In Nick Maggiulli’s book Just. Keep. Buying. I came across an interesting story about focus. Jeffrey Seder, a Harvard-educated lawyer, discovered his passion for horses after a stable visit with his girlfriend. This passion became his profession.
After studying horses extensively, Seder made a breakthrough discovery: heart size was the decisive factor in racing success. Not bloodlines. Not pedigree. Not training methods. Just heart size.
Seder began performing MRIs on potential purchases, selecting horses solely based on heart size while ignoring metrics like bloodline, coat, etc. This singular focus led him to identify American Pharoah, who would become the first Triple Crown winner in decades and one of the greatest horses in recent times.
Sometimes extraordinary success comes from identifying the one variable that truly matters while disregarding everything else as noise.
Seder’s story is covered in this article if you want to go down the rabbit hole.