'How Hard I Worked to Get My Mastery'

"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all." - Michelangelo

According to K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues, real mastery of a skill, such as, playing classical guitar, designing buildings or being a shortstop, may require 10,000 hours or more of sustained, deliberate, focused practice. Talent seems to be something less natural and more nurtural (no way that's a word). If so-called "talented" people possess more of a champion quality than the rest of us, that quality would be perseverance. What Ericsson calls "deliberate practice" is not simply doing the same thing over and over; it's practice with purpose. It's a resolute effort to improve and set higher and higher goals. It's failing to achieve those goals and then practicing until they are achieved. Practice, perseverance and diligence worked in concert, in a focused process in which you push yourself to elevated levels of achievement, will unearth your true genetic potential. Remember; genes are only ingredients. You've got to work the recipe.

The highest degree of personal systems management is that which lifts you to mastery. You made an emotional commitment on Level Four, and now the mastery systems you create will raise your work to a level beyond expertise. Terms such as masters degree, master craftsman, Tae Kwon Do Grand Master and magnum opus - the master work, all invoke an image of something or someone to revere. It says with certainty that we are in the presence of a lifelong commitment to being better than the best which has culminated in this supreme level of achievement.

Some of your systems, like their mechanical cousins in buildings, are meant to sustain or maintain viability. The next level of systems are designed to elevate, to enlighten, to embolden. They must be designed with the knowledge that they are a component of lifelong learning, of a relentless pursuit of regular improvements. Nobody becomes a master without devoting time to getting better. There is no such thing as quality time. That's just a goofy phrase invented by overworked single parents to make them feel better about neglecting their children. The only quality comes from actually spending more time with what and who is important. You have to be tenacious. Even architects, as brawny as their brain function is, are not regarded as masters until they prove themselves to peers and critics over many decades packed with innovation and production.

Habits are bricks. Desire is mortar. Two bricks together begin a process. One brick, becomes a course, and then a wall, and then a building. They become a place to create, to indulge, to parent, to learn, to achieve and to dream of more places. They don't appear through mysticism; they arise from vision, planning, diligence, patience and productive habits.