The necessary condition for success in anything

I’m most certain Michael Phelps got his 20 + gold medals by doing this. Keith Richards became good at playing guitar because of this. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy at writing. Steve Jobs and Elon Musk at building their businesses empires.

More average individuals too. They couldn’t have achieved success without this rule.

I did it to get into Cambridge and Harvard. To run my sub-3-hour marathon (yeah, I will forever be bragging about it, here is the story) I did it too.

It’s a super simple rule. Ain’t secret in any way. Simple to understand, but very difficult to follow.

It’s not a sufficient condition but necessary.

To be good at something, do it EVERY DAY.

I ran a fast marathon because I had trained every day. I achieved academic excellence in my younger days because I studied every day. When I had school breaks, I studied too.

And the other way around — whenever I failed and I failed a lot, I hadn’t followed this rule. I could blame my failures on other things. I can even say I worked hard and had the passion. Well, that’s just not enough. “Hard” doesn’t count without the consistency of performing a certain action or activity every day. I had spikes in activity and took pride in persevering through hard times. That doesn’t count. That’s pseudo perseverance, pseudo heroism.

Or let’s say I decide to teach my kid to play chess. Every night before bed we play…