I was walking out of a building the other day and there was this gentleman with a truck who was putting a new sign on the building.
It was just him.
“How does he know how to do that?” I thought to myself.
Putting a sign on a commercial building can’t be easy.
How do you keep it from being crooked?
How do you figure out how to move it from one place to another?
So many details…
I am often in awe of people that do so many different things…
The doctor who cuts into another human being…
The engineer that designs a huge high rise and the construction guy who helps to build it.
The people who run the salt mines near Machu Pichu.
So many people amaze me. How do they know how to do what they do?
We learn through TIME… through DOING it with someone who has done it before.
It takes deliberateness to do these things… somewhere along the way, you get a degree, or sometimes you just go get a job, and you start as the new guy.
The high school student starts working on excel sheets, takes on simple problems, and then slowly, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, you understand the concept, the formula, the process and then you start doing it on something simple, and then on something less simple, and you do it over and over and over again.
In the book “OUTLIERS” by Malcolm Gladwell he talks about the 10,000 hour principle. He talks about how it takes 10,000 hours to become truly exceptional at something…
Playing an instrument…
Playing a sport…
Being a doctor…
Being a carpenter…
Working on a manufacturing line stitching gloves…
Etc. etc. etc.
10,000 hours…
I wonder how many moments are in 10,000 hours ;-)
There are two thoughts that start YELLING in my mind as I think about this…
1. EXPLICIT CONSEQUENCE makes us demand certification of the mastery…
When the consequence is not immediately visible and understandable, we loosen our demands.
Greatness…
Mastery TAKES TIME… It takes a lot of time…
We get that when it comes to talents that we can see…
We understand why it takes a degree to cut into another individual…
When THE CONSEQUENCE IS VISIBLE AND UNDERSTOOD, we agree that the mastery requires time and dedication. We expect to see a degree on the wall.
When the consequence is FELT and NOT SEEN OR TOUCHED we completely change our expectations.
Why is it that parenting, management, strategizing, leadership, issue resolution… none of these things get the same attention as surgeon… in many cases they don’t get the same attention as the guy who puts a new sign on the building.
When the consequence of the mastery is “touchy feely”, when the consequence of the mastery is “invisible” to the eye, we change our expectations of deliberateness in our learning and our education.
The MAJORITY of business leaders I know dismiss the TED talks as not critical to business. I would argue its because the consequence of not being a master of human interaction has slow and hard to understand affects… immediately. The effect of poor leadership shows up over time. But, where it fails it is seldom attributed to the managers.
I know I am not making this point clearly – but the net of it is this:
When the consequence of our lack of mastery is not EXPLICIT, we discount the mastery and we often eliminate our need to be diligent about those practicing.
But, the consequence still exists. Think parenting. Think management. Think leadership. We should demand mastery. We should seek education. We should dedicate deliberate time…
2. WE CAN BECOME GREAT AT ANYTHING with application, with dedication.
We want to be happy.
We want to succeed.
Yet, how much time do we truly dedicate to figuring out how?
How much time do we dedicate to become masters at the mindset of success?
How much time do we dedicate to tuning out the noise and focusing our minds on what matters?
Most of us, not much time at all, because we are too busy DOING things that lead to immediate and explicit consequence.
We can live happy lives.
We can live successful lives.
And, we must dedicate time to becoming masters at stress management, at seeing the opportunity in the challenges, at seeing the IS, at defining the WANT.
We have to develop the discipline to stay away from the WISH and accepting the moment as the only place where we can impact and influence our lives.
Next time you see a doctor, or a carpenter, or a chef, or a person on a manufacturing line… an artist masterfully playing an instrument…
Close your eyes and enjoy what time can accomplish.
Happiness and success TAKES MASTERY…
MASTERY takes TIME and DELIBERATE focus…
And, even though the consequence of harmony is not necessarily SEEN EXPLICITLY in the instant… it is real and it is felt and it impacts everything around it.
Take no mastery for granted… appreciate it all…
And, be deliberate about the mastery that you seek…
I seek harmony!
Yours in it,
Nestor