Learning, growth, and adventure are a few values that I identify very strongly with. They are fundamental building blocks to how I’ve designed my life thus far. In my previous blog post – The Path to Mastery, I discussed the three types of personas that we can take on as we embark in the journey toward Mastery.
For a quick recap, they were the Dabbler, the Obsessive, and the Hacker. All of which are distinctly different in their approach to the acquisition of new skills. The acquisition of skills can be anything from learning to play a video game, tennis, throwing a sales pitch, or simply learning how to better listen in a conversation.
In the book, Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment
Instruction
In today’s connected economy and data driven society, we are flooded with numerous stimuli including this blog post. We can learn from books, teachers, mentors, Youtube, podcasts, and so many online programs. Learning for me has never been a process I’ve embarked on my own.
In fact, my journey of learning and growth has involved many individuals. In classes I loved hearing other people share an insight they had, I remember thinking to myself, “Oh, I hadn’t considered that” as I jotted down a note or two. My favorite teachers were the ones that challenged me, because they saw me not as I am, but as I could be.
George recommends to look at how a potential teacher instructs and moreover look at their students and their success. Even the most successful people in their chosen professions have had a coach or a mentor. Michael Jordan had Phil Jackson, Mark Zuckerberg had Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein had Max Talmey.
Coaching, mentoring, and instruction what ever the label, it always involves another person. Can a child learn to speak, if it wasn’t for the encouragement of those around them?
Practice
There is a story about practice that I fully enjoy. A Texan couple is driving along in New York City and is lost on their way to a concert. He asks a man, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” the man replies, “Practice.”
I love that story and I’ve related to it from an early age. I say it often that I was never good at math, but I developed the skill through a lot of practice. My practice wasn’t just going through the motions it was intentional. Each method builds upon the last in a compounding fashion and yes, starting with the basics is important.
“Practice makes Perfect,” this is a saying that I now don’t believe in. Firstly, perfection isn’t attainable. I once read a book titled, “Practice Makes Permanent” and the thesis of the book is how the level of attention to detail in which we practice a skill becomes a permit representation of how that skill is manifested in our lives.
George talks about shifting “practice” from being a verb to a noun. For example, a Doctor yes practices medicine, but they also have a practice which is made up of their patients. I personally have started a gratitude practice, which I discussed briefly in Staying the Course. What kind of practices do you have in your life?
Surrender
You’ve chosen a teacher and you’ve dedicated to developing a practice through practicing. Now, you have to surrender to the process and to the grind. This is the part that I personally struggle with the most, I love getting progress early and it motivates me to push through.
Sometimes, it’s scary though to surrender. We don’t have to give up our morals or our values, we simply have to be willing to be a beginner. It’s a humbling process to become a beginner. It can also be extremely exciting as well.
Intentionality
Being intentional with how you spend your money and who you spend your time with can have a huge impact on your life. What if you were intentional with learning a new skill? Meaning that you were learning or acquiring the skill with clarity and an intention to become better in that aspect of your life. In, college I got the nickname “One-Track Mind,” because once I set my goal I intended to follow through on that.
We are learning more in more through modern science that your thoughts, images and feeling are indeed quite real. Much of modern-day Neurosciences started from one simple equation:
This one equation changed the history of humankind. If we spend time to think a thought, feel a feeling, or visualize an image those thoughts can turn into feeling and later into things. I’ve seen this happen in my life over and over again, I realize I have to be very intentional with my thoughts. It’s through that intention that I set that I am lead to action.
The Edge
The last key to mastery as described by George Leonard is “The Edge” – essentially the limits that we currently have. Knowing our limits currently can be very humbling, we may want to advance very quickly and put in a lot of effort. In martial arts, this can lead to physical injury to yourself or others.
In relationships, moving to quickly when both are not on the same page can be a disaster. That isn’t to say that making quick progress is bad, because it isn’t. Knowing the edge of your current limitations is vital for your expansion.
Muhammid Ali was once asked in an interview, “How many sit ups do you do?” His response, “I don’t start counting until it starts hurting, cause that’s when it really counts. That’s what makes you a champion.”
These are George Leonard’s “Five Master Keys.” How can you adopt these keys and integrate them into your life? If you’ve enjoyed this post, please do me a favor, share it and sign up to be notified of future posts.