What got me thinking about learning curves and mastery this week is anybody’s guess. Maybe it’s just appreciation for the work of folks who really know what they’re doing and deliver exemplary results time after time. Maybe it was Going For It on 4th Down | Business Lessons from the NFL — the piece David Wooldridge wrote on coaching decisions at the inflection points in National Football League games.

I once interviewed American footballer Steve Largent who retired from the NFL with pretty much every record in the book: most receptions in a career (819), most receiving yards in a career (13,089), and most touchdown receptions (100).

I told Mr. Largent everything I knew about catching footballs, which consisted of hearing a high school coach say over and over, “Watch it in, watch it in.” I asked if he “watched it in” and he said, yes, he was advised early on to focus on the laces on the ball as it spiraled in. I thought that sounded pretty good but Largent said he found the practice a little loose for his purposes.

“So, what did you watch?” I asked the man who caught more balls than anyone before him. He showed me a football, holding it out so I could see where the four segments of the ball came together at the end.  “I focused on that cross,” he said “all the way into my hands.”

That, as some of my pastor friends like to say, will preach. The highest performers I know in every category focus at a level of detail most everyone else considers too granular to matter. They’re the ones who catch what the rest of us miss and add margin no one else bothered to notice.

• What do you see that others miss?
• Who threatens to eat your lunch by seeing more than you?
• What benchmark can you exceed by refining it to a new level of detail?