More precisely, a Hedgehog Concept is a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of the following three circles:

1. What you can be the best in the world at (and, equally important, what you cannot be the best in the world at). This discerning standard goes far beyond core competence. Just because you possess a core competence doesn’t necessarily mean you can be the best in the world at it. Conversely, what you can be the best at might not even be something in which you are currently engaged.

2. What drives your economic engine. All the good-to-great companies attained piercing insight into how to most effectively generate sustained and robust cash flow and profitability. In particular, they discovered the single denominator—profit per x—that had the greatest impact on their economics. (It would be cash flow per x in the social sector.)

3. What you are deeply passionate about. The good-to-great companies focused on those activities that ignited their passion. The idea here is not to stimulate passion but to discover what makes you passionate.

research by Jerry Porras, Steward Emery, Mark Thompson

Sample Selection

• The people we were interested in interviewing were individuals whose traditional successes had lasted for decades, including many Nobel Laureates, government and community service leaders, teachers, scientists, and Olympians, as well as Pulitzer, Grammy, Peabody, and Academy Award winners and the CEOs of large and small organizations.
• 2 decades of impact in a certain endeavor
• ultimately interviewed 200 people between 1996 and 2006

Research

• Successful people also said that “loving what you do” is a necessary condition for success. Indeed, Chapter 2, “Love It or Lose—Passions and the Quest for
  Meaning,” reviews the dangers of not doing what you love because people who have that passion can outlast and eventually outrun you in the task. In a global economy, for every person who is half-hearted in a job, there are dozens of others who are passionately waiting to take that job from them. Passion for what you do is not just a creative imperative—it is a competitive necessity.
  
• They understand their unique passions and allocate their view of the right amount of time to each (not equal or balanced portions, but rather their own individually chosen preference
• Setbacks don’t make me ABANDON my passions or causes”
  
• successful people are more concerned with doing what they love than being loved. They don’t treat their passions like a trivial pursuit or low-priority item. Successful people focus on being good at what is meaningful to them, and do that, not “whatever” comes along.
• “People who count support me in following my passions”
• The key distinguishing characteristic is a strong interest in recognizing what their true passions are and acting in a manner that addresses these various passions in the right proportion.
• “Pursuing many different passions increases my effectiveness and creativity”

research by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

* While personal income in the US more than doubled between 1960 and the 1990s in constant dollars, the proportion of people saying they are very happy remained a steady 30% (20)
* The quality of life does not depend on happiness alone, but also on what one does to be happy (22)
* In the course of an average day, about 1/3 of the time people will say that they do what they do because they wanted to do it, 1/3 because they had to do it, and the last 1/3 because they had nothing better to do (23)
* Flow tends to occur when a person faces a clear set of goals that require appropriate responses (29)
* Only 20% of people find flow. (33)
* Flow is generally reported when a person is doing his or her favorite activity--gardening, listening to music, bowling, cooking a good meal. (33)
* National surveys find that when someone claims to have five or more friends with whom they can discuss important problems, they are 60% more likely to say that they are "very happy". (43)
* The excellence of daily life finally depends not on what we do, but on how we do it. (47)
* One finds more occasions of flow on the job than in free time. What often passes unnoticed is that work is much more like a game than most other things we do during the day. (59)
* Even in our enlightened days, with all the emphasis on "human resources," management is all too often disinterested in how employees experience work. Therefore it is not surprising that many workers assume that they cannot count on work to provide the intrinsic rewards in their lives, and that they have to wait until they are out of the factory or office before they can begin to have a good time-even though this turns out not to be ture. (60)
* Unfortunately, while free time might be a necessary condition for happiness, by itself it is not sufficient to guarantee it. Learning how to use it beneficially turns out to be more difficult than expected. (60)
* It is not the external conditions that determine how much work will contribute to the excellence of one's life. It is how one works, and what experiences one is able to to dervie from confronting its challenges. (62)
* Free time is more difficult to enjoy than work. (65)
* Physical health is better when a person focuses on a goal. (65)
* The relationship that leads to order in consciousness instead of psychic entropy has to meet at least two conditions. The first is to find some compatitibility between our goals and that of the other person or persons...The secnod condition for a successful interaction is that one be willing to invest attention in the other person's goals. (81)
* Successful families combine discipline with spontaneity, rules with freedom, high expectations with unstinting love. (88)
* Creative individuals stress the importance of seeing people, hearing people, exchanging ideas, and getting to know another person's work. (94)
* Three main reasons why jobs are resented:
1. The job is pointless-it does not good to anyone
2. The work is boring and routine-it provides no variety or challenge
3. The job is stressful-especially when there are poor relationships with co-workers
* By taking the whole context of the activity into account, and understanding the impact of one's actions on the whole, a trivial job can turn into a memorable performance that leaves the world in a better shape than it was before..But the meaning we derive froma job does not come free...One must do some thinking and caring beyond what the job descriptions calls for. And this in turn requires additional attention, which is the most precious resource we have. (103)
* How to turn a routine job into a professional performance:
1. One must pay attention so as to understand thoroughly what is happening and why
2. It is essential not to accept passively that what is happening is the only way to do the job
3. Entertain alternatives and experiement with them until a better way is found (105)
* Successful people often make lists, or flowcharts of all the things they have to do, and quickly decide which tasks they can delegate, or forget about, and which ones they have to tackle personally, and in what order. (106)
* Most createive persons don't follow a career laid out for them, but invest their jobs as they go along. (107)
* The secret of starting a good conversation is really quite simple. The first step is to find out what the other person's goals are: What is he interested in at the moment? What is she involved in? What has he or she accomplished, or is trying to accomplish? (115)
* Happiness is not a very good indicator of the quality of a person's life...It is not enough to be happy to have an excellent life. The point is to be happy while doing things that stretch our skills, that help us grow and fulfill our potential. (120)
* To control attention means to control experiences, and thereofre the quality of life. (128)
* Enjoying what one does is not a sufficient reason for doing it...Thus in creating a good life it is not enough tto strive for enjoyable goals, but also to choose goals that will reduce the sum total of entropy in the world. (140)

research by Richard Boyatzis
Am I a self-directed learner?
Self-Directed Learning by Richard Boyatzi

1) Has the person engaged their passion and dreams? Can they describe the person they want to be, the life and work they want to have in the future? Can they describe their Ideal Self?
2) Does the person know himself or herself? Do they have a sense of their Real Self?
3) Can the person articulate both their strengths (those aspects he/she wants to preserve) and gaps or discrepancies between their Real and Ideal Selves (those aspects he/she wants to adapt or change)?
4) Has the person held their attention on both Strengths and Gaps— not letting one become the preoccupation?
5) Does the person have their own personal learning agenda? Is it really their own? Can the elements of the plan fit into the structure of their life and work? Do the actions fit with their learning style and flexibility?
6) Is the person experimenting and practicing new habits and actions? Is the person using their learning plan to learn more from their experiences?
7) Has the person found settings in which to experiment and practice in which he/she feels psychologically safe?
8) Is the person developing and utilizing his/her relationships as part of their learning process? Do they have coaches, mentors, friends, and others with whom they can discuss progress on their learning agenda? Do they have relationships with whom they can explore each their new behavior, habits, new Ideal Self, new Real Self, new strengths and gaps as the process unfolds?
9) Are they helping others engage in a self-directed learning process?