“You find out life’s this game of inches, so is football. Because in either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small. I mean, one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it. One half second too slow, too fast and you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us.”

Tony D’Amato – Any Given Sunday

It’s not the major things in life that cause success or failure, it’s the little things.  Most people (read mediocre performers), do pretty darn good at performing the big things in life.  They have a productive career/job, they pay the rent on time, keep the kids clothed and fed, and have plenty of recreation/entertainment time.  Peak performers, go beyond mastering the majors, they also master the “small foxes”, because they know that it’s the small foxes that get in under the fence and destroy the harvest.

The world-class know that success is found in a series of “inches” that add up, over time, into miles.  Attention to detail, taking caring of the smallest elements of the fundamentals of the process of your particular field, this is what separates the good, (the middle class) from the great (the world class).

There really isn’t that big of a difference in the efforts of the masses versus the classes, but the effect of conquering the fine points is exponential.  If you’ve ever found yourself living by the mantra, “Well, it’s close enough for government work,” you’ve got a problem.  If you gauge your performance on what’s “good enough”, you doom yourself to inches short of reaching the peak.  Close, but no cigar.  Life isn’t horse shoes, hand grenades or nuclear weapons, and close doesn’t get it done.  If you think getting close to the peak is okay, try explaining to your kids that driving past the entrance to Disney World is just as good as as going into the Magic Kingdom.

If you are seeking the peak, stop letting things slip through the cracks.

Boo yah!!