I work for a CPG company, and we would never put our KPI metrics for perfect orders or shipped ontime to be 100%. Why? Because you’d end up having to spend more in inventory, people, etc. and for what?

People who believe in this stuff don’t have the ability to have independent, critical thinking to make judgements when it’s worth to make an effort, and when not!

This 212 BS is the dumbest thing ever. It sounds so catchy and sexy, and seems like a great motivational thing, but in reality it doesn’t work.

Your response makes me a bit more predisposed to the whole 212 thing. I think you’re right that I was put off by the sports examples, because if you’re talking about winning the Olympics or the PGA as the video does, my view is right.

If you’re talking about motivating a sixth grader to make it to seventh grade and then on to college, that’s a different matter. I think it’s important that they know how hard it is to be the best, but yes, it’s also important that they know that it is possible, with effort, to excel.

Tell me, is that or is that not the message?”

No, I don’t believe that this is the message.

The real message comes later in the movie, after the examples of how close the margin is from first to second.

The real message is, “You are responsible for your results.”

It says it quite plainly on the screen. The real message is that you determine if you want something and how badly you want it. The real message is whatever you want, you do have to work for it.

I do recognize that your metaphor is more scientifically accurate, but the 212 degree movie is a motivational movie for the average Joe. It’s not a science movie. And it’s not a motivational tool for an Olympic athlete. If I wanted to motivate an Olympic athlete to keep pushing, I would use your more accurate metaphor. If I want to motivate a group a sixth graders, this is tool I would use.

My grip with the 212 degree movie would be those sports examples. In any sport, your success depends on someone else’s failure, and that is a poor measure of success. In sixth grade, everyone can achieve success even if no one fails.

Your personal success lies in where you set your goals. If you set your goal to be able to cook well enough not to starve, then you have been successful. If you set your goal to be able to play a Bach concerto, you can do that without making it to Carnegie Hall. If you set your goal to be the quarterback of the Superbowl winning Indianapolis Colts – well, good luck with that.

The goal of the video is to motivate you to change your attitude and work ethic. If I’m trying to motivate you to work a little harder, I’m not going to make it sound too hard.

That may not be good science, but it is motivational.

I don’t say people shouldn’t strive for excellence, but that they should be strategic about it and understand what is involved in the quest. Other than that…

1. My interpretation is not literal. It substitutes one metaphor for another. Or rather, it takes the metaphor of boiling water and looks at the energy and not the temperature, because I think that provides a better metaphor. Metaphors are tools to help us think and understand, and I think the energy metaphor is a better tool.

2.”Only a few will reach the pinnacle of success, but that doesn’t mean all the rest should accept mediocrity or quit trying.”

Again, I don’t say you shouldn’t strive for excellence in an area that is vitally important to you. But this is not the message I get from the video. The video goes on and on about the *tiny* differences between the best and the second best. I don’t believe those differences are tiny and someone who wants to achieve greatness needs to go into eyes wide open. That implies understanding what will be demanded of them and, again, to be strategic and, in the immortal words of Kenny Rogers, know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em. If you don’t know when to fold ‘em, you’ll never achieve excellence.

3. “You have completely twisted a very simple message.”

I have analyzed a very simple message. That message, as shown in the video, is that the difference between true excellence and an also-ran is the tiniest margin and that with just a tiny bit of extra effort, just one more degree, you could have been the best and so you have to stick to it, keep striving, even in the face of constantly losing out to Number One.

Tell me, is that or is that not the message?

Now, my objection to it is that this fails to understand that excellence is asymptotic. It fails to understand that there is a strategy to know when to give up and when to press on in hopes of success, when you’re in The Cul-de-Sac and when you’re in The Dip. Knowing the asymptotic nature of excellence is fundamental for anyone who wants to achieve it.

The question is not are you willing to give an extra degree, but are you willing to get an extra 540 calories per gram? I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m saying you have to decide whether or not it’s worth 540 calories and not delude yourself into chasing the dream because you’re only one degree away. You are not.

The failure to recognize what makes the best the best and the difference between the best and the rest is why I call this claptrap and will persist in doing so, no matter how comfortable this metaphor makes you feel.

