just the same as excellence, though.
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3:51 - 3:53It's not the same as success,
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3:53 - 3:55which I see as an event,
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3:55 - 3:57a moment in time,
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3:57 - 4:00and a label that the world confers upon you.
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4:00 - 4:03Mastery is not a commitment to a goal
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4:03 - 4:06but to a constant pursuit.
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4:06 - 4:08What gets us to do this,
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4:08 - 4:10what get us to forward thrust more
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4:10 - 4:14is to value the near win.
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4:14 - 4:16How many times have we designated something
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4:16 - 4:19a classic, a masterpiece even,
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4:19 - 4:23while its creator considers it hopelessly unfinished,
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4:23 - 4:25riddled with difficulties and flaws,
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4:25 - 4:28in other words, a near win?
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4:28 - 4:30Elizabeth Murray surprised me
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4:30 - 4:33with her admission about her earlier paintings.
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4:33 - 4:37Painter Paul Cézanne so often
thought his works were incomplete -
4:37 - 4:38that he would deliberately leave them aside
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4:38 - 4:41with the intention of picking them back up again,
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4:41 - 4:43but at the end of his life,
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4:43 - 4:45the result was that he had only signed
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4:45 - 4:4810 percent of his paintings.
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4:48 - 4:52His favorite novel was "The [Unknown]
Masterpiece" by Honoré de Balzac, -
4:52 - 4:57and he felt the protagonist was the painter himself.
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4:57 - 4:59Franz Kafka saw incompletion
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4:59 - 5:03when others would find only works to praise,
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5:03 - 5:05so much so that he wanted all of his diaries,
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5:05 - 5:07manuscripts, letters and even sketches
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5:07 - 5:10burned upon his death.
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5:10 - 5:12His friend refused to honor the request,
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5:12 - 5:14and because of that, we now have all the works
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5:14 - 5:16we now do by Kafka:
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5:16 - 5:19"America," "The Trial" and "The Castle,"
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5:19 - 5:23a work so incomplete it even stops mid-sentence.
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5:23 - 5:25The pursuit of mastery, in other words,
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5:25 - 5:30is an ever-onward almost.
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5:30 - 5:32"Lord, grant that I desire
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5:32 - 5:34more than I can accomplish,"
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5:34 - 5:36Michelangelo implored,
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5:36 - 5:39as if to that Old Testament God on the Sistine Chapel,
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5:39 - 5:41and he himself was that Adam
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5:41 - 5:42with his finger outstretched
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5:42 - 5:47and not quite touching that God's hand.
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5:47 - 5:52Mastery is in the reaching, not the arriving.
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5:52 - 5:55It's in constantly wanting to close that gap
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5:55 - 5:59between where you are and where you want to be.
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5:59 - 6:03Mastery is about sacrificing for your craft
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6:03 - 6:07and not for the sake of crafting your career.
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6:07 - 6:10How many inventors and untold entrepreneurs
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6:10 - 6:12live out this phenomenon?
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6:12 - 6:14We see it even in the life
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6:14 - 6:17of the indomitable Arctic explorer Ben Saunders,
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6:17 - 6:18who tells me that his triumphs
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6:18 - 6:20are not merely the result
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6:20 - 6:22of a grand achievement,
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6:22 - 6:27but of the propulsion of a lineage of near wins.
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6:27 - 6:31We thrive when we stay at our own leading edge.
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6:31 - 6:33It's a wisdom understood by Duke Ellington,
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6:33 - 6:36who said that his favorite song out of his repertoire
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6:36 - 6:39was always the next one,
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6:39 - 6:42always the one he had yet to compose.
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6:42 - 6:44Part of the reason that the near win
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6:44 - 6:47is inbuilt to mastery
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6:47 - 6:49is because the greater our proficiency,
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6:49 - 6:51the more clearly we might see
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6:51 - 6:54that we don't know all that we thought we did.
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6:54 - 6:57It's called the Dunning–Kruger effect.
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6:57 - 7:00The Paris Review got it out of James Baldwin
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7:00 - 7:01when they asked him,
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7:01 - 7:04"What do you think increases with knowledge?"
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7:04 - 7:08and he said, "You learn how little you know."
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7:08 - 7:11Success motivates us, but a near win
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7:11 - 7:14can propel us in an ongoing quest.
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7:14 - 7:16One of the most vivid examples of this comes
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7:16 - 7:17when we look at the difference
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7:17 - 7:19between Olympic silver medalists
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7:19 - 7:22and bronze medalists after a competition.
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7:22 - 7:25Thomas Gilovich and his team from Cornell
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7:25 - 7:27studied this difference and found
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7:27 - 7:30that the frustration silver medalists feel
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7:30 - 7:32compared to bronze, who are typically a bit
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7:32 - 7:34more happy to have just not received fourth place
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7:34 - 7:36and not medaled at all,
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7:36 - 7:38gives silver medalists a focus
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7:38 - 7:40on follow-up competition.
