Single-minded competitors have an edge on the competition. Coach Starkey uses an example from the New England Patriots in his blog.
Single-mindedness works and it doesn't.
Trader Richard Dennis began with borrowed money and used cardboard boxes for furniture during his developmental years, saving capital for speculation. Bill Bradley spent years honing his basketball skills after school and on weekends. His basketball obsession and intellect led to a Princeton education, Rhodes scholarship, and the highest scoring game in a final four ever...an NBA career and world title...and election as a United States Senator. Dan Gable trained franticly, winning NCAA championships, an Olympic gold medal, and fifteen titles as a coach.
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator shares the story of legendary trader Jesse Livermore, whose brilliant speculation made and lost multiple fortunes before finally taking his own life. Numerous outstanding baseball players crossed the line into performance enhancing drug use. This has effectively voided, at least for now, their chances to enter baseball's Hall of Fame at Cooperstown. Howard Hughes' ego obsession destroyed much of his family fortune.
Literature gives us dramatic examples of obsession leading to destruction - for instance, Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny and Captain Ahab in Moby Dick.
We decide how much we can give...even amidst willing discomfort. Tim S. Grover wrote in Relentless, “The greatest battles you will ever fight are with yourself, and you must always be your toughest opponent. Always demand more of yourself than others demand of you. Life can be complicated. The truth is not.” The most driven people have trouble finding the boundary between committed and obsessed.
If single-mindedness is at one end of the spectrum, indifference lives at the other. Finding balance amidst extreme competition isn't easy. "There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."
Urban Meyer divides people by percentage into 10-80-10s. The top ten percent are self-starters. He demands that they bring others from the 80, solid performers but not outstanding, into their work ethic, seeking transformation. He views the bottom ten percent as unredeemable. Meyer believes that one key to team success is how much of the 'middle class' can be converted to elite performance.
If we become single-minded, we need to be aware of the opportunities and dangers.