But I think it’s important to look at the fuller context of this speech which I’ll show with some select quotations and my own comments as they relate to personal development.  Roosevelt addressed an educated French audience and his topic was about the kind of citizenship that makes a republic strong.

“In the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average women, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues.”

Roosevelt knew he was addressing an audience of privileged listeners, and he warns them against an aloof attitude or being out of touch with the concerns of common people.  This is a danger for our “talking head” pundits on tv, but even more so for our CEO’s and leaders of organizations.

“A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities – all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness.”

Next comes the famous quote about the man in the arena:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Beyond this inspirational passage is another part of the speech that never gets quoted, yet I believe it holds the key to the kind of character that Roosevelt praises.  For me, it is the center of gravity of the speech, and it speaks to the personal development and mastery that are necessary for good leadership.  It really paints a picture of what it takes to develop top talent.

“There is need of a sound body, and even more of a sound mind. But above mind and above body stands character – the sum of those qualities which we mean when we speak of a man’s force and courage, of his good faith and sense of honor. I believe in exercise for the body, always provided that we keep in mind that physical development is a means and not an end. I believe, of course, in giving to all the people a good education. But the education must contain much besides book-learning in order to be really good. We must ever remember that no keenness and subtleness of intellect, no polish, no cleverness, in any way make up for the lack of the great solid qualities. Self restraint, self mastery, common sense, the power of accepting individual responsibility and yet of acting in conjunction with others, courage and resolution – these are the qualities which mark a masterful people. Without them no people can control itself, or save itself from being controlled from the outside.”

Roosevelt goes on to emphasize the need of a strong moral sense, the inner compass that must guide the true leader:

“Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if they are merely used for that man’s own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of others. It speaks ill for the community if the community worships these qualities and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly.”

Finally, to keep all of this grounded and practical, Roosevelt reminds us that:

“The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve them in practical fashion. No permanent good comes from aspirations so lofty that they have grown fantastic and have become impossible and indeed undesirable to realize.  Let him remember also that the worth of the ideal must be largely determined by the success with which it can in practice be realized.”

What do you think about the qualities Roosevelt praises and how practical it is to develop top talent?

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The full text of the speech is at http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html

If you want more of the back-story to this quote, you can find it here

This speech, along with his earlier one on “The Strenuous Life”, are some of Roosevelt’s most memorable words.  (Full text of the Strenuous Life speech can be found here).

I watched a lot of the games and was inspired and energized by the displays of dedication, hard work and concentration.

Training and preparation are the obvious ticket to get a participant to the games.  Some trained harder than others.  But on gameday itself, in the hour of competition, at the exact minute and second when fractions count, that’s when the small things become really big.  Leaning too far this direction, and the favored front-runner takes a fall.  A moment of hesitation on the short track and you don’t get to pass the person in front of you and qualify for the medal round.  It was clear that the mental game is a really big part of top performance.

What inspires so many is the all-out effort and dedication that these athletes show.  For those of us in the working world, how often do we push up against limitations and our own desire to stop, to move on to something else instead of taking the time to get it right?  Developing top talent isn’t done in days, or through a short training program.  It requires dedication, investment, going the second and the third mile, revising and honing performance, review and feedback, great coaching and a coachable spirit.

I’m glad we have the Olympics to show us these things.   There are too few places dedicated to producing top talent, champions and world-record results.  It’s time to bring the Olympic spirit, ethos and training regimen inside of more organizations.

January’s resolutions are long gone–time to get moving on what you’re really committed to.  I’m still hearing from people who are writing their own version of what the year ahead looks like using my free workbook “The Year Ahead 2010″.  You can get a copy for yourself and start  moving yourself, then watch out–the world will move too.

New discoveries in brain science seem to greet us almost every day.  How the mind and brain work is a fascinating field that just gets more interesting with each new discovery. 

We’re learning about different types of memory, the different regions of the brain where they are stored or accessed, how we process information both consciously and subconsciously, and how personality differences are reflected in distinct brain functions.

Some people seem born or endowed with special gifts or talents.  For them, applying their talents in a way that contributes is what makes them into top talent.  Can top talent be developed through sheer diligence in the absence of a special endowment?  It appears so.  Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers looked at research done on outstanding people and concluded that anyone could become an expert in anything by practicing for 10,000 hours.  What some would brand “obsession” may actually be one of the paths to learning something so well that you truly own it with a high level of mastery.

Everyone’s brain has an “executive function” that helps us to plan, organize and prioritize our actions.  Part of prioritizing is being able to shift our attention from one item to another or to keep from getting distracted or acting out habitual responses that would be counter-productive.  It appears that those people who we would call “top talent” are better able to exercise this executive function.  One interesting correlation to this is that bilingual or multilingual people seem to have more highly developed executive functioning in their brains.  They can monitor languages and keep them separate (part of the executive function), and they are better able to switch their attention when it’s necessary to learn something new.  I have witnessed this firsthand, first as a child in South America being exposed to Spanish, and as an adult in Asia learning Chinese.  Language learning seems to be one clear path to developing the executive function of the brain.