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7:40 - 7:42We see it even in the gambling industry
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7:42 - 7:44that once picked up on this phenomenon
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7:44 - 7:46of the near win
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7:46 - 7:48and created these scratch-off tickets
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7:48 - 7:51that had a higher than average rate of near wins
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7:51 - 7:54and so compelled people to buy more tickets
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7:54 - 7:56that they were called heart-stoppers,
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7:56 - 7:59and were set on a gambling industry set of abuses
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7:59 - 8:03in Britain in the 1970s.
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8:03 - 8:05The reason the near win has a propulsion
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8:05 - 8:08is because it changes our view of the landscape
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8:08 - 8:10and puts our goals, which we tend to put
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8:10 - 8:13at a distance, into more proximate vicinity
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8:13 - 8:15to where we stand.
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8:15 - 8:18If I ask you to envision what a
great day looks like next week, -
8:18 - 8:22you might describe it in more general terms.
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8:22 - 8:25But if I ask you to describe a
great day at TED tomorrow, -
8:25 - 8:29you might describe it with granular, practical clarity.
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8:29 - 8:31And this is what a near win does.
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8:31 - 8:33It gets us to focus on what, right now,
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8:33 - 8:38we plan to do to address that mountain in our sights.
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8:38 - 8:41It's Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who in 1984
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8:41 - 8:43missed taking the gold in the heptathlon
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8:43 - 8:45by one third of a second,
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8:45 - 8:47and her husband predicted that would give her
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8:47 - 8:51the tenacity she needed in follow-up competition.
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8:51 - 8:55In 1988, she won the gold in the heptathlon
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8:55 - 8:59and set a record of 7,291 points,
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8:59 - 9:04a score that no athlete has come very close to since.
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9:04 - 9:07We thrive not when we've done it all,
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9:07 - 9:10but when we still have more to do.
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9:10 - 9:12I stand here thinking and wondering
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9:12 - 9:14about all the different ways
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9:14 - 9:16that we might even manufacture a near win
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9:16 - 9:17in this room,
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9:17 - 9:19how your lives might play this out,
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9:19 - 9:24because I think on some gut level we do know this.
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9:24 - 9:26We know that we thrive when we stay
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9:26 - 9:27at our own leading edge,
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9:27 - 9:30and it's why the deliberate incomplete
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9:30 - 9:32is inbuilt into creation myths.
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9:32 - 9:35In Navajo culture, some craftsmen and women
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9:35 - 9:37would deliberately put an imperfection
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9:37 - 9:39in textiles and ceramics.
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9:39 - 9:42It's what's called a spirit line,
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9:42 - 9:44a deliberate flaw in the pattern
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9:44 - 9:47to give the weaver or maker a way out,
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9:47 - 9:52but also a reason to continue making work.
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9:52 - 9:53Masters are not experts because they take
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9:53 - 9:56a subject to its conceptual end.
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9:56 - 9:58They're masters because they realize
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9:58 - 10:00that there isn't one.
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10:00 - 10:03Now it occurred to me, as I thought about this,
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10:03 - 10:05why the archery coach
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10:05 - 10:07told me at the end of that practice,
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10:07 - 10:10out of earshot of his archers,
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10:10 - 10:12that he and his colleagues never feel
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10:12 - 10:14they can do enough for their team,
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10:14 - 10:17never feel there are enough visualization techniques
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10:17 - 10:20and posture drills to help them overcome
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10:20 - 10:22those constant near wins.
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10:22 - 10:24It didn't sound like a complaint, exactly,
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10:24 - 10:27but just a way to let me know,
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10:27 - 10:28a kind of tender admission,
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10:28 - 10:32to remind me that he knew
he was giving himself over -
10:32 - 10:35to a voracious, unfinished path
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10:35 - 10:38that always required more.
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10:38 - 10:41We build out of the unfinished idea,
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10:41 - 10:45even if that idea is our former self.
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10:45 - 10:48This is the dynamic of mastery.
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10:48 - 10:51Coming close to what you thought you wanted
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10:51 - 10:54can help you attain more than you ever dreamed
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10:54 - 10:56you could.
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10:56 - 10:59It's what I have to imagine Elizabeth Murray
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10:59 - 11:01was thinking when I saw her smiling
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11:01 - 11:03at those early paintings one day
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11:03 - 11:06in the galleries.
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11:06 - 11:08Even if we created utopias, I believe
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11:08 - 11:12we would still have the incomplete.
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11:12 - 11:14Completion is a goal,
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11:14 - 11:18but we hope it is never the end.
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11:18 - 11:21Thank you.
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11:21 - 11:24(Applause)
- Title:
- Embrace the near win
- Speaker:
- Sarah Lewis
- Description:
-
At her first museum job, art historian Sarah Lewis noticed something important about an artist she was studying: Not every artwork was a total masterpiece. She asks us to consider the role of the almost-failure, the near win, in our own lives. In our pursuit of success and mastery, is it actually our near wins that push us forward?
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 11:41
Madeleine Aronson accepted English subtitles for Embrace the near win | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Embrace the near win | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Embrace the near win | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Embrace the near win | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Embrace the near win | ||
Madeleine Aronson edited English subtitles for Embrace the near win | ||
Madeleine Aronson edited English subtitles for Embrace the near win | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for Embrace the near win |