So Simple As To Be Trivial
In software engineering, there is method of analysis known as “functional decomposition.” If some function or output is not working properly, a software engineer will break the function down, layer by layer, to find the component part or input that is creating the problem. “If you layer down far enough,” Dharmesh Shah explains, “individual inputs at the atomic level are so simple as to be trivial.” Most things of magnitude or impressiveness can be functionally decomposed, down to components that are so simple as to be trivial.
How To Conquer Even Mammoth Tasks
James Pollard Espy was eighteen years old, and he still didn’t know how to read or write. Espy idolized the great orator Henry Clay, and one day Espy went to hear Clay speak. After, Espy went up to Clay but froze. Espy’s friend told Clay, “He wants to be like you, even though he can’t read.” Clay reached for a poster and then pointed directly at a letter. “You see that, boy? That’s an A. Now, you’ve only got twenty-five more letters to go.” Clay gifted Espy, Ryan Holiday writes in The Obstacle is the Way, with the knowledge that “even mammoth tasks [are] just a series of component parts.” Within a year, Espy started college and was on his way to becoming the greatest meteorologist of the 19th century.
How To Lose 140 Pounds
Rick Rubin weighed 318 pounds. After reading a book about a guy who ran 1,000 miles in 11 days, Rubin thought: wow, I can barely walk down the block. The book mentioned a Dr. Phil Maffetone. Rubin emailed Dr. Maffetone and asked to become a patient. A few weeks later, Rubin travelled across the country to meet Dr. Maffetone in Florida. After learning about Rubin’s lifestyle—what he ate, if he exercised, when he slept, and so on—Dr. Maffetone made his first suggestion. “From now on,” Dr. Maffetone told Rubin, “when you wake up, I want you to go outside as soon as you wake up and be in the sun for 20 minutes.” Rubin was surprised. Did he travel a long ways for nothing? It seemed trivial. But he tried it—20 minutes of sunshine every morning. “Dr. Maffetone knew,” Rubin said, “if I immediately went in the sun, naturally, my body would start wanting to go to sleep and wake up earlier.” Then, naturally, Rubin’s body would want to start eating better. Then, naturally, Rubin’s body would want to start moving more. Then, naturally, Rubin said, “I lost between 135 and 140 pounds.”
How To Write A Book
John Steinbeck wrote in a journal every morning before he wrote what became The Grapes of Wrath. “There are so many things to go into this book,” he writes in one entry. “An astonishing number of things. This is a huge job.” But then he catches himself, “Musn’t think of its largeness but only of the little picture.” He reminds himself what writing a book requires: “just a stint every day does it.” Over and over, Steinbeck repeats: “Just a matter of doing the daily stint.” “Just a stint every day does it. I keep forgetting.” “Just worry about the day’s work. That’s the only way to do it, I have found. But damn it, I have to learn it over again every time.” It is easy to forget because it seems trivial: just a stint every day does it.
How To Turnaround The Worst Franchise In Sports
In 1979, Bill Walsh took the head coaching job with the San Francisco 49ers. One writer declared the 49ers the worst franchise in all of professional sports. Despite coming off a 2-14 season, the 49ers didn’t have a first-round draft. They had the lowest payroll in the NFL. They didn’t even have regulation-sized practice field. “Consequently,” Walsh writes in The Score Takes Care of Itself, “I approached building the 49er organization with an agenda that didn’t include a timetable for a championship or even a winning season.” Fair. “Instead, I arrived with an urgent timetable for installing an agenda of specific behavioral norms—actions and attitudes—that applied to every single person on our payroll.” He called it his Standard of Performance, and it was full of things so simple as to be trivial. He taught the receptionists how to answer the telephones. He taught the players how to put their socks on properly. If he went into an office and saw a picture hanging crooked, he straightened it. “Much of this may seem trivial to you,” Walsh writes, “but it adds up and changes the environment.” Today’s efforts, he’d say, becomes tomorrow’s results. Quality efforts precedes quality results. And in his second season with the 49ers, Walsh led the franchise to their first Super Bowl championship (becoming the first and only team in NFL history to go from the worst team to the best team in just two seasons).
What The Game Requires
Shortly after training camp with the 1992 U.S. Olympic Basketball Team, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were reflecting on what they learned. “Just imagine,” Pippen said to Jordan, “how good Clyde Drexler would be if he worked on fundamentals.” Jordan’s biographer writes, “Jordan had been surprised to learn how lazy many of his Olympic teammates were about practice, how they were deceiving themselves about what the game required.” Don’t deceive yourself about what the game requires. Whether it’s writing a book, losing weight, or winning the Super Bowl—the component inputs are often so simple as to be trivial.