Mastery - Skills, Art, and Life

Hey friend,

I hope you've been well!  

The last few weeks I have been practicing piano a lot through the app Pianote. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s basically an online course that teaches you piano from real teachers, with lessons and exercises that are engaging and kind of addicting to be honest.

I have taken lessons over the years, and watched lots of YouTube videos but nothing really compares to properly following a curriculum designed to teach you things in the right order. Sometimes teaching yourself can be the slowest way to your goal, as having a mentor can help you take leaps forward, when you would otherwise have just stumbled along slowly uphill.

This is a strategy I have looked to more times than I can count over the years. From learning music production and taking online courses, to training jiu-jitsu and watching instructionals from world-class athletes and attending seminars. The focus is on mastery. Mastery of a skill, of an art, of my own mind, even in my day job I am always looking for ways to improve and get better and more efficient.

Years ago I read the book Mastery by Robert Greene and it built the structure with which I look at and approach life. In the book he talks about the importance of having a mentor, going through an apprenticeship phase and soaking up as much knowledge as you can. This applies to any new skill you are trying to learn, and you should look for a mentor in each new skill that you are trying to get good at. For me this has always meant looking for a really good online course that can help me level up and that has a good track record of having successful students.

In music production this meant going through Cosmic Academy, an online program that has seen hundreds of students go on to signing music to their favorite record labels, myself included. In jiu-jitsu, I regularly study from the best in the world, watching their matches, and also watching their instructionals where they teach some of their best techniques. This week I went to a seminar taught by 2 current world champions and it was incredible! As a painter I am always watching YouTube videos and reading Reddit threads looking to find new ways to improve or be more efficient.

Nearly 10 years after reading this book I look back and realize that I really put into practice what I learned from this book. I think I can genuinely say this book changed my life more than any other book as it helped shape the way I look at the world. I now look for ways to improve my skills before anything else, as I have learned that this is the strongest lever to getting from where I am to where I want to go.

So if you are trying to get good at a skill of some kind and you aren’t seeing the progress forward that you would like to see, I would highly recommend spending time and money investing in yourself. Take some online courses and become proficient in the technical aspects of your chosen skill. Dive deep into it and learn from whoever seems to be the best in the field that you can find access to. Read books, listen to podcasts, watch videos on the subject, absorb it all like a sponge.

Once you have become proficient enough in your skill to now create from a place of confidence, the actual creation process feels so much smoother, more enjoyable, and you slip much more easily into a state of flow. When you are still learning something, flow is hard to come by, but as you get better and better, you find yourself getting into flow states and the process becomes much more enjoyable.

Next is the experimentation phase, and this is where you want to crank out as much work as you can as you learn to find your style. For me this meant producing countless songs over a period of a few years, most of which I never released. To get good at something you need to put in a lot of reps, and when it comes to creative work this means putting in the hours. Over time you will naturally stumble into your own style as you find what you do and don’t like.

Robert Greene talks about the 10,000 hour rule that most of us are familiar with. He says that 10,000 hours gets you to the point of being high level, but true mastery only begins after that. The next 10,000+ hours are where the artist truly comes into their own and finds mastery. The point where their intuition and skill are so strong that what they hear and feel come out effortlessly.

Getting to this point of mastery in any skill can take many years, but the process itself is what is truly valuable. It is the constant absorbing of new skills and techniques, studying the best in your field, and experimenting and refining. Over time you will be surprised at how far you have come, and how quickly the time passed!

If this sounds like something you would like to go more in depth with, I highly recommend reading this book or listening on Audible! This book is a guide to becoming great. If you would like to check it out you can find a link below!

Mastery - Robert Greene

 Take care my friend,

- Niko