Would You Rather Aim Too High and Fail, or Aim Too Low and Succeed?

The “Sentence A Day” program is aligned with my attitude that talent is badly overrated, and I’ve never seen the concept do a damned bit of good. In fact, almost every time I talk about this, a couple of people prove my point: they’ll talk about how they would never have been as good as some other person, or met some particular external standard (being in the NBA, for instance).

The one thing you cannot control is how much of a given innate quality (say, perfect pitch) you possess. That might be like “height” in the…