Theory on Excellence; make sense in regard to poker

[Mr.JR]

Just finished reading an article for Sociology, and found it very intresting.

Cliff Notes of article: man follows national swimming club around for one year, views team meeting, practice, parties, and other events. Keeps track of what they say and do, and their results.

Here is his conculsions:

1. Excellence is a qualitative phenomenon: Doing more does not equal doing better. High performers focus on qualitative, not quantitative improvements; which produce significant changes in level of achievement. Different levels of achievement are really distinct, and in fact reflect vastly different habits, values, and goals.

2. Talent is a useless concept: Varying conceptions of natural ability (talent), tend to mystify excellence, treating it as the inherent possession of a few; they mask the concrete actions that create outstanding preformance. They avoid the work of empirical analysis and logical explanations (clear definitions, separable independent and dependent variables, and at least an attempt at establishing the temporal priority of the cause); and finally, such conceptions prepetuate the sense of innate psychological differences between high preformers and other people

3. Excellence in mundane: Excellence is accomplished through the doing of actions, ordinary in themselves, performed consistently and carefully, habitualized, compounded together, added up over time. While these actions are "qualitatively different" from those of performers at other levels, these differences are neither unmanageable, nor, taken one step at a time, terribly difficult.

If you read through all of this, what do you think of the points he makes in regards to playing poker, why?

[.KeviN.]

Great post, don't know why you haven't gotten more responses. I think you have already summed up his points in regard to poker. All 3 conclusions can apply to any aspect of life, and often times when striving for success we focus on the bigger ends and forget about the smaller means that will get us there. I think any of us who have been playing for awhile have at least one time caught ourselves just playing for the big pots and attempting fancy plays instead of remembering what sound strategy is all about. Qualitive instead of quantitive is something I'm definatly taking away from this underrated post, and hopefully I'll be remembering it next time Im at the table.