The Pursuit of Excellence: The Uncommon Behaviors of the World's Most Productive Achievers

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PURPOSE MINDSET

The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.

—JOSH WAITZKIN

For the first two and a half decades of my life, my passion and purpose were all about sports. I wanted to play football and planned to do that as my life’s work. Through football, I was able to earn a full scholarship that paid for my college education (and room and board). But life sometimes has a funny way of letting you know that your plans aren’t going to work out. While I was passionate about earning a living as a quarterback, the key decision makers determined that I was not good enough to play in ...