Remove Everything That Was Not David
Perfection Mindset
Michelangelo was asked by the pope about the secret of his genius, particularly in regards to the statue of David, largely considered to be the greatest sculpting masterpiece of all time. Michelangelo responded by saying,
“It’s simple. I just removed everything that is not David.”
What makes this statue remarkable is the level of detail that Michelangelo was able to incorporate. The proportions of the body, the subcutaneous veins, and the pose that makes David seem as if he is turning to the left all contribute to making the statue look like a man was frozen in a thin layer of stone. People who have seen the statue would agree with Michelangelo that he removed everything that was not David.
Corrections by Dance Guru
My wife Jayanthi, a Bharatanatyam dancer, learnt the classical art from the age of 5. She learnt dance from several Gurus. At the age of 25 she went to a renowned Guru in the city. The Guru told her she may take more time to accommodate her in the troupe. My wife was puzzled. Her guru told her that along with some good movements, she has also learnt many imperfect movements over a period of time. The Guru said that she needs to correct or eliminate the wrong aspects of the previous learnings, which may take some extra time.
She assured that every time she makes a correction, the student would be elevated to the next level. In no time, my wife became part of the troupe. She not only learnt what the correct posture and movements were, she also learnt what is not correct. This also helped her to become a good teacher in the art. Just by the shear removal of what is not David, the Guru made her a better dancer.
General Evaluator in Toastmasters
In Toastmasters, there is a role called General Evaluator, whose job is to observe the meeting from the beginning till end and give a summary report at the end of the meeting. In that report he/she would say what went well and what are the areas for improvement. Some of the common observations were not starting the meeting time, the presiding officer forgetting to strike the gavel at the beginning of the meeting, not recognizing the presence of the district officers and the guests etc. These kinds of mistakes keep happening meeting after meeting and it became a ritual for the General Evaluator to make an observation of them.
Chennai Toastmaster Club is one of the oldest Toastmasters clubs in Tamilnadu. At one point of time my friend Aditya Maheswaran was the president of the club. He gave certain standing instruction to the excom members. One of them was that none of the points for improvement mentioned by the General Evaluator in a meeting would be repeated in the future. In short, he ensured that all the imperfections are removed meeting after meeting. Rather than looking for new areas for improvement, his team was keen in minimizing the number of mistakes. With this approach, the quality of the meetings at this club enhanced greatly. This a classic example of removing what is not David.
Stage-time University by Darren Lacroix
Darren Lacroix from Auburn, Massachusetts is a world champion of public speaking in 2001. After becoming world champion of public speaking, he traveled across the globe and shared his best practices with the budding speaker.
When he visited Chennai few years back, me and my wife happened to listen to his speech. In this session, he was talking about how some specific practices that he followed were helpful in becoming the world champion of public speaking.
Darren would prepare a speech and visit a Toastmaster club which meets in the morning hours, say 7 am. In Toastmasters for every speech there would be a speech evaluator, who would highlight what went well and what could have been done to make the speech better. The speech evaluator would normally share 1–2 points for improvement. Normally the speakers would apply the suggestions given by the speech evaluator in their next speech project, where the topic would be different. But Darren used the same script to apply the corrections.
After getting the feedback given by the speech evaluator in the 7 am meeting, Darren would incorporate the changes in the script or delivery and give the same speech at another club’s meeting at 11 am. Here too he would give head to the suggestions given by the speech elevator and revisit his script.
With the new script, he would visit another club at 3pm. The process would be repeated. By the time he attends another club meeting at 7 pm, the speech script would have gotten better and better.
Darren continued the process (removing what is not David) until he became world champion of public speaking. Now Darren has got his own academy known as “Stage Time University”. His prescription is to encourage people to maximize the stage time and leverage the speech evaluator’s suggestion to reduce the areas for improvement in the coming days.
Five Tips to Improve Perfection Mindset
· Instead of a “To-do list, come out with a “Not-to-do” list. You can cut down time spent on non-focus areas which would automatically help to focus on important and critical tasks.
· Identify one friend who can be your devil’s advocate. Let him point out all the flaws of yours on a daily basis. Take the points objectively and fix them as soon as possible.
· Attend Toastmasters meetings and give a speech (Either a prepared speech or participate in Table topics.) Before the meeting, request couple of Toastmasters to give a critical off-line feedback of your speech. Take the feedback in a positive way and work on it.
· After accomplishing an activity ( say a blog post, a drawing, a speech, a song), rate yourself on a scale of 1–10. Try to improve the score the next iteration.
· Never be complacent of what you have accomplished. rather try to remove the small flaws and take to the next level. i.e Remove everything that is not David
