The amusing fact of last Sunday's post is how far the final product drifted from the original idea - there is actually no trace of the genesis anywhere in the essay. My starting point was around four months ago when Charles Barkley appeared on The Bill Simmons Podcast. At about the 26:30 mark, Barkley tells a story about Moses Malone, crediting him as "the most important person in my basketball career". He describes a moment in his rookie year when Malone told him that "you're fat and you're lazy... you're lazy because you're fat" and details the way this conversation became a turning point in his career. The catch, which started the thinking that led to Sunday's post, is what Barkley adds at the end of the story - "I'm proud of myself for listening to him... I'm glad I was smart enough to listen to Moses." He then finishes with a point that a lot of athletes in a similar position to him failed because even though they heard the same advice, they ignored it.
There is an obvious trace of last week's thoughts in this story - throughout his rookie year, somewhere deep down Barkley believed that he was a great player, and he was willing to do everything necessary to prove himself, including listening to Moses Malone. There is no doubt that this conviction is at the core of any success. The challenge for me as I wrote the post was how to reconcile that last comment, which came off to me not necessarily as arrogant, but as somewhat mistaken regarding the mechanisms behind good advice. Surely, Moses was not the first person to make the point to Barkley. I suspected that the missing piece of Barkley's thinking had to do with overrating the importance of what was said relative to when and how - both the moment and the method of giving advice can be more important than the advice itself. The lingering question following that podcast was why Moses waited until that moment to make his point, or why Barkley waited until that moment to finally accept the advice, but because these considerations took my writing away from the central idea of the eventual post, I cut the thought about Barkley after the first draft.
The topic remained on hold for a few weeks, then I stumbled across two key inspirations - Antonio Conte's dedication to himself and "Something To Do" from Zadie Smith's Intimations. It struck me that arrogance might be the best word to describe the conviction that drives success. The key is to direct this inward, avoiding the superiority complex associated with looking down on others. If we cannot be arrogant enough to try and beat our best, how can we get any better? I liked the way these two examples contained the argument because they seemed to clarify the opposite ends of an otherwise convoluted point - without politeness, Conte's self-dedication framed his arrogance in a negative light, while I concluded from Smith's essay that too much politeness could smother the arrogance necessary for self-improvement.
What would happen if we changed a detail or two in those examples? Let's start with Conte - suppose everyone associated with Italian soccer believed in him throughout the season. Wouldn't this have made him more polite? I bet his comments last month would have given more credit to his team, which would suggest to others that he was open to accepting help. This would lead observers to offer him more help in the future, which would help him become an even better manager. There is a similar story with the proverbial average Joe who took up a new hobby during the pandemic - suppose he framed it not as "something to do", but as the first step toward achieving mastery of a new craft. I'm not sure what I'd make of a friend suddenly trying to become the greatest baker in world history, but I'd certainly be more likely to tell him if his brownies tasted like chalk. I think, in other words, that if these details were changed, we would all be better off because both Conte and the average Joe would be closer to fulfilling their full potential.
It's staggering to think that the biggest threat to success might be related to politeness - too much or too little, in the wrong moment, could permanently stunt our growth. So how do we know the right timing? I think Barkley's story is instructive. The two players had moved past the point of politeness, their shared recognition being that remaining polite in the moment would sell Barkley short, and this enabled the conversation. Barkley thought it mattered that he listened to Moses, but it may have been more important that Moses knew Barkley wanted to be great; if we are too polite to state our ambition, others won't feel compelled to offer their assistance. And to his credit, Moses told him exactly what he needed to hear; if we are too polite to give others the right support, then we stunt their growth. It becomes a bit of a cycle - the smothered ambition hides the need for support, then the lack of support extinguishes the ambition. Over time, I suspect the buried ambition emerges in unexpected outbursts against others, and these moments of lashing out refuel the cycle by giving them new reason to withhold guidance. The key may be to find a way to use politeness with discretion - relying on it to keep the peace when others aren't ready for the truth, then putting it aside in the key moment when politeness would sell someone short. The key is that using politeness with discretion is the only way we can help each other reach our full potential.
