Here is yet another example of how grit and persistence works.

You keep going.

So get after it.

Put in the work.

Greatness does not manifest itself.

It follows after.

It usually follows after a lot of sweat.

We love the myth of the prodigy—that rare someone who is phenomenally talented without all that pesky training or work. But it is, certainly, a myth. My husband plays the piano every day, and he has for almost thirty years. People say that when he’s onstage, he has an effortless quality, that he makes it look easy. He does. But they don’t see the scales, the lessons, the years of playing the same hymns he learned as a child, or playing Beatles songs by ear, or picking out notes and chords late at night after we’re all in bed. Cooking is no different. There are rock stars —people whose skill or perspective propels them to the top of their field. But when you ask them how they got there, they always tell you a story about working in a diner or making pasta with a grandmother. They tell you about repetition, knife, heat, salt, butter.

-Shauna Neiquist, Bread and Wine (Amazon)

Ryan Holiday agrees:

Is an iterative approach less exciting than manifestos, epiphanies, flying across the country to surprise someone, or sending four-thousand-word stream-of-consciousness e-mails in the middle of the night? Of course. Is it less glamorous and bold than going all in and maxing out your credit cards because you believe in yourself? Absolutely. Same goes for the spreadsheets, the meetings, the trips, the phone calls, software, tools, and internal systems—and every how-to article ever written about them and the routines of famous people. Passion is form over function. Purpose is function, function, function.

–Ryan Holiday, Ego Is The Enemy (Amazon)