You have completely twisted a very simple message.

Michelle – Thanks for the kind words. Glad you liked it! The second of your excerpts make me think how different my life would have been if I had prioritized success, riches and sex more and ice cream less. But then I would have missed out on so much ice cream.

Primary substantive: “This is where I think this claptrap is dangerous. I see people who are obsessed with being great, or even really good at something where they just aren’t that talented. They go to the rock climbing gym every night. They go climbing every weekend. They hardly see their kids grow up. They get divorced. They suffer in other ways. And yet, they persist, because they think they’re going to get there. But they won’t. They don’t have the talent. If they decided to be mediocre rock climbers, they would have more balanced and fulfilled lives.”

Favorite stylistic: “if you can go just a bit farther, success, riches, sex and unlimited ice cream await you”

Ending your game of golf with a few less strokes every year hardly burns more calories… strategically stepping on the gas pedal and brake pedal, etc of a race car hardly burns more calories..

Ben Zander has a wonderful speech on Ted.com about the Art of Possibility. He’s a musician and at one point, he talks about Children learning music and how many give up when they think they plateau and get frustrated, little do they know, that just a little while longer could lead to a giant leap in musical ability. Also read this book “The Biology of Belief” – can’t say I agree with all of it, but what I did find interesting is that we have a biochemical response to that moment when we feel like we “can” win, actually its demonstrated well here.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4szSGuWH6g.
These concepts and more are what I have gleaned from this metaphor, that we have persist consistently, practice, repeat, analyse, and if we want excellence (key is IF WE WANT) – we’ll have to take a critical look at our efforts, perhaps a little more push, a little more focus, a little more practice, a fine tune, a tweak, is all we need to push to a new level, if we so choose. The way I’m explaining it sounds more like Seth Godin’s idea – I know – but I never once saw the 212 concept as a magic quick fix.

Anyway, let’s look at a few of your points.

1. “nobody cares about the physics”.
Exactly, we live in culture of innumeracy and people don’t care about or understand the physics. That’s why facile and misleading metaphors like this claptrap get pawned off on people and they think it’s meaningful.

2. “You can’t heat water to 212F without it boiling under standard conditions.” Yes, you can. The phase change occurs at 100C and water can exist as either liquid or vapor at that temperature. A pot of boiling water is mostly liquid and only a small bit is vapor. This is precisely because water can exist in both states at 212. The difference between boiling and not boiling is NOT one small degree, it is 540 calories per gram, or 5.4 times as much energy as it took to get it from the freezing point to the boiling point. This isn’t just pedantic physics, it’s actually a more accurate metaphor of what greatness takes.

3. “No one is saying that it is easy to get that last degree”.
Oh really? Acutally, they portray the whole thing as being just that “last little bit” that separates the great from the almost great. But that just simply IS NOT TRUE. Sorry dude, but I repeat, it IS NOT TRUE. The difference between Michael Phelps and everyone else in the Olympics is huge, but the perpetrators of this claptrap emphasize that the margin of victory in Olympic swimming is “small”. But that’s only if you believe that to go from liquid to boiling takes just one small degree. That is true, but it also takes a HUGE amount of energy. In a “skills” context rather than a huge amount of energy it takes time and, in most cases, inborn ability that you may or may not have, and probably some luck.

4. “Don’t give up and don’t quit.”
This is where I think this claptrap is dangerous. I see people who are obsessed with being great, or even really good at something where they just aren’t that talented. They go to the rock climbing gym every night. They go climbing every weekend. They hardly see their kids grow up. They get divorced. They suffer in other ways. And yet, they persist, because they think they’re going to get there. But they won’t. They don’t have the talent. If they decided to be mediocre rock climbers, they would have more balanced and fulfilled lives. I’ve seen people in academia bounce form job to job, scrambling to publish always feeling like they’re “just one degree” from a breakthrough to a permanent academic job. In fact, roughly half in humanities will not get that job and I’ve seen some put in incredible effort for a dozen years without making it happen. They would have been happier if they had recognized how the cards lay and moved on.

