The author Robert Fulghum wrote ‘All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten’ and it’s sold (to-date) 17 million + copies. Comedian Jeff Foxworthy hosted a show ‘Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader’ on TV which had everyone laughing at over-matched adults. Is there a 80/20 rule-curve on learning (x and y axis; stuff learned and age)? Maybe so.

Looking back for me it was the 12th grade when I (focus group of 1) learned a valuable life lesson. As background, basketball was a sport I loved to play and my high school team (senior year) was often on the receiving end of a full-court press. For our first-year coach the emphasis each and every practice was ‘breaking the press’ (minimizing turnovers, creating easy buckets). The lesson preached by my coach and one I learned was so very simple: Be Quick, But Don’t Hurry.

Literally thousands of times in my personal life and work career I leaned hard on that short but sweet learning. It doesn’t just apply to basketball. Yes there’s a fine line between quickness and hurrying but in my opinion it exists for everybody. It’s individual but here are the consequences...being quick allows one to get more accomplished and results in more relaxation time....whereas hurrying causes mistakes and do-overs resulting in less getting accomplished and less relaxation time.

Be Quick, But Don’t Hurry. Figure out for yourself where that optimum point is where speed is maximized but quality doesn’t start dropping off. It’s just a few words to commit to memory and practice, but the rewards are high. Back to basketball, Baylor was quick in the college championship game and Gonzaga clearly hurried. The result was quite predictable in hindsight.