Excellence

I often ask myself this question - what makes someone achieve excellence?

When I think of excellence I think of people like Pele, Bradman, Dhyan Chand, Ayn Rand, Ramanujam, Lata Mangeshkar, etc.

There are other great people too but I know the most about the above and hence want to keep only these in mind.

So did something make them or were they made of something?

I believe that the natural order of things intends us to follow a Normal distribution of performance. So, what makes certain human beings achieve the outcome that is only 0.00001% likely?

I guess there are three reasons:

1. Genes
2. Motivation
3. Practice
   

I believe genetic makeup can give someone an edge in performing certain tasks - e.g. someone may be born with very sweet or deep voice.

I also believe that motivation is what takes that person to excellence. These people simply are on a different level of consciousness. This may be circumstantial. This may be innate as well, because after a point excellence often is self-motivating. Whatever be the case, these people are able to stay motivated most of the times, and that causes all the difference.

Practice is essential for excellence. I think it wires our neural networks. The more we practice the more we get wired. Hence, the better our mental models become. Then in real life these mental models can handle randomness better.

Hence, to summarise I don't believe in a deterministic view of excellence. Anyone can become excellent, but one cannot force himself to become excellent. There is no direct bus that goes to excellence. One needs to take the right buses that progress towards excellence.