54. Encourage Concentration
The first law of success is concentration, to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right, nor to the left.
—William Mathews, journalist
The other principle that Professor Mercado believed in was concentration, or focus. And to drive it home to his students, he had a bizarre system. Scott recalls: Professor Mercado had us play music recitals, as most teachers do. But at these recitals, he would have us play our pieces twice. The first time we would play them as we would at any standard recital. We would play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on the violin and the audience would politely clap. And then, after that performance was done and everybody had a chance to play the ...
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