I’ve been fascinated by the concept popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers, that to become a master of any craft takes about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. Or, around 1 year and 51 days, give or take a few trips to the bathroom.
I’m going to leave the 10,000 hours at the doorstep for now.
The important insight for this Jolt is the concept of the craft itself.
WINK: Whatcha Good At?
“Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it”…said a famous expert.
Belief in your craft is 99.9% of any idea. Just ask Eiffel, the chap who built the Eiffel Tower. The Parisian art community said it would be a “barbaric bulk” a “giddy, ridiculous tower, dominating Paris like a black smokestack”. Whether you think they were right or wrong, he raised his middle finger and built it anyway. Architecture was his craft. The rest is history.
Often though, when we think of the concept of mastery, we think of someone like Eiffel, an elite athlete, a pop star, an Oscar-winning actor, or an amazing classical pianist at the top of their game. And usually, it’s through the lens of it being utterly unattainable for any of us.
Mastery shacks up with the god of expertise and has trophies as its babies.
But do we ever appoint the same level of mastery to someone who is a great listener? A fabulous home chef? An amazing meeting facilitator? Or a wickedly efficient organizer?
We don’t.
Yet, it’s all a craft. And it all has mastery in its DNA.
NUDGE: Mastery Is Already In You.
Throughout my life, I’ve been told I’m a pretty good ideas person. I love the act of creation. I don’t care what it is, who it is, or where it is, but put me in a room to come up with ideas and bring them to life, and I’ll do it. I never thought of this as a craft. It was just something I did well and enjoyed.
To me, a craft was the domain of the paid professional and it needed a qualification at the end of it. I have always loved music, but my fingers were never going to tickle the ivories for 10,000 hours and catapult me into the London Philharmonic. I left that to others with far better skills. It was way too out of reach.
Two years ago, after leaving corporate America to build my own business, I set up my home studio again and started an experiment. If 10,000 hours was really a thing, let me see if I could rattle its cage and ruffle its wonderful hair.
A 15-minute break between meetings? Let me work on that song. A spare hour after dinner? I’m going to try a new production technique. A book on music theory? Let me have a crack at it.
About a month ago, I was in the techno tent of a music festival. I walked in under the auspices of trying not to look like the old guy (I wasn’t, thankfully). It struck me that for a change, I wasn’t dancing - I was listening. To the structure of the track. To the tone of the kick drum. When the hi-hat came in. How the floor moved. How people reacted to the bass that was punching my chest like a 500-lb gorilla. I realized I was picking apart the blueprint of what I was hearing so I could better understand it.
So I went home and wrote this track:
It’s not perfect. It has holes that I can hear far too clearly. Production tweaks I don’t have the skill to fix. In the world of dance-music-mastery, it may be considered utterly forgettable. That’s not the point.
The point is, I surprised myself.
Often times we look to the pinnacles of attainment as our comparative reference point. People who are at the very top of their game. We don’t think that everyone starts at the very beginning, a thumb-sucking novice in diapers, just like one of us, uncertain and doubtful of our ability. That they too, had to put in their 10,000 hours.
How often do we say, “Why can’t I also be a master?”. A master of my own domain?
This track may never see the light of day. That’s OK. What I proved to myself, is that the craft of practice works.
JOLT: Practice, Practice, Practice
All of us have things that we do really well. Maybe we do it for ourselves. Or for thousands of others. It doesn’t matter.
I’ll bet that unless it’s pointed out to us though, we might not even consider it to be a craft. We do it because it comes naturally. It’s in our DNA. So we kinda forget about it. We let it slosh around our lives like water in a bath.
But what would happen if we truly practiced it? Went to town on it? Kicked it in the pants and chased it around the room as if our life depended on it?
Do people tell you you’re a great listener? Maybe you’re the therapist the world needs right now. Listening is an exceptional skill. A valuable skill. A skill that pays.
Can you read a room as soon as you walk in? Maybe you’re an expert in non-verbal communication. Reading people is a skill endowed with the highest level of emotional intelligence. If you have it, you have the tools to drive change for the world.
Do you have energy for others bursting at the seams? Maybe you’re the lightning bolt a start-up has been looking for. The next life-changing teacher. An executive coach.
When you tug at the tail of your craft, you’ll realize the path is endless
You never know where it may lead.
With crafty love,
The Jolt.