How did you show up this week?Grit is a combination of passion and perseverance. – Brendon BurchardEnthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.How to instill grit in your team?When people think things happen naturally, dispel that myth. Intentionally model the hard work that went into what made it look natural. The work is never done. It’s a daily story.It’s not just a model. Why is a model not enough? We need a path as well. This isn’t inspirational leadership. It’s the rungs on the ladder that we need. It’s not just a vision…it’s the daily, routine, technical part of the business. Abstract inspiration is not enough.Why were the highly accomplished so dogged in their pursuits? There was no realistic expectation of ever catching up to their ambitions.They were the opposite of complacent.  They were satisfied being unsatisfied. The chase was gratifying.Outliers of Grit: Combine 3 Things – Ability in combination with Exceptional Zeal and the Capacity for hard labor.I’ll argue that as much as talent counts, effort counts twice.  Superlative performance is really a confluence (Confluence is the merging of two rivers) of dozens of small skills  or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions; only the fact that they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence. When we can’t easily see how experience and training got someone to a level of excellence that is so clearly beyond the norm, we default to labeling that person ‘a natural’!!talent x effort = skillskill x effort = achievementTalent is how quickly your skills improve when you invest effort.  Achievement is what happens when you take your acquired skills and use them. Talent – how fast we improve in skill – absolutely matters.  But effort factors into the calculations twice, not once. Effort builds skill.  At the very same time, effort makes skill productive. Skill is not the same as achievement.  Without effort, your talent is nothing more than your unmet potential.  Without effort your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t. FocusThe Lion Tamer Who SurvivedClyde Beatty was born in Bainbridge, Ohio in 1903. When he was a teenager, he left home to join the circus and landed a job as a cage cleaner. In the years that followed, Beatty quickly progressed from a lowly cage boy to a popular entertainer.Beatty became famous for his “fighting act” in which he would tame fierce wild animals. At one point, Beatty’s act included a segment where he brought lions, tigers, cougars, and hyenas into the circus ring all at once and tamed the entire group.But here’s the most impressive feat of all…In an era when the majority of lion tamers died in the ring, Beatty lived into his 60s. In the end, it was cancer that took his life, not a lion.How did he manage to survive? Thanks to a simple idea. Clyde Beatty was one of the first lion tamers to bring a chair into the circus ring.The Whip and The ChairThe classic image of a lion tamer is one of the entertainer holding a whip and a chair. The whip gets all of the attention, but it’s mostly for show. In reality, it’s the chair that does the important work.When a lion tamer holds a chair in front of the lion’s face, the lion tries to focus on all four legs of the chair at the same time. With its focus divided, the lion becomes confused and is unsure about what to do next. When faced with so many options, the lion chooses to freeze and wait instead of attacking the man holding the chair.Avoid the Fate of the LionHow often do you find yourself in the same position as the lion? How often do you have something you want to achieve …only to end up confused by all of the options in front of you and never make progress?This is especially true in business, health, fitness, and medicine, where every person and company seems to believe it is their duty to make things more complex. The end result is that we feel like we can’t focus or that we’re focused on the wrong things, and so we take less action, make less progress, and stay the same when we could be improving.How to Focus and Concentrate BetterAnytime you find the world waving a chair in your face, remember this: all you need to do is commit to one thing.In the beginning, you don’t even have to succeed. You just need to get started. Starting before you feel ready is one of the habits of successful people.