Price tag

 

If you want to do something very well, there are two prices you must be willing to pay.

The first is being prepared to do that thing over and over and over again, eventually making at best marginal gains. There is simply no substitute for thousands of hours of practise, and practice.

The second is being prepared to accept that you will not do exceptional things. For the very things that enable the very good—finding your groove and sticking with it—mitigate against the exceptional, which is both stumbled upon and irreproducible.

If, on the other hand, you desire to do exceptional things—and why should you not?—there are also two prices you must be willing to pay.

The first is being prepared to settle for producing work that is ‘good enough,’ far more of the time; to stop far short of very good.

The second is being prepared to let a novice do what you are a master in—to begin to find their own way of doing it—and to be humble enough to learn from them, new ways to approach what you already know. (This is also the key to securing a future for what you do, a future that includes good enough, very good, and exceptional work.)

Of course, it is by definition not possible to produce exceptional work all of the time. Moreover, there is nothing wrong with aspiring to produce very good work. The secret is learning when to stick, and when to twist.