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Make It Look

Effortless

Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good.

It’s the thing you do that makes you good.

MALCOLM GLADWELL

S

teve Jobs is a master showman, working the stage with

precision. Every move, demo, image, and slide is in

sync. He appears comfortable, confident, and remark-

ably effortless. At least, it looks effortless to the audience.

Here’s his presentation secret: Jobs rehearses for hours. To be

more precise: many, many hours over many, many days.

“Jobs unveils Apple’s latest products as if he were a particu-

larly hip and plugged-in friend showing off inventions in your

living room. Truth is, the sense of informality comes only after

grueling hours of practice,” observed a BusinessWeek reporter.

“One retail executive recalls going to a Macworld rehearsal at

Jobs’s behest and then waiting four hours before Jobs came off

the stage to conduct an interview. Jobs considers his keynotes

a competitive weapon. Marissa Mayer, a Google executive who

plays a central role in launching the search giant’s innovations,

insists that up-and-coming product marketers attend Jobs’s key-

notes. ‘Steve Jobs is the best at launching new products,’ she

says. ‘They have to see how he does it.’ ”^1

How does he do it? The BusinessWeek reporter provided the

answer in the article: Steve Jobs puts in hours of grueling practice.

When was the last time you could say that you devoted hours