I am reading an amazing book called ‘The Talent Code’ by Daniel Coyle, subtitled ‘Greatness isn’t born, it’s grown. Here’s how.’ There are many amazing nuggets of information in this gold mine. I am going to touch on only two, that have turned my life upside down in a incredible manner.
What is mastery, you may ask? According to http://ardictionary.com, mastery is victory; triumph; preeminence; or great skillfulness and knowledge of some subject or activity. In the last few years in this journey called life, I have realized how important mastery is through my leadership reading and my experiences. The bigger question is..
how do we attain mastery? Obviously, it will not be easy, otherwise everyone would have attained it. Also, it is one of those things that comes at a price…. success (and mastery) does not go on sale, there is no easy road… no quick scheme…. find the price and pay it. It is simple equation, but not easy. There is also a parallel thinking called ‘dream – struggle – victory’ which is the paradigm built on nature’s way: the creation of a new life or a beautiful flourishing garden. In order to attain victory after the conception of the dream, one ABSOLUTELY MUST go through the struggle. Short-cuts will not create a true long lasting victory.
I am thankful for two big aha moments brought on by watching The Story of Stuff and reading the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
In the last week at the RV park we are staying at, a family came to visit (the wife’s parents park almost right behind us). I’ve been writing a lot of tweets lately about how great it is to meet like-minded people. I wrote similar tweets when I meet Amelia and Kyle and family. On Facebook, my friend Barbara asked “But one learns more from being surrounded by those with diverse minds.” I thought this was a great topic for discussion, so here goes.
In a cd by John Maxwell, he talked about the fact that when you die people will sum you up in one sentence, so select it now and live it purposefully. I heard a great quote by a Bollywood actor Kamalahasan, who said that death is to life as a period is to a sentence. Combining these two ideas, I’d like to set this idea up for you to think about. Death is inevitable, as is the punctuation at the end of a sentence. What kind of life sentence do you desire: is it long, but run-on; mediocre and useless; short and sweet; succinct and intelligent; wise and humorous; and or full of passion and vitality? It is up to you, as it is your life. Pick it now, then live it so that your thoughts, words and actions all reflect your truth (as Colette Carlson calls it), all reflect your life sentence.
As I said in the previous post, things tended to come easy to me. I have to admit, that I never pursued excellence enough to push myself, to challenge myself. After all, as Thomas J. Watson Sr. said “The formula for success is quite simple: double your rate of failure.” I definitely did not invite failure and therefore I did not invite success, not in the way I invite it now.
Practice, Practice, Practice!!!
My perspective has changed quite drastically about this subject, that it is worth mentioning. Even though I have always know the adage “Practice makes Perfect”, I guess I never took it seriously enough, or I did not understand how excellent perfect has to be or I didn’t understand how practicing is a constant on-going thing or maybe a bit of all three. You see, as most people, I have many talents. For example, I am considered a good dancer by many people and I have to admit that I am pretty good. I had a natural talent for dancing and it came easy to me. Maybe that was part of my problem. I would learn a new dance for example for a show and sometimes I would learn it the night before (if it was something I was performing by myself). I was even recruited to do a dance where I was playing a boy. The teacher couldn’t get the 5th boy and recruited me during university exams, so I couldn’t join the group for practice until I was done. Guess when that was? A few hours before the event started was when I was finally available. I joined them and learned the dance and performed. I was actually recruited when people couldn’t dance at the last minute because I got a reputation for learning quickly, being confident on stage and being able to pull things off pretty well, at the last minute. I guess this became a habit for me.
To illustrate the quote “United we stand, divided we fall” by Aesop, I borrowed from the story by Aesop of The Bundle of Sticks and showed the kids a bundle of spaghetti noodles (hey, I guess I was too lazy to go out and get sticks). I got them to each try and break the bundle while it was tied and each of them could not. I them gave them loose noodles and they were of course able to break them easily. I was using this quote and example to explain to them the importance of being united and looking out for each other. This was a week ago.
