Naaju Breaking News, Live Updates, Latest Headlines, Viral News, Top Stories, Trending Topics, Videos
[ad_1]
Kumar Mehta has spent years studying what makes people great.
On this journey, he made surprising discoveries about what the women and men who shone for their excellence have in common and how each of us can achieve the best of our talents.
“I’ve found that most of us set big goals, but we try to tackle them all at once to get immediate results. This makes us fail, ”explains the researcher in dialogue with BBC Mundo.
This is why he developed the concept of “micro excellence“to explain that small changes lead to big results.
A concept directly linked to another idea that has become very popular: the rule of marginal profit of 1%.
This strategy, which has been applied under different names, maintains that if you only improve 1% at a time, you have a better chance of hitting your goal than if you are trying to get bigger increases.
Kumar Mehta has published two books that revolve around excellence: The Innovation Biome and The Exceptionals: How the Best Become the Best and How You Can Too.
A researcher at the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California, lecturer, consultant and author, Mehta talks to BBC Mundo about the lessons he learned during his studies.
The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
What is an exceptional person, what concept do you use in your research?
Becoming an exceptional person means separating yourself from others. In some cases, it may be someone known internationally as Michael Jordan, but it may also refer to people who do not have that level of fame.
Outstanding people like Michael Jordan or Serena Williams advance by perfecting even the smallest elements that can bring them victory. But in addition to their talent and hard work, they have a support network that allows them to achieve their goals.
For example, someone who won a Nobel Prize in Physics or Economics, who changed the world in a significant way, or just someone who became the best in whatever field they were.
Architecture, nursing, accounting or other. An exceptional person is someone who has successfully maximized their physical, mental and social potential.
Can anyone become exceptional, even if they apparently don’t have great talent?
S. It’s interesting because we don’t all have the same talents. We have eight types of intelligence. You can be talented as a writer or as a public speaker, but if you develop a professional career that doesn’t match those kinds of skills, you won’t be exceptional.
You have to combine your natural talent with what you do. It is very important that people who want to be the best at something understand what their talents are, what their strengths are.
Can you give me an example of an exceptional person that you personally admire?
Probably the exceptional person I admire the most is Bill Gates. I have had the pleasure and honor of working and interacting with Microsoft, seeing how its mind works.
“The exceptional person I admire the most is Bill Gates. I had the pleasure and honor of working at Microsoft and interacting with him, seeing how his mind works, ”says Mehta.
Reading what he does to change the world and make it a better place, it seems to me that he is showing the characteristics of an exceptional person.
How did you get interested in research in this area?
At first, I wanted to understand how we can improve our lives. As a result, I thought the only thing that improves our lives is innovation.
Innovations that can improve our lives throughout history such as new drugs, new technologies. So I started to study innovation in the sense of what makes great innovations possible.
I’ve studied hundreds and hundreds of innovations, from the wheel to robotic surgeries, to smart phones and all the cool stuff we use today.
Kumar Mehta published in December “The Exceptional: How the Best Becomes the Best and How You Can Too”.
This led me to publish the book Innovation Biome, trying to understand how innovations happen.
Then I thought about what makes the people behind these great innovations so special. And that’s when I started to study what makes people great.
I interviewed Olympic medalists, musicians, architects and a host of people from different backgrounds to find common ground.
Each has their own story and each story is perfect for each individual, but if you look at the elements they share, certain patterns emerge.
And what are these common elements?
I wrote about what I call the elements of excellence. When a person is exceptional, 50% is determined from birth, 25% is effort and the remaining 25% is a set of facilitators.
These facilitators are: believing in yourself, in the environment you come from, the support system you have (because it is impossible to do it alone), micro excellence and commitment.
These are all the features I found as a result of my research.
What is your academic history, that is to say from what field of knowledge did you approach the question of exceptionality?
I have a PhD in Pharmaceutical Social Economy, something that I studied a long time ago and that I do not continue to develop. But in college, you learn to learn, you learn to conduct research, and then you go your own way.
Mehta explains that when a person is exceptional, 50% is determined from birth, 25% is effort, and the remaining 25% is a set of enablers.
I started in the pharmaceutical sector, but then I worked for a long time at Microsoft then I worked in data analysis, then I researched innovation topics and now I am dedicated to the subject personal excellence, working with athletes.
The most exciting part of my life has been learning something new and building a pool of experiences and knowledge.
Since you are now dedicated to the topic of excellence, what is the most amazing thing that you have learned in this area?
The idea of micro excellence, the fact that great people put their attention on very small things to achieve big goals.
What strikes me is the systematic emphasis on surgical precision. The exceptional pay attention to every detail, they don’t have their attention on the “big things”.
An exceptional person is someone who has successfully maximized their physical, mental and social potential. In the photo Emmanuelle Charpentier, winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2020.
Another thing that surprised me about great people is that it’s not just about them.
They are exceptional because they have a network, a complete support system that allows them to become exceptional, like Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps.
By focusing on every detail with surgical precision, are the concepts of micro-excellence and the 1% marginal profit rule similar?
I wrote about micro excellence. Other researchers talk about the 1% marginal profit rule, but the concept is similar, it is the same idea of focusing on things that others consider irrelevant.
Who invented the name of 1% marginal profit?
The expression on the marginal gains of 1% comes from the former manager of the British cycling team Dave Brailsford. I don’t know if he took it from someone else, but Brailsford is the one who made it popular by applying it to cycling.
Former UK cycling team manager Dave Brailsford popularized the 1% marginal earnings rule by applying it to his work.
It’s interesting because in the end we came to similar conclusions and my concept of micro excellence was validated by other people.
And if we wanted to embark on the path of micro excellence or apply the rule of 1% marginal profit, what is the first step?
Whatever activity you have, you need to break it down into smaller pieces. If you break it down into four or five components, that’s probably not enough. You need to divide it into 20 or 30 components.
Each of these influences the activity you do. And then you can do a simple exercise: rate yourself on each of them on a scale of one to five.
The other thing is to compare yourself to your peers, not the famous ones. If you compare yourself to them in each of the items you selected, it can be an eye-opening exercise.
Concepts like micro-excellence or the 1% marginal profit rule are based on the same idea of focusing on things that others consider irrelevant. It can help you stand out in all areas related to your talents. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was re-elected in 2020 with a landslide victory.
You will identify where you are doing well and where you are at a disadvantage. And that’s in the areas where you didn’t score well, where you need to apply micro-excellence.
And when you get better at each of those little things, you’ll find that you’ve moved to another level, a little higher.
Then you do the same exercise again, but now you compare with the new, more advanced peer group.
So you build these micro elements one by one as if it were a ladder, step by step, to maximize your potential.
Although if we are not exceptional, no strategy will make me exceptional …
We can all maximize our talents and be the best we can be. In some cases someone will become the best in the world by doing something and in other cases someone will be the best they can be.
And that’s the only thing you and I can do, become the best version of ourselves. It will give you the satisfaction of having given your all and will make you happier.
This, for me, is also exceptional.
Esther Duflo, Nobel Laureate in Economics, is an exceptional person who has carried out important research on poverty and development.
When you identify your talents and know where you stand, you are setting a long-term goal. You take a piece of paper and write it down, in what I call a “personal statement.”
There you write down what you want to accomplish and what you are willing to leave behind to get it done. It’s the beginning.
.
[ad_2]
Source link
