Tony Schwartz recently wrote an article for Harvard Business Review that summarizes current psychological research on becoming excellent at a given activity. The bad news is that it takes, as our parents always told us, lots of practice; the good news is that, by doing something we are passionate about a lot, we have the opportunity to become excellent at that activity. Schwartz outlines six principles that will help anyone become excellent at anything.

Read the article at HBR.

We know that the entrepreneur takes on the financial risk of her venture, but Dan Pallotta at Harvard Business Review reminds us that the entrepreneur takes psychological risks as well. By seeing the world differently than others and acting on her vision — by embracing the inner misfit — the entrepreneur must be willing to make herself vulnerable. This vulnerability, says Pallotta, “is the most poignant quality in every entrepreneur I know.”

Read the rest of this excellent post at Harvard Business Review.

Entrepreneurship is all about rethinking the old way of doing things, so let’s start off the New Year by reading about ten breakthrough ideas for 2010 at Harvard Business Review. Some of the interesting issues explored by the authors are: What truly motivates employees? Can we create a better model for the pharmaceutical business? How can we speed up the process by which innovative research makes it to the marketplace? And, what lessons can we learn about productivity from hackers?