Although we may recognize the importance of hard work, the glamour of success tends to trump it in our admirations. The graft and grind of real effort is put into shadow by those whose achievements appear effortless. The office star promoted ahead of us has the frustrating knack of making the job look easy and their abilities look instinctive and natural in comparison to our clumsy efforts. The mystique of a Hollywood legend like Clint Eastwood is reinforced by the feeling he doesn’t have to try, unlike the hardworking character actors who bill below him. The toiling midfielder may impress the pundits, but the terraces cheer loudest for the graceful striker who effortlessly scores every week.
The ability of effortlessness to raise one person’s achievements above another is not unique to our age. In 1528 Italian noble Baldassare Castiglione wrote a small manual of advice about desirable conduct in the Renaissance court, an arena every bit as conscious of success as any in the modern day. The Book of The Courtier urges the importance of the value of what Castiglione calls sprezzatura. His advice is “to practice in all things a certain sprezzatura, so as to conceal all art and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.”
However, we shouldn’t just note that Castiglione’s sprezzatura is about the importance of being effortless, but that it emphasises appearing to be effortless, and concealing the effort that goes into what we do. For how ever beguiling the spell of sprezzatura it has a paradox at its heart – it’s a lot of hard work.
The overhead kick that seals the cup tie may look effortless, but it takes hours of practice on the training field. Sinking into the piano stool to spontaneously delight an assembled crowd with a collection of popular favourites disguises hours practicing scales. The perfect take in an Oscar performance is built on the hundreds on the cutting room floor and the rehearsals that went before.
Indeed, the psychologist Anders Ericsson’s work on the development of expertise has yielded the so-called “10,000 hour rule” - developing any skill to an expert level takes 10,000 hours of practice. Perhaps, then, when we reflect on the apparently limited rewards our own hard work has bought we should remember Hollywood mogul Sam Goldwyn’s reported witticism, “Give me a couple of years and I’ll make that actress an overnight success.”
Nick Southgate will be teaching one of our evening classes on How To Be Cool on Monday 12 April. For more details please click here.
Hmm, I wonder if you're conflating "work" and "effort" here Nick. All the terminology around this is quite messy, but there are two different concepts at play here I think.
Sure, the "effortless" striker does practice every day, but that doesn't mean it has to feel like effort. They said Jimi Hendrix used to have a guitar strapped to him throughout the day, but I would guess that's because he loved playing rather than because he was devoted to "hard work". It was in his nature to play guitar. He didn't have to force himself to do it, any more than a swallow has to force itself to learn to fly. Work doesn't need to be hard.
If you want to appear effortless, I would suggest that it isn't about concealing your hard work in an appearance of effortlessness: it's about identifying the value in what you do naturally, and bringing that to bear on the world in a way that flows smoothly from you. Create a powerful alignment between what you love doing and what the world needs, and the effortlessness will follow. One man's work is another man's pleasure, after all...
Posted by: Andy Gibson | March 29, 2010 at 01:47 PM