“What you sweat is what you get.”– Nina Agdal
Thomas Edison said, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”
The metaphor Edison was using and many other quotes mirror is that the more we sweat over our ideas, the sooner we get to the great value they will provide for others.
This has truth to it and it is also has a lot of wrong in it.
I saw the Edison quote recently and I realized the next book I am in the process of writing is all about the 99% perspiration part of the equation.
It is not the amount of sweat as much as it is “sweating the right way” – in the way to pick up speed.
It is about increasing the speed, the power, and the agility of your engines of development.
Sweat by itself won’t win the race.
Sweat by itself without the right focus and without the right purpose does not add the right strength to athletes or to organizations.
Working the wrong muscles in the wrong way is like developing ideas with the wrong design and the wrong approach. It leads to injury in athletes and leads to massive rework and slowness in organizations.
My next book is called Leading with Speed. It is about how sweat better. How to sweat faster. How to sweat with style. It will give you the tools you need to make every drop of sweat count.
For this week, I leave you with you 3 questions.
1. Are your goals motivating?
2. Are putting the sweat in to make them come true?
3. Is that 99% perspiration as fast and effective as it should be?
If you want to go faster, better call Alan.
Yours in the calm pursuit of excellence,
Alan Willett
You may also like: