The Pursuit of Excellence: The Uncommon Behaviors of the World's Most Productive Achievers

by Ryan Hawk

As I sat down across from him, he pulled out his phone and set it on the table. On its screen I could see the timer app. He said, “You have 30 seconds. What are all the productive things you can do with a rock? Go!” And with that, the timer started. Now, I’m still not entirely certain what he was trying to learn by asking this, but I imagined at the time that he was judging how I would handle a pressure situation. I was not prepared for a question like this. How could I have been? I’d never thought about the production value of a rock before, and certainly not with a person timing me while I did it. I tried my best to calmly list as many useful things as possible: break a window, build a dam, paint it, etc. When my time was up, he said, “That was good!” Immediately following the encouragement, he asked, “How many new homes will be built in the United States next year? You can do the math in your notebook if you want.”