Practice is important

That willingness to sing every day in order to get better is as important to entrepreneurial success as it is to selling out concerts or winning golf trophies. Yet many adults recoil at the thought of practice, thinking that it leads to boredom. That's not true if what we're practicing comes from our passion. Consider this: we take up a spiritual practice; doctors are said to practice medicine while attorneys practice law. The implication is that worthwhile endeavors are calls to lifelong learning.

Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor, has been studying outstanding performance for years. He says, "A lot of people believe there are some inherent limits they were born with. But there is surprisingly little hard evidence that anyone could attain any kind of exceptional performance without spending a lot of time perfecting it."

What may also not be obvious is that we all are practicing daily and whatever we practice most, is what we master. Like the perpetually miserable woman, we can excel at stinginess or generosity, originality or mediocrity, boredom or adventure. It's just a matter of where we're putting in our time and effort.

My brother Jim who lives in California and is an avid surfer. He's also 61 years old. My sisters and I like to point out to him that although we've seen his wet suit and surfboard, none of us have ever seen him in the water. He points out that surfing isn't a spectator sport. Even so, we know that when the weather and the waves are cooperative, Jim will be at the beach. That doesn't mean that getting himself there is always easy.

He told me, "I was driving to the beach yesterday morning and it was still dark. I was thinking, 'Why am I doing that.