How do people arrive at the solution to knotty, complex problems without an obvious solution?  It seems very difficult to engineer or stage one of those “Eureka!” moments that leads to a breakthrough insight.  New research by Joydeep Bhattacharya and Bhavin Sheth makes the case that a person has to be in a particular state for insights to occur.  The processing of complex problems seems to occur most efficiently at a subconscious level, and Drs. Bhattacharya and Sheth showed that a flurry of subconscious brain activity often telegraphed a breakthrough even before a person became consciously aware of their breakthrough insights in a “light-bulb moment.”   The talent of solving complex or intractable problems seems to lie with those who stay with the problem and can fruitfully turn it over to their subconscious processing to arrive at a productive answer.

For some practical insights, look at the following resource:

John Medina has a great book out called Brain Rules.  I recommend you get a copy.  The free DVD that comes with the hardcover book is humorous and helps you really get the principles (he has 12 of them, some seem obvious, but others are really insightful).

Turn down the external noise (it helps to visualize actually turning down the volume).  Now look on your own situation as if you were a visitor from another planet trying to learn about humans.  Answer this question after some reflection:  “What is this person (remember, the visitor is looking at YOU)… what is this person actually able to control?  Where does this person exert the greatest influence?”

I know, these are strange questions.  We don’t think much about these things.  But if we did, I think we would notice that each person is able to control only what actions they take and the thoughts they think about.  There’s a lot of power in that, much more than we realize.  We’re usually so busy looking outside ourselves for answers, for cues about how to act that we forget where the center of our own power lies.

Our main source of power lies in what we think about and what we choose to do about it.  The people who most take this to heart look a lot like entrepreneurs.  We say they have initiative.  They strike out and take chances.  They do things that others often admire.  Entrepreneurs, instead of looking for a job, look for areas to be of service to other people (and make a profit in the process too).

“What then is to be done?  To make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens.” Epictetus, Discourses

I found a pretty extended elaboration of this on Tim Ferriss’ blog that speaks philosophically to entrepreneurs.

When it comes to developing top talent, look for entrepreneurialism first.  I look for an attitude that is willing to tackle things, that will look for what’s possible, not the opposite.   What’s important to you?

MPG Instrument

I recently bought a new car and it has a sensitive gauge that tells you how many miles-per-gallon you are getting at the present time.  I’m already paying more attention to this gauge and it has helped me in changing my driving habits for the better (to be more fuel-efficient).

Apply this to people in an organization–even a small one–and it becomes obvious that equipping people with a new tool is much more likely to yield change than talking about change, management lectures or internal communication initiatiaves.  These other activities are useful too, but I’ve seen too many leaders and companies rely on them and end up with very little meaningful change.

Like any new tool, you have to learn to use it properly.  When I took training to be a pilot, I initially spent too much time looking at the instruments-I assumed that’s how you fly the plane.  My instructor had to emphasize to get my head up and look outside the airplane.  The great majority of pilots of small planes fly visually by looking out the window 90% of the time.  Only instrument-rated pilots and airline captains fly solely by reference to the instruments, which is a much more mentally taxing activity that requires extra training, practice and licensing.  So here’s my caveat: when you get an instrument for measuring real-time performance, beware the tendency to stare at it and miss the other information and contextual clues about what is going on around you.  If you can learn to do that (and it is possible), you will be much better positioned to build a high-performing organization and drive results and accountability further down to the individuals that actually do the work.

I joined my wife Angela on a walk this morning and she asked me a question about meditating.  Did I find it easy to quiet my thoughts and focus on my breathing?

My answer:  Sometimes it seems easy, and other times it’s impossible.  But keep sitting and return to what is basic–your breathing. 

Meditating is not a spiritual practice for the mystics or a nice extra for those with the luxury of time and afreedom from everyday concerns.  Quite the opposite.  I consider it an essential life skill and a powerful tool on the path of development and mastery.  The more you think you don’t need it or can’t practice it, the more likely that you do.

So, let’s just assume that you are sitting while reading this (perhaps a reasonable assumption).  Take a moment to pay attention to your breathing.  Once you notice your breathing, it’s bound to happen–you’ll also notice your first thought.  All you need to do is to shush  the thought.  Do it gently, while you breathe a little fuller or longer (but still keep your breathing natural).  The shush is more like how you would calm a baby rather than reprimanding an unruly child or someone being loud inappropriately.  And whether you pay attention to your breathing for less than a minute or much longer, you’re meditating.  It’s simple, uncomplicated and it can be a powerful practice in anyone’s ongoing development.

The title comes from a quotation by Nietzche which is quite remarkable:

The essential thing “in heaven and earth” is…that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.

Friedrich Nietzche,  Beyond Good and Evil

Peterson uses Nietzche’s quote and the sentiment behind it as inspiration for his writings about discipleship in an instant society.  The consumer mindset militates against sacrifice, postponing gratification, and long dedication to a single practice without evidence of an immediate payoff.  I would echo this and say the same thing applies to the practice of self development and talent management in business.  There are precious few genuine shortcuts to developing top talent.

The third point of agreement in this triad is George Leonard, the American aikido teacher and an early leader in the human potential movement.  Notice what he has to say:

How do you best move toward mastery?  To put it simply, you practice diligently, but you practice primarily for the sake of the practice itself.  Rather than being frustrated while on the plateau, you learn to appreciate and enjoy it just as much as you do the upward surges.

George Leonard, Mastery, 1991

There you  have it–three different teachers from very different worldviews who find agreement and articulate a rare wisdom that few will champion today.  Real development and growth is found in a consistent, patient obedience, a rigorous dedication to mastery and excellence in a larger society that settles for shallow half-measures and ineffective quick fixes.