I hear young people constantly advised to “do what you love and the money will follow.” No, IT WILL NOT. If I love writing novels, the chances are less than 1000 to 1 that the money will *ever* follow. If I love to write poetry, the chances drop to a million to one. It isn’t a matter of not giving up, of pushing that one last degree. It’s literally a matter of adding that last 540 calories, which is more calories than you have in your calorie bank. You may be the exception, but I can say with near certainty: YOU ARE NOT GOING TO MAKE A LIVING AS A POET NO MATTER HOW MUCH 212 DEGREE SELF-HELP CLAPTRAP YOU READ. Sorry, but those are the facts.

I find Seth Godin’s idea of the dip vastly more compelling. Seth basically says that any time we try something new, we will have a euphoric beginning where we’re in the fast learning phase. Then it starts to get hard and we have to decide whether or not to persevere. Sometimes it makes sense to push through the dip and get to the point where one has “made it”, but sometimes it simply does not make sense. You see in the dip that you do not have the skills, resources, talent, innate ability, time, motivation or whatever it would take to push through the dip. At that point, you need to cut the cord, recognize that you have a sunk cost, and move on.

I teach 6th graders and shared the video and the theology of this thinking to them this year on their level where they could grasp it! Let me tell you, they are running with it in ways that makes me proud to spend my day with them. 50 kids who have historically not met the standard in their educational careers are motivated, encouraged and optimistic! This 212 thinking put everything right there where they could understand it and it give us a “home-base” of thinking to return to everyday, in every aspect of what we do!
They are thinking about their effort everyday when they didn’t before. They are encouraging each other and believing that the choices they make today will have great effect on their tomorrow!
I love this program! I love my principal for allowing me to bring it to my campus and I love people who are creative enough to make motivation so easily communicated!! Sorry you missed the point! It’s so wonderful that I thought everyone could get it!

Lottery Winners are few, the Lottery-Winner-wannabes are many.

One degree makes no difference. If I add one calorie to one gram of water, I take it from 211 to 212 and NOT boiling. If I then want to get that water to actually boil, I need to add another 540 calories.

So it is with excellence. Going from looking almost like the person who has achieved breakthrough, to actually achieving it yourself takes 540 calories, not just one.

I have seen many people waste their lives thinking breakthrough was just around the corner, unable to see that the one degree of difference between them and the person they are chasing, actually takes 541 calories of energy to achieve.

1. It’s the thing that will really move you and the payoff, in whatever form it takes, is worth it
2. It’s something that you can actually achieve

But you MUST understand that it isn’t “that last little bit” that separates really good from the best, very good from great. It’s actually that HUGE effort that takes you from good to great, from competence to Mastery.

In many areas of life, we only want Good or Competence (in my case, cooking, for example).

What I object to is telling people that when you’ve reached the 211 degree level, you’re almost there. You’re not!

Think about a professional sport. There are millions of tennis players. Let’s say that worldwide, 212 million people play tennis. That means that if you’re at the 211 degree level, there are one million people who are as good as you. Now, if you’re reasonably athletic, it isn’t *that* hard to reach the 99th percentile in performance. But the 212 degree level, the level that makes you good enough to become a pro takes TREMENDOUS effort and probably good genetics. It isn’t just that one little bit. It’s that huge extra bit.

So my point is that expertise, mastery, greatness are ASYMPTOTIC. That last bit is not just one more degree.In fact, it’s harder to achieve than everything that went before. I’m not saying don’t go for it. I’m saying understand what it implies to go for it. It’s rarely what you’ve been doing plus a little bit. The 212 video implies that 0.43 seconds is just a little bit in the 200m freestyle, but again, it’s asymptotic. The world record for that event is currently 1:42.00, but it took the best swimmers in the world 37 years to bring it down from 1:52.78. Meanwhile, to go from 2:30 to 2:20 took only ten years. As we approach the asymptote, it gets harder and harder and 0.43 is not an insignificant amount of time. Whereas I could probably take a minute off my 200 meter time without great effort.

That’s why I think this whole 212 thing misleads people about what it really takes to be excellent.