People commit mistakes in life following shortcuts while leaving the hard path to success that they have already covered. Shortcuts are good for short terms, we need to focus on the long term. People who look for shortcuts to earn money lose it as quickly as they earn it. Mastery takes time and patience, it takes a lot of practice and commitment. We need to go through the drudgery and hard times to reach the peak of success. All the great people in history became masters in their fields because they went through the hard times; they did not give up; they accepted rejections and failures, and they listened to their hearts.
“THE FOOLS IN LIFE WANT THINGS FAST AND EASY-MONEY, SUCCESS, ATTENTION. BOREDOM IS THEIR GREAT ENEMY AND FEAR. WHATEVER THEY MANAGE TO GET SLIPS THROUGH THEIR HANDS AS FAST AS IT COMES IN. YOU, ON THE OTHER HAND, WANT TO OUTLAST YOUR RIVALS. YOU ARE BUILDING THE FOUNDATION FOR SOMETHING THAT CAN CONTINUE TO EXPAND. TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN, YOU WILL HAVE TO SERVE AN APPRENTICESHIP. YOU MUST LEARN EARLY ON TO ENDURE THE HOURS OF PRACTICE AND DRUDGERY, KNOWING THAT IN THE END ALL OF THAT TIME WILL TRANSLATE INTO A HIGHER PLEASURE—MASTERY OF A CRAFT AND OF YOURSELF. YOUR GOAL IS TO REACH THE ULTIMATE SKILL LEVEL—AN INTUITIVE FEEL FOR WHAT MUST COME NEXT.”
Accustom yourself to the grinding pace:
Mastery takes time and it requires a lot of patience. It is not easy to become a master overnight or in a couple of months. It takes years to become a true master in our field whether it is education, sports, music, science, or every field we choose, we would go through years of practice and hard work, and in the end, new paths would open to us that would be invisible to others due to our consistency and years of struggle. We would reach a stage, we would feel bored and exhausted. That stage is the time of learning and exploring, and as we get through it, things improve on their own. We get used to the tough routines, daily practice, and work with each passing day. We need to accept that it is a gradual process, and it will take time, and we don’t have to give up.
“To resist this temptation, Curtis decided he would force himself in the opposite direction. He treated hustling as a job. He showed up on the street corner at the same hour every day, working from dawn to dusk. Gradually he accustomed himself to this slow pace. During the long hours with nothing to do, he would contemplate the future and come up with detailed plans of what he would accomplish year by year—ending with his eventual escape from street hustling. He would move into music, and then into business. To take the first step, he would have to save his money. The thought of this goal helped him endure the daily tedium of the job. In these slow hours, he also devised new hustling schemes, with the idea of continually improving himself at this job.”
“This taught him invaluable lessons—he could get whatever he wanted through sheer persistence rather than by violence or force; progressing step-by-step was the only way to succeed in anything.”
Use spare time wisely:
Masters use their downtime wisely to get the most out of it. It is a competitive world, to get ahead in our fields we just do not have to work during working hours, but also have to be careful about our spare time since spare time plays an important role in our life. Using the spare time that others use for gossip and fun can help us get ahead in our careers.
“These business types came at him from all directions with endorsement deals that would make him some fast millions. They assumed he was like all the other rappers who grabbed at such opportunities. But endorsement deals would not help him build anything solid or real. It was illusion money. He would turn them down, opting to start his own businesses on his own terms—each business building on the other like links on a chain. The goal this time was simple—to forge an empire that would last. And as before, he would get there through his own grinding persistence.”
Stay on one thing:
Productive level drops when we jump from one thing to the other. Human beings tend to get bored with what they do regularly due to the familiarity, and they tend to follow another career leaving the previous in the middle, and it continues this way— shifting from one thing to the other. To become a master, we should stick to one thing and get used to its boredom and seek new paths in our careers. When we get bored, it is because we are not true masters now. When we become true masters, we don’t get bored, but we feel excited when we explore new things in our fields that are invisible to others.
“They teach themselves to be patient and to practice something. They have learned from early on, through their jobs or through hustling, to endure the long, boring stretches of time that are necessary to master a process. They do not whine or seek to escape this reality, but instead see it as a means to freedom.”
Distractions and discipline:
Overcoming distractions is the hardest thing to do since we get bored and want some recreational time. We succumb to watching movies, playing games, capturing videos, and binge on partying with friends. When we come back, we do not feel up to work, and the discipline that we have maintained for months just gets destroyed in a week. We need to start from zero again. Discipline is curial in mastery, a poor discipline lags us behind in life. Masters maintain discipline, and they do not compromise on it. They are not easily distracted, and they know the consequences of distractions. For mastery, discipline is the key, and when we get used to it, we just follow it automatically. Learn to say NO to parties and friends who compel you to do things that you do not want, but you do it for their happiness, and later you get suffered for it.
“If we happen to lose our job or want something else, we suddenly have to confront the fact that we do not have the requisite patience to make the proper change. Before it is too late we must wake up and realize that real power and success can come only through mastering a process, which in turn depends on a foundation of discipline that we are constantly keeping sharp.”
“Once we reach a certain level of mastery, we see there are higher levels and challenges. If we are disciplined and patient, we proceed. At each higher level, new pleasures and insights await us—ones not even suspected when we started out. We can take this as far as we want—in any human activity there is always a higher level to which we can aspire.”
Progress through trial and error:
Masters are willing to go through trial and error. To become a true master, you need to put your work under people’s scrutiny and criticism and learn from them. You don’t have to give up when you face hard times, rather take it as an opportunity for learning and grooming. The more mistakes you make, the more you explore and learn. Trial and error are important for learning, without setbacks and failures life are incomplete. All the great personalities went through trial and error; they did not jump from one thing to the other; they did not give up; they stand out from the rest due to their sheer commitment and consistency. Failures make them strong and undefeatable.
“You expose yourself and your work to public scrutiny. Your failures are embedded in your nervous system; you do not want to repeat them. Your successes are tied to immediate experience and teach you more. You come to respect the process in a deep way because you see and feel the progress you can make through practice and steady labor. Taken far enough, you gain a fingertip feel for what needs to be done because your knowledge is tied to something physical and visceral. And having such intuition is the ultimate point of mastery.”
References:
- Greene, R. (2010). The 50th law (Vol. 1). Profile Books.
- Greene, R. (2013). Mastery. Penguin.