In Spring 1989, Hamilton College’s Daniel F. Chambliss wrote a groundbreaking paper entitled The Mundanity Of Excellence: An Ethnographic Report On Stratification And Olympic Swimmers.
One of his observations was “superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any of those actions; only the fact they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence.”
He goes on to contrast really good, even great, swimmers from world-class Olympic champions. Great swimmers love swimming. They love being in the water and going fast. Competitions inspire them and they are generally a joy to coach. They are quite talented.
However, world-class swimmers embrace the mundane. When they get in the pool, they practice countless numbers of flip turns, figuring out the best way to spring off the walls. World-class swimmers worked on things like arm placement and positioning their hands so no air is being cupped. This is supplemented with proper weight-training and diet.
Have you also noticed how very little water is moved when Olympic champions dive into the water? This is not by accident as they have practiced starting a race with the proper diving technique countless times.
This is The Mundanity Of Excellence. World-class performers in any arena love working on the boring, fundamentals of their craft when no one is watching.
Chambliss concludes, “Each of those tasks (flips, dives, arm and hand placement, training, diet, etc…) seems small in itself, but each allows the athlete to swim a bit faster. And having learned and consistently practiced all of them together, and many more besides, the swimmer may compete in the Olympic Games. The winning of a gold medal is nothing more than the synthesis of a countless number of such little things – even if some of them are done unwittingly or by others, and thus called ‘luck.’ So the ‘little things’ really do count.”
So here is the application:
Regardless of your profession, talent is never enough. As Jon Gordon said, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” But having a love for the type of hard work needed to achieve excellence will determine if you are just good or world class.
World class performers work hard on the boring things, the mundane things. Olympic swimmers are working on dives, one after another after another. They then work on flips, one after another after another. They swim countless laps not focused on just speed, but the positioning of their arms and hands. This is the boring, lonely, and mundane work which creates Olympic champions. It is both an attitude and approach which leads to excellence.
In your profession, there exists foundational building blocks for success. These cannot be taken for granted. Relentlessly working on and perfecting these fundamentals is what will eventually make you world class.
Performance coach Alan Stein Jr once asked Kobe Bryant after watching him intensely practice the sport’s fundamentals at 3:30 AM, “You’re the best player in the world. Why are you doing such basic drills?” To which he responded, “Why do you think I’m the best player in the world? I never, ever get bored with the basics.”
Kobe never got bored with the basics and is considered one of the sport’s all-time greats. If you are not achieving the level of success you desire, is it possible you have?
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