The Iceberg Effect and Cal Ripken

With record warm temperatures in Chicago Sunday, there was a lot of talk this weekend about global warming and arctic melt. So I thought today was a good day to write about icebergs. This picture is another of what Tim Elmore calls habitudes. The reality of the iceberg is that only 10% of it is above the surface of the water and 90% of it is below the water. 10% is visible and 90% is not.

Elmore describes the 10% as your skill and the 90% as your character. He argues that it is the 90% that either leads you to success or sinks your ship even though that 90% is mostly invisible to others. 

I have seen this iceberg effect often in sports. Although we focus on talent or skill a lot in sports, it is the invisible work outside the public eye that makes the difference in ultimate success. In the spring of 2009, we had probably produced our best boys track and field team in school history. It helped to have a state record-holder on the team. However, that team as a whole made a t-shirt that had a slogan "champions are made when no one is watching." That team really lived up to that quote. We had strong sprinters, throwers, jumpers and mid-distance runners and won our conference by the largest margin of points ever. But the championship was earned long before our conference meet began -- when no one was watching, when the 90% of the iceberg was developed, at practice over several years.

The iceberg effect can be even better seen in examining a life. As a special treat today -- especially for baseball fans -- below is a download of Grand Rounds from the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University in November, 2008. To my knowledge this is the first time this particular Grounds Rounds summary has been available publicly. Grand Rounds is a teaching tool at medical schools where a topic and typically a patient or in this case a subject is used to address points about medicine and treatment. In 2008 the subject was Baltimore Oriole Hall of Famer, Cal Ripken, who was part of a series of rounds my father was leading on "what is normal." 

If you read the full report, you will see there is some debate about whether Ripken is super-normal. But my point in adding it today is you will also see from the report that what made the difference in Ripken's life was not so much the 10% of visible skill that we might consider super-normal, but the 90% that one would say is his character -- that allowed that 10% to flourish. Hope you enjoy.