The best way to win? Be better. How much better?

Soul crushingly better.

Sound cruel?

The Weekend Journal shared a great piece about the Superstar effect – how some stars are so much better than everyone else in the field that they literally crush their competition before the game/match/negotiation begins.

Boris Spassky, Bobby Fishcher’s rival sums it up:

When you play Bobby, it is not a question of whether you win or lose. It is a question of whether you survive.

These superstar competitors are so significantly better that opponents essentially give up. Whereas in a “normal” competitive setting you can expect several players to push for the win, if a superstar is present the competitors on average slink back. It is not simply a reality of the superstar outperforming – the superstar’s actual game day performance is less material. It is that the would-be competitors actually play/perform worse than if the superstar were not present.

By analyzing PGA Tour data, Jennifer Brown of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School has determined that players take on average .8 MORE strokes when Tiger Woods is entered in the tournament. Many Tournaments are won and lost over 1 stroke.

From personal experience watching PGA Tour events on the ground last Spring/Summer I noticed the leaderboard effect. As a golfer landed on the top of the leaderboard, he became more likely to spectacularly unwind. At first I suspected it had to do with the increase scrutiny. You need not see the leaderboard to understand who is in the lead, just watch the camera crews. The crews will scramble to get every inch of play by the current leader. I’m sure it changes the way you play to have a camera crew up your shorts all of a sudden.

But it wasn’t simply the camera crews that caused the anxiety. Consider, as a player gained leader status he was more likely to play with Tiger – an unpleasant experience from what I understand. If you think Tiger can beat you, he already has.

The Superstar Effect

Comparing SAT results based on testing venues across all 50 states, researchers have determined that students who test in larger groups did worse. It is speculated that the increased competition and knowledge of the competition led to less motivation.

Some of this is insurmountable. Do we really want to provide private testing pods for taking the SAT?

But is speaks volumes of the nonverbal influence your peers have. Simply the sight of your peers doing the work you hope to do best may be enough to cause you to give up. So how do we set up our students for success?

Automation of skills.

Students/golfers/performers do their best work when they have gone through the process of mastering the content and then allowing their unconscious minds to direct and control the action. The more “thinking” an expert does, the worse the result. When expert math students are offered cash rewards for winning, they do significantly worse than when told to try their best.

It is as though the thought of winning blocks the actual ability to perform.

I’ve watched this in students and in consulting clients. If client sees someone else’s website launch faster than his he loses focus on the long-term win, which is not about speed, but depth, and instead begins sabotaging his own project. Similar outcome with students. A student who perceives his classmates as superior will often give up by the 4th class and either disappear or come up with a huge number of excuses why he cannot perform. In both cases when the performance actually begins to decline, the student/client look for someone to blame.

If only we could live in isolation….

By isolating a student – making him stop reading the GMAT blogs (most of it is false – no one should read that stuff!), having him give up the constant GMAT chatter available on twitter or with his friends – then he has the mental energy to concentrate on learning the material he needs to succeed. It isn’t simply the distraction, but the increased anxiety about inadequacy that drives his performance down.

But then, that seems to be what ails most of us, most of the time. Would we have viagra without it?

So if you want to win, be the superstar, don’t compete with one.

Related posts:

1. Education Issues: Performance Pay’s Effect is Weak?
2. Education Issues – Teacher Signaling

If you haven’t seen the latest in mini-mite super stars, check out this video of a 9 year old. Now this trick is a learned trick and wouldn’t fly in the NHL (puck must be moving forward at all times – this one doesn’t), but come on, it’s pretty cool to watch.

Fair warning, this video has more camera angles than a Versus broadcast.

The kid’s father played in the Swedish elite league for 9 years so Junior is not new to hockey. Just goes to show what the right environment produces. Junior is playing with the 12 year olds.

I love the look on the goalie’s face. That’s a WTF if I ever saw one. Look at the way his hand is upturned after the shot goes through. You can see his shock even through the goalie mask.

Expect a rush of kids making crazy hockey shots over the next several months. Nothing like healthy competition.

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Talent is one of those things we talk about all the time, but very rarely define. How often do you refer to someone doing something incredible: Tiger Woods, Tom Brady, Michael Phelps, Dara Torres, Usain Bolt as a Natural Talent?

Since that often feels a bit like a cop-out, let’s dive in to the science of Talent.

What is Talent?

One word.

Myelin.

That white stuff that wraps your nerve fibers and keeps the electric impulses from slipping into the ether. The more myelin, the thicker the insulation around the nerve fiber, the stronger the impulse received. The more complete the training any given moment.

Firing on all cylinders
What produces talent is constant firing of the right neural pathways. Keep firing them and the myelin builds. The more you fire (the right paths!), the more myelin . . . the more myelin, the more signal reaches . . . starting to sound circular yet?

Sure. Basically it works like this:

A little bit of sporadic effort produces next to nothing as a result.

A lot of effort sporadically spent produces ocassional short-lived improvement.

