Great by Choice

When Steve Jobs decided to move Apple into retail stores in the early 2000s, he understood that he didn’t know how to do it. Lacking empirical experience, he asked, “Who is the best retail executive?” The answer: Mickey Drexler, then CEO of The Gap. So, Jobs lured him onto Apple’s board and began learning everything he

there comes a time for commitment, when you have enough validation to fire the cannonball; if you fire only bullets but never commit to a big bet or an audacious objective, you’ll never do anything great.

you can only know if something will actually work if you gain empirical validation, no matter how many slide decks support the idea.

Analytic skills still matter, but empirical validation matters much more

Keep in mind the danger of achieving good outcomes from bad process. Good process doesn’t guarantee good outcomes, and bad process doesn’t guarantee bad outcomes, but good outcomes with bad process—firing uncalibrated cannonballs that just happen to succeed—reinforces bad process and can lead to fir

First, 20 Mile Marching can help you turn underachievement into superior achievement; so long as you stay alive and in the game, it’s never too late to start the march. Second, searching for—and even finding—the Next Big Thing does not in itself make a great company.

You can get away with failing to 20 Mile March in stable times for a while, but doing so leaves you weak and undisciplined, and therefore exposed when unstable times come

: fire bullets, then fire cannonballs. First, you fire bullets to figure out what’ll work. Then once you have empirical confidence based on the bullets, you concentrate your resources and fire a cannonball. After the cannonball hits, you keep 20 Mile Marching to make the most of your big succes

The great task, rarely achieved, is to blend creative intensity with relentless discipline so as to amplify the creativity rather than destroy it. When you marry operating excellence with innovation, you multiply the value of your creativity. And that’s what 10Xers do.

your ability to perform well in adverse circumstances.