We’ve all been told what it takes to be an achiever: always striving to be the best, a strong work ethic, good problem-solving skills. But in their new book “The Art of Doing,” Josh Gosfield and Camille Sweeney show how to go one step further and be a super achiever.
They interviewed the masters–people who “not only excelled in their field, but actually elevated it to an art form.” The book looks at such disparate successes as Yogi Berra, Alec Baldwin and chef David Chang. A key piece of the equation in any field, Gosfield tells the Cycle hosts, is knowing how to deal with frustration.
“Everybody, whether you’re a super achiever or a regular person, is going to be confronted with failure and obstacles. And what we found with these people was, in those moments, they had the ability to examine themselves, to question themselves, their assumptions, their biases, rather than blaming the guy next door, their employer, the economy. And because of that, they were able to rethink themselves, reinvent themselves, and create entirely new ways of doing what they had been doing.”
Check out the rest of the interview and see what it takes to be a super achiever. (And find out why Gosfield and Sweeney didn’t include Toure when they put together their list of super achievers.)
Ali Vitali is MS NOW's senior congressional correspondent and the host of "Way Too Early." She is the author of "Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House … Yet."