A lot of effort expended regularly in any direction produces results in that direction.

A lot of effort expended regularly and in the direction of the goal gains exponential results.

In this case 1 + 1 = 5000

But what about these Natural Talents?
What about them? The talent is natural, but it isn’t in-born. That’s the good news. Here’s the sobering part, the natural talent requires significant work.

By the time you have expended 1000 hours or more on developing a particular skill, you are better than 95% of the population for that skill. AND every minute you spend practicing is worth 3 minutes of a less myelin-wrapped competitor.

Your insulation from the competition is literally in your head.

That’s why Einstein’s brain had all that “white stuff.” When Einstein passed away, his brain was studied thoroughly. But no one understood what all the white stuff was. Looks like it was myelin.

Stumbling to the Top ™

So how do you get talent? Start now!

Studies demonstrate that adults still produce myelin well into their 60s and it proves to be an excellent way to hold off disease, particularly those that affect the brain. It is never too late to start. Though you might not be racing Usain Bolt around the track as a 50 year old, there’s no reason to delay your interest in painting. You can develop a masters talent, but it won’t be overnight.

There’s nothing easy about Talent. It is all hard work. In short, you develop talent by stumbling and staggering in the direction of your goal.

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Winning with Nuclear Fusion

Thursday evening I ended up in a conversation about nuclear fusion, not a subject I know much about, but I have a vague understanding . . . that got me thinking about what it takes to launch a business, or learn a new skill since both of those activities require an extraordinary amount of energy upfront.

What is nuclear fusion:
Fusion is the process of combining two nuclei into one larger nucleus. The sun fuses hydrogen nuclei to make helium. It then fuses helium nuclei to make beryllium and then beryllium into lithium.

But where does the energy come from?

Each time two nuclei combine to form one nucleus, a tiny amount of the atoms’ mass is converted into a large amount of energy. Leaning on Einstein here, the amount of energy released is equal to the mass lost times the speed of light squared.

With such a fantastic amount of energy created from such a tiny amount of mass, fusion makes for an amazingly powerful energy source . . . we just haven’t figured out how to do it on Earth.

So what does this have to do with winning / mastery / business?

Everything.

When you start a project whether it be launching a business or creating a winning sports team, you invest significantly more time upfront to get the results you seek. There may be long hours, there is most certainly immense frustration. You struggle to move forward, lurching around like a baby learning how to walk, stumbling this way, stumbling that way until you finally “get it.” You finally learn how to walk because you persist in the stumbling. You finally expend enough energy and enough time that your muscles understand what they are supposed to do when you decide to walk.

How’s this for hyperbole . . .
Sure, you can use the standard comparison that creating success is like the space shuttle launch where 96% of the fuel is used in the first two minutes of launch to get it into orbit so the crew only have 3-4% of the total fuel for hanging out in space for two weeks and flying home …

Or you can upgrade!
But why not use your new knoweldge of fusion and say it’s like creating energy from the sun….

The energy released from the sun is in the form of photons. Those photons travel from the core of the sun to the surface of the sun and ultimately to the surface of the Earth. If you agree that the  then you know that the journey from the core of the sun to the surface of the sun will take more energy/more intensity/more time than any other leg of that journey. Since we are measuring photons we measure the time it takes for a photon to travel from the sun’s core to the sun’s surface and then from the sun’s surface to the Earth’s surface.

100,000 to 200,000 years and 8 minutes

How’s that for contrast!

It takes the photons 100,000 to 200,000 years to travel from the core of the sun to the surface of the sun. The photons get bounced around by the gas molecules in the core so their journey is long. Much like creating a winner – be it in business or sport or music or any mastery target. Intense focus on the destination is required.

But once the photon reaches the surface of the sun it takes a mere 8 minutes to reach the surface of the Earth.

Crazy stats on Space Shuttle Fuel and it’s effect on ozone layer written by a Chemical Engineering grad student.

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Earlier this week a reader reminded me of another example of a record breaking performance that comes in second place.

Sammy Sosa vs Roger Maris . . .

. . . vs Mark McGwire

In 1998, Sammy Sosa soundly beat Roger Maris’ 1961 home run record of 61 in one season. Sammy was the first player to hit 65 in one season and finished the year with 66 home runs. Yet, he finished second.

Mark McGwire finished the season with 70.

The back-and-forth can be seen in Wikipedia’s Home Run Record Chase. Early on in the season McGwire is well ahead of Sosa, but then Sosa catches up in June. By September it is almost back-and-f0rth between Sosa and McGwire. This story would play out again with similar results in subsequent years.

From a talent development standpoint, would Sosa have reached 66 home runs if McGwire hadn’t been slugging? Or was Sosa’s personal record developed from the competition the home run derby created? Was it this non verbal influence of McGwire that pushed Sosa to perform?

A look at subsequent years is telling.

