https://www.wsj.com/articles/1-inspiration-99-preparation-76a2877b
Dear Grads: Finish that “Ruth Bader Ginsborg” jug at your final Borg party. Wind down your Wednesday Addams and M3gan dances. Quit hating on Nepo Babies. And stop saying “super great” like NoHo Hank on HBO’s “Barry,” even ironically. This merits your attention.
The expression “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” is often attributed to Thomas Edison. But apparently around 1890, a writer and academic named Kate Sanborn gave a lecture saying genius was a combination of inspiration and perspiration and “talent is perspiration.” Even without Twitter, ideas floated around and permeated society. When Edison was later asked what genius was, he answered “2% is genius and 98% is hard work.” When asked if genius was inspired, he blurted out, “Bah! Genius isn’t inspired. Inspiration is perspiration.”
Two lessons here: 1) If you have great ideas, others will repeat them without attribution. 2) There was a lot of sweating going on in the 19th century—modern antiperspirant wasn’t available until 1941.
Let me update the saying for the 21st century: “Success is 1% inspiration and 99% preparation.” Ideas are shooting around faster than ever, but most are worthless because no one does the hard work to implement them. Implementation requires hours and hours not of sweat—we’re in a service economy now—but of preparation. You must do it all: reading, researching, falling into one rabbit hole after another on the internet to find the right series of precedents and test cases and quotes to make your point, pitching your idea coherently and succinctly so it doesn’t sound pie-in-the-sky but practical.
Preparation is everything! Forget football’s old-timey “3 yards and a cloud of dust.” After a 2021 touchdown, Los Angeles Rams receiver Cooper Kupp shared his read of the defense: “They had a little three-deep fire zone. Brought the nickel off the edge, safety dropped down. They didn’t look like they were doing a replacement fire zone.” That level of understanding required preparation, memorization and practice. And news flash, Stephen Curry draining half-court shots isn’t luck.
Watch the amazing 2021 video of the Perseverance rover landing on the surface of Mars.
