The Paradox of Mastery
When I was 7, I wanted to become a professional mountain biker.
I told my dad I was ready to get rid of the training wheels.
He gave me the look he always gave me when I said something crazy.
I could understand why, since it had only been 2 days of riding my bike on training wheels.
Since he disapproved of the idea, I thought getting approval from my 9-year-old brother would’ve been good enough and sure enough, he said YES.
And so there I was,
On my bike,
No training wheels,
About to go down the steepest in our whole suburb.
15 seconds later, I ended up on the bottom of the street! But not on my bike, but on my face/ass.
On that day, I had pre-destined scars, scab marks and potentially irreversible brain damage for my future self.
And after this attempt, I still wanted to be a professional mountain biker!
But my fear of falling off, fear of creating more wounds (and fear of my parents) never allowed me to ride a bike until I was 14.
Mastering a skill is tough.
The reason I tell you this story is because:
Don’t trust your 9-year-old brother with critical life decisions
We often want to master certain skills. We try 1-2 times to master these skills, fail, and then avoid the process of mastering these skills in the first place.
It’s like wanting what’s on the other side of the bridge without wanting to cross the bridge.
For bike riding, I started to fear the skills acquisition process, and so indirectly, I started to fear mastery. I did get better at riding the bike, but it took ages and unfortunately I did not become a professional mountain biker.
When I was 17 I wanted to master the skill of consulting and presenting. I swore that I wouldn’t make the same mistakes 7-year-old Tanzeer made.
Here are the 4 steps you need to master any skill:
Calibrate
Educate
Reflect
Teach
Step 1: Calibrate
When first embarking on the journey of mastery, there’s one thing that every human will fall trap to.
Overconfidence and arrogance.
The Dunning-Kruger effect explains this best:
Basically, what this diagram is saying:
When people know nothing, their confidence is 0.
When people learn something, their confidence is exorbitantly higher than it should be. Knowing something is infinitely larger than knowing nothing.
When people learn more about something, their confidence drops. Starting to realise that there’s more things you don’t know / will never know is humbling.
So when you want to go master any skill, whether that would be:
Writing
Filming
Communicating / Presenting
You need to acknowledge that you SUCK. You need to drill this in. Don’t fall into the trap of overconfidence.
Being too overconfident will cause you to:
Not listen to others more experienced, cos you think you know it all (As a result, not developing and furthering your mastery)
Make dumb decisions and pay a huge price (ie. going down a super steep decline because you think you’re a professional mountain biker)
This is the second time I’ve quoted Alex Hormozi, I can’t promise it’ll be the last time:
When I first started consultation calls with students, I SUCKED.
I was quiet
I couldn’t keep up with the amount of info
I didn’t know what follow-up questions to ask
The advice I’d give was wrong and irrelevant
But what I did this time around was that I was willing to suck. I was willing to get a beating from my mentors as long as I could learn how to get better and what my next steps were. I was no longer going to shy away from gaining mastery.
Step 2: Educate
Being humble and calibrating yourself is good and all, but you don’t want to stop here.
If you’re serious about mastering a certain skill, you must seek proper guidance and education.
To do this, follow this checklist:
Identify the skill that you want to master (Writing, consulting, communicating)
Research the current masters in that field (Alex Hormozi, Tiago Forte, Khe Hy, Vinh Giang)
Learn from the masters (courses, books, education, mentorship)
Learn from multiple sources, not just one
Instead of following the checklist above, most young people think university/school will save them and set them up for life.
No it won’t, dumbass!
The world is moving faster than ever. If you aren’t proactive, if you don’t put yourself out there, if you don’t work hard, you will fall behind.
On top of your formal education, you need “informal” education:
Volunteer
Get work experience
Learn from courses, books and masters
Learn a high-demand skill compatible with your goals
Informal education is the driving factor for most extraordinary success.
The skills I wanted to master (Sales, consulting, business management, and managerial skills) were NOT skills offered by university or formal education programs. These skills were only offered in the workplace. That’s why I skipped out on university, volunteered all my time and effort, admitted that I sucked, learnt from the best and kept improving.
Some people need university for the skills they want to master, whether being a great doctor, the head of an engineering firm, or anything requiring qualifications.
Step 3: Reflect
Once you start:
Learning from mentors, books, and courses
Implementing what you’ve learnt
All you need to do is:
Reflect regularly
Track your progress
As you learn, you must realise that you are 100% gaining mastery over this time.
Acknowledge that you are getting better, otherwise you will not be able to recalibrate yourself, and you will drown in your pool of self-doubt.
If you’ve never reflected in your life or are new to reflecting, you can check out one of the templates I’ve created here. Gibbs’ reflective model serves as a strong first step for many.
If you’re a seasoned reflector, you’ll find some value in my dissecting exemplary reflections, so I encourage you to check it out anyway.
Step 4: Teach
You become a master step by step.
One never truly reaches 100% mastery, this is because:
The bar for true mastery is constantly being pushed
You will never be able to keep up with everything there is to know
But from what I’ve learnt, the FINAL piece to achieving true mastery is;
Teaching others.
I like to believe that there’s an unspoken vow that all of us as humans make when we embark on a journey of developing mastery.
You must empower and enable others who weren’t as fortunate as you. It is your duty.
For me, being able to work on my writing, communicating, presenting, and consulting skills is a gift.
A gift given to me by my parents and those who came before me.
Those who sold their future for my future.
At some point, educating yourself, implementing what you’ve learnt all have plateauing returns on your mastery acquisition.
You need to spend time teaching others and giving back. Whether this is through paid work or free volunteering work, teaching others will start to make you think about different perspectives, angles, and viewpoints regarding certain concepts, ideas, and methods.
You can learn a lot from the reflections your students will share alone. After all, they are different people with different lives and priorities.
As someone still learning but has developed a moderate amount of mastery over coaching/communication, I spend much of my time working with our junior staff. Not because I always want to but because I am obliged to. It’s my duty and responsibility to give back.
It will be yours too, one day, for whatever skill, profession or career you get into.
- Tanzeer