1999 Sosa 63, McGwire 65
2000 Sosa 50
2001 Sosa 64, Barry Bonds 73, Mark McGwire 70
2002 Sosa 49, Alex Rodriguez 57 (AL)

It is only in his *off* years that Sosa led the league in home runs. The years he performed his record setting best were years when another slugger was well on his way to breaking records.

It is also interesting to note that home run levels today are nowhere near what they were during that stretch from 1998 to 2002. While steroids may or may not come into play, the level of competition is more likely the bigger driver. If there is at least one other player who can challenge you, push you, then a competitive athlete will step forward into the challenge.

Special Thanks to CrawDaddyCove.com for the photo.

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So you probably thought you’d hear about hockey this week given that preseason begins . . . now, but instead how about a diversion to running.

In tandem with my research on the non verbal, environmental cues that foster the growth of super stars I get to look at super stars themselves. It’s really amazing to watch a fast runner. Fluid movements, precision.

As a little girl I dreamed about having both the speed and style of Jackie Joyner Kersee and FloJo. They were magically fast and yet wildly stylish – the best of both worlds.

So is it true that competing with someone great will make you greater? For this weeks statistic I pull the records from record breaking running events. Did second place also beat a record? Did second place set a personal best running against the record setter?

Of the 23 world record breaking times sampled, over 50% of the time second place either broke the previous record as well or recorded a personal best. There’s also a very strong trend of peak years when the record is broken multiple times in a year – usually between May and August. For the Men’s 100M dash, peak years are 1968, 1987, 1988, 1991, 2006, 2008 and 2009. Often it is a competitive back and forth for the eventual breaker with his main #2.

Have just a second? Really, that’s all you’ll need to see Usain Bolt’s fantastic race in Berlin, August 2009. The new world record. Watch the poor camera guys try to catch him post race…

Related posts:

1. Excellence versus Mastery

Think you have mastered all that you are able to master and that life and learning are about to pass you by? Has your dream of challenging Eric Clapton to a little strumming vanished? Think that you are too old to pick up the violin?

There is hope!

Many adults consider themselves over-the-hill and not likely to learn new skills after a certain age. The good news and bad news:

It’s just not true!

In a study of budding musicians, researchers discovered that perception of self as a musician was a better predictor of learning and success with an instrument than amount of practice. See the details: Causing Cognition – Getting Great!

You might want to fantasize about becoming a world class guitarist now. Go do it.

Related posts:

1. Excellence versus Mastery

Most of what we know about intelligence is wrong. Let me start with an example.

Who has the higher IQ?

The Chess Master or the steel worker?

Chess Master

Steel Worker

No peeking! Make a choice.

If you said the Chess Master you would be in good company. Most people say the Chess Master. Their reasoning is that the average IQ for the overall group of Chess Masters is higher than the average IQ for the overall group of steel workers.

Therein lies the problem.

What many will extrapolate from the higher IQ average of the Chess Masters is that Chess Masters are smarter than steel workers. This is only true in broad categories and obscures considerable talent. Using broad group averages instead of flesh and blood humans is misleading.

In Geoff Colvin’s book, Talent is Overrated, he mentions a study of children who begin to study chess.

….The strength of IQ as a predictor of success dropped drastically as the children worked and got better, and IQ was of no value in predicting how quickly they would improve.

The research shows that high IQ is not necessary for great accomplishment. But what about the guy down the block who must be a genius because he is unbeatable at Chess?

He has “domain specific” knowledge. His ability to trounce you at the chess board is not tied to his IQ, it is tied to his commitment to master the game of chess. Indeed, plenty of Chess Masters have below average IQs. Just as plenty of steel workers have above average IQs.

This is very good news. ANYONE can develop domain specific knowledge in essentially any field.*

*Hedging my bets is so tacky, but . . . just in case.

Related posts:

1. Education Issues – Teacher Signaling

In an effort to determine the validity of my hypothesis about peak years I’ve scanned through high school data as I get my hands on it . . . turns out it is not so straight forward to get high schools to share their information. It has been even more difficult to get organizations like National Merit to share anything – despite being a member!

At this point I have one 20 year cycle for one high school. While the initial results are not spectacular, measuring the percentage of super stars in the class (total super stars divided by total class size) was more telling, but nothing outrageously off the charts. One class did do a bit better than the others . . . it was a pretty awesome class though I may be biased.

Related posts:

1. Contextual Cues Influence Learning

Preseason is in full swing.With that in mind a little stat on football leadership from a local high school.

In researching the athletic prowess and at Highland Park High School for comparison with its academic (Nobels and Rhodes) prowess, I stumbled across this little tidbit . . . of our big stars in the NFL, all three have played for the Detroit Lions. By Big Stars, I am referring to Hall of Fame Inductees and the #1, first round draft pick of 2009. Selective list to be sure.

Here is the list of HPHS alum in the NFL. No doubt I am missing some guys so please feel free to let me know in the comments and I will update accordingly. The year indicated is the high school graduation year.

We also have some top-notch Baseball players in MLB. Never mind the loads of Olympic medals, this list is about football. Happy Football Season!

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