Hey everyone, I hope you’re all having a wonderful Tuesday! Has spring sprung in your town yet? I’m looking out at buds and blossoms and loving a little sunshine. This week we’re talking about virtue. Let’s get into it.
ONE FROM THE AGES
Will Durant on excellence, from his distillation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in The Story of Philosophy:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
ONE FROM TODAY
Critic and novelist William Gass on doing things well:
“The trivial is as important as the important when looked at importantly.”
ONE FROM US
Most people conflate virtue with morality and qualities like honesty, purity, and chastity. This vision of virtue only captures a narrow aspect of what it means to be virtuous. Worse, it seems quaint to us and we easily dismiss it as naive and downright boring. Virtue might be fine for the Amish and the preacher’s daughter, but I live in the dog-eat-dog real world where nice guys finish last. This was, at least, my definition of “virtue” during my formative years, no doubt influenced by The Book of Virtues, a collection of fables and my mom’s favorite bedtime stories.
It was Greg Glassman, the brash and outspoken founder of CrossFit, who redefined my image of virtue. In his 2005 article “Fundamentals, Virtuosity, and Mastery,” he borrows from competitive gymnastics judging criteria to define virtuosity as “performing the common uncommonly well.”
To be virtuous means to give your best in every moment. If you’re going to bother doing something, do it as well as you possibly can. But virtuosity is more than just a diligent commitment to performing “uncommonly well,” it also means focusing on “the common”— the fundamentals that people often blaze through to get to the more glamorous and exciting aspects. Commitment to both your effort and the areas where you focus it is the only path to true mastery. Virtue is not some antiquated concept of morality, but the path to awesomeness in whatever you do.
Here are a few of the interpretations of virtue that I try to keep at the center of my life:
Perfect practice makes perfect.
Most of us grew up learning that “practice makes perfect,” but it is more accurate to say that practice makes permanent, and only perfect practice makes perfect. It is even more accurate still to say that virtuous practice makes “better,” because the concept of perfection has no business clouding our quest for mastery.
Semantics aside, the way that we perform in low-stakes situations is how we will perform when the stakes rise. This is striving for perfect bodyweight squats to ensure that we maintain our form when we load up a heavy barbell. It is practicing humility so that we can more easily admit fault and apologize in the moments when we’ve hurt someone instead of doubling down in defense of our actions. More than any specific skill, we are practicing doing the “best thing” in spite of external pressure or emotional comfort.
Grease the groove.
This concept comes from Pavel Tsatsouline, the trainer credited with bringing kettlebells to the west. Greasing the groove is to continually practice the fundamentals. In physical training, this means practicing and improving the foundational movement patterns in every session. If you devote a portion of every training session to revisiting the basics you will become a stronger and more proficient mover.
Greasing the groove is an attitude that applies beyond the weight room. Release your expectations for progress and simply focus on showing up each day and doing a few things “uncommonly well.” Through consistency and intentional effort, you will improve. This is the type of humble commitment that makes a meditation practice work. My daily journaling, often just a rambling on about the trivial details of my life, is a form of greasing the groove. Regardless of what I write about, I’m practicing both the crafting of words and the habit of examining my emotional state. As the Olympic champion wrestler and coach Dan Gable put it, “If it is important, do it every day.”
Unpredictable leaps in progress often follow this approach. Focus only on moving a little better each day and personal best lifts happen when you least expect them. Nearly every article I’ve ever written has grown from the random thoughts that arise while journaling.
99% is Bullshit
This idea comes to us from Shane’s high school football coach. To me, it means two things. In each moment, give all of your efforts. 99% effort is not enough. As Olympian and cult distance running icon, Steve Prefontaine said, “to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”
This also means that sticking to a commitment only 99% of the time is no commitment at all. This is the power that underlies Shane’s daily writing commitment. All or nothing. 99% is a failure.
Essentialism
Essentialism is a term coined by Grey McKeown in his book of the same name. But the concept is timeless. We can only give our best to a limited number of pursuits. When we try to take on too much, we dilute the focus we can give to all things. By ruthlessly eliminating the superfluous from your life, you can give your all to the essentials that remain.
Focus on only a few exercises that have the greatest benefit for your goals, ignoring all of the showy movements and flashy new equipment. Give your best to only a few marketing channels when you launch a new product rather than trying to be everywhere. Only attempt to build one new habit at a time (or commit to a minimal program, like the 30x30, that covers several bases in only one 30-minute addition to your daily schedule). Essentially, essentialism means to do less but better.
Virtuosity means intentionality, focus, and discipline to stay your own course regardless of temptations or distractions. But mostly virtuosity is an attitude based on the recognition that we are in a constant state of becoming. What you do in this moment affects who you are in the next moment. You are constantly practicing being the future you. You are a collection of all of your previous actions. What makes up the bulk of your archive? How might you curate your collection better going forward?
Thank you for reading. If you like this concept, you might also enjoy:
Life is too short to be good enough.
Justin
Great thoughts Justin !. These reflections are especially important in tech environment and social media, where we are overloaded with stimulus and information. Focusing on basics and essentials is crucial (more difficult is to "discover" essentials for you), i really appreciate it in planning my days, weeks and months regarding my job and studies.
Cheers. :)