You can spot someone who lacks fundamentals immediately.
On a basketball court at the park, you may see the novice stumble over their feet trying to pick up a defender. The ball bounces awkwardly off their hand. Their layup clangs off the rim - or misses it entirely.
When you have zero skill, it’s obvious.
But just as obvious, over time, is the gap between someone with basic fundamentals and someone with elite fundamentals.
That gap can often be even larger than the gap between the rookie and the sophomore – it’s just harder to see if you don’t know what you’re looking at.
Tim Duncan played professional basketball for 19 years. He won five championships. Two MVP awards. Got fifteen All-Star selections. And was called “boring” his entire career.
But whatever Duncan lacked in flash, he made up for in fundamentals. Fundamentals executed at the highest possible level. An ability to get the boring things right, time and time again, for two decades.
What Duncan’s legacy lacks in gaudy highlight reels, he makes up for in championships.
The excellence gap
There’s tremendous alpha in simply doing simple things repeatedly at a high level.
It’s easy enough to learn the basics. After all, they’re the basics. Most people make it that far. Many don’t make it much further. But even fewer take the time to sit with the basics and hone them - the allure of shiny things is too great.
“When do I get to do the cool stuff?” asks every novice stuck on tutorial island.
Most people learn the basics but never truly master them. And that gap – between competent and excellent at fundamentals – is wide enough to build an entire career advantage in.
Jiro Ono spent decades perfecting rice preparation for sushi. Not fancy techniques. Just rice. The most fundamental element. He became the best sushi chef in the world. Three Michelin stars. People fly to Tokyo and wait months for reservations to eat at his restaurant. Because he mastered what everyone else considers basic.Jeff Bezos banned PowerPoint presentations at Amazon and required six-page narrative memos instead.
People were forced to sit with a fundamental skill: the ability to write clearly.
In many businesses, it’s easy to bamboozle colleagues with fancy jargon and enthusiastic charts. Bezos stripped this back. If you couldn’t master this very basic skill, you wouldn’t make it far.
The outcome is the obstacle
In daily life, people are eager. They want to get to where they’re going. And their preoccupation with the destination is often what takes them off the path.
People consistently neglect the fundamentals because:
They’re boring. We want to learn advanced techniques, not perfect basics we already know.
They seem unimportant. Everyone can do them “well enough”, so why invest more?
There’s no immediate feedback. Bad emails still get responses. Mediocre presentations still get heard. So why improve?
It’s humbling. Admitting your basics need work means admitting you’re not already good.
They’re unsexy. You can’t show off fundamental mastery the way you show off advanced skills.
But here’s the progression most people miss:
The basics are only basic for the uncaring. For the practised, basics become standards. And for the elite, standards become reputations.
