Patching Cracks

One of my favorite quotes from the boxer Muhammad Ali is about training: “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” I have a good friend who says it a bit differently: “Training is better than trying hard.”

The idea behind this is simple: the key to becoming good at anything is training. Exerting effort every day over the course of months and years accumulates into excellence that cannot be matched by putting effort forward in the moment. When I worked with kids in Indiana, I presented the idea in this way: “If you wen...