Finding the Burning Core

A real estate agent was showing a couple through a house. The husband was iffy, the wife undecided. Then as they walked through the yard, the wife complemented a beautiful flowing cherry tree in the yard.

The agent was no dummy. He talked about how the yard would be covered with lovely cherry blossoms. When he walked them through the house, he mentioned again and again how from every room on the south side of the house, you could look out and see that beautiful flowering cherry tree. Upstairs, he mentioned that the fragrance of that beautiful flowering cherry tree wafted through the windows and would greet you in the morning…

And every time he did, the wife grew more and more enthusiastic. The husband never had a chance.

###

I spoke yesterday about my relationship with the late, great Harlan Ellison, and thinking back over that relationship, I guess I wanted to speak about what I consider the single most important interaction I ever had with him, or more precisely, the greatest gift he gave me.

One of the things I do when the opportunity to study an ultra-high performer personally presents itself is to try to understand HOW they do what they do. This isn’t a denial of raw “talent”. Let’s say that “talent” is like height for a basketball player. Yes, it helps them. No, you cannot model it. But the SKILL with which they play CAN be modeled, and adapted to smaller bodies. A shorter person with superb skill performing at the edge of his capacity can outplay a taller…