SIX at 6: A Qualitative Phenomenon, Madame Butterfly, Focusing On The Wrong Things

By Billy Oppenheimer (from July 13, 2025)
In the early 1980’s, the sociologist Daniel Chambliss spent five years studying swimmers at every level of ability. He visited learn-to-swim programs, coached a regional swim team, and traveled with the U.S. Olympic Team. He was interested in what separated the good from the great—the habits, training regimens, mindsets, physical traits, and daily practices that contribute to the reason some swimmers reach the highest level while others, despite similar ambitions, don’t. Then in 1989, he published his research in a paper titled, The Mundanity of Excellence. Essentially, Chambliss found that Olympic champions don’t train more than the average swimmer. Instead, they train differently. To use the technical terms, the difference is “qualitative,” not “quantitative.” “Excellence,” Chambliss writes, “is a qualitative phenomenon.” “Not only in swimming,” he adds. “This is true for success in business, in academics, in sales, in the arts, in the sciences, in any area you pick: people who excel do things differently from those who don’t. It’s not that they just do more. It’s not even that they just work harder. It’s that their techniques are different. Their attitudes about their profession are different. Their goals are different.” “Excellence,” he reiterates, “is achieved through qualitative differentiation from others, not through quantitative increases in activity.”
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