Talent is not a
commodity you can buy in bulk and combine to reach the needed levels: There's a
premium to being the best.
Two core abilities
for thriving in the New Economy: 1. The ability to quickly master hard things;
2. The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and
speed.
To produce at your
peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration or a
single task free from distraction.
Clarity about what
matters provides clarity about what does not.
Using busyness as a
proxy for productivity.
Your will, in other
words, is not a manifestation of your character that you can deploy without
limit; it's instead like a muscle that tires.
To succeed with deep
work you must rewire your brain to be comfortable resisting distracting
stimuli.
For many, there's a
comfort in the artificial busyness of rapid e-mail messaging and social media
posturing, while the deep life demands that you leave much of that behind.
