Historic feats are nothing more than a game of endurance–the deliberate choice to play the game on a different time scale. While others are playing in days, you’re willing to play in decades.
It’s not about how hard you can work, it’s about how long you can work. Intensity will always lose to consistency. As Paul Graham said,
“We underestimate the cumulative effect of work. Writing a page a day doesn't sound like much, but if you do it every day you'll write a book a year. That's the key: consistency. People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done, rather than nothing.”
Some progress, every day, for years and decades. There is no greater formula for doing something special.
There are the likes of Thomas Edison, who worked upwards of twenty to twenty-two hours a day, going as far as hiring a man named Friday, whose only job was to make sure Edison didn’t oversleep. When he neared his later years, Edison cut back his work to sixteen hours a day.
Edison had intensity with duration, a rare combination. For most, an unsustainable combination. Obsession is a blessing, but obsession isn’t about working all day, every day, it’s about working on it every day. It can be for a few hours or eight. But however you work, it needs to be sustainable.
Is the way you’re working and grinding and hustling something you can do for the rest of your life because it’s not about getting a head start, it’s about being able to start every day. With intensity, you start strong. With duration, you stay strong.
The key is to leave the work when you still have some left in the tank--before the gas indicator flashes yellow. When you can feel some fatigue setting in, some restlessness ensuing, walk away.
Carl Jung explained it best,
“I’ve realized that somebody who’s tired and needs a rest and goes on working all the same is a fool.”
The fool starts fast. The professional starts slow.
The fool works all day. The professional works some, every day.
The fool creates until exhaustion. The professional stops when there’s still some energy.
The game is simple. Work in a way where you look forward to returning to it the next day.
Whoever can keep the energy and enthusiasm the longest will win. Whoever can show up every single day will outlast. Whoever has the discipline to stop when you don’t want to stop, will outrun the competition.
Winning is about endurance. Endurance is about sustainability. Sustainability is about leaving some energy in the tank.
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