I grew up deeply influenced by online media, I used to jump from interest to interest and opportunity to opportunity.
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I grew up deeply influenced by online media, I used to jump from interest to interest and from opportunity to opportunity, based on the latest trends. You probably know what I mean, those shiny objects that attract the inexperienced because they look promising: coworking, crowdfunding, blockchain, machine learning, etc. All those jargons in English that appeal.
After analyzing when and why these leaps happened, I realized that they happened as soon as I felt I was stuck in a professional rut. Then something new and shiny would appear and I would take another leap.
My problem is that I used to think that those moments when I felt like I wasn't making any progress were wasted time. Now I realize that they are part of what it takes to create things that matter, from a project to a personal relationship.
I have the opportunity to mentor entrepreneurs and sometimes they say they want to have a great team, sell, and make a lot of money, but they are not willing to hear about the hundreds of rejections that come along the way. They want to have the right to get great results in a short time, but they don't realize that these results require hours and hours of small learnings, learnings that at the time, may feel insignificant.
I was not able to put this idea into words until I read the Mastery book by Robert Greene. The main idea I took from there is that the path to mastery is made up of 3 stages:
We all know this one. It's when we enter a new field with excitement and naivety, not knowing exactly how much work we have ahead of us. We start learning the most important features and tricks in the area, and we get ahead by copying what others are doing.
I like to think of this stage as the one where we learn the 80% of what there's to learn. This is where fuck ups are sillier and seldom make a great story. 🙂
If we can keep moving forward and negotiate this steep learning curve, we will begin to gain fluency, and master the basic skills that will allow us to take on bigger and better challenges.
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Eventually, we move from students to practitioners. We begin to understand situations better and begin to prod and experiment on purpose. We use our own ideas and experiments, learning from feedback in the process. We develop our own approaches to how things should or should be done.
I like to think that at this stage we learn 15% more. Therefore, having 95% of the knowledge in the area and having developed our own way of being and doing for years, we are part of higher levels.
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The key word here is intuition. After a lot of learning and practice, we developed a system of understanding in a field that allows us to innovate and break the rules without having to do a lot of research, or without having to spend a lot of time planning.
The first two levels are full of periods when we feel stuck. We keep doing what we do, but projects don't grow, we don't have new ideas, and so on.
The important thing to remember is that these plateaus of "inactivity" are necessary. It is where the most innovative and sui generis ideas and learnings come to you. Staying consistent even during these stages is what differentiates the amateurs from the people who really contribute something and have an added value.
So what happened to that person jumping up and down looking for the most accessible fruit on the tree? I would say I was becoming a master at a lot of simple, stupid things that anyone can do. I wasn't developing a deep understanding because I was addicted to the adrenaline rush that (supposedly) comes from rapid progress.
We need to find purpose in what we do and stick to it. But passion and purpose are not found, they are built.
In order to have meaningful activities, we need to define what we value. Otherwise, we run like headless chickens after shiny, flashy objects.
Values → meaning → Enjoy those stagnations → Mastery.
For example, I knew I didn't believe in the equality of crowfunding when I realized that it was only perpetuating systemic inequality by giving money to the same old place (usually white, privileged men from developed countries who want to build monopolies or addictive products). That went against the equality of opportunity that I value so highly and in favor of the hyper-consumerism that is capitalism.
Sometimes preparation is mundane or repetitive, and feels in itself far removed from success. To be patient and even enjoy the moments when we feel stuck, we must remain active in environments that align with our values and principles, even if they are as rare as sharing stories of failure.
In the long run, it will be profoundly fruitful.
Edited by
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Let's transform our perception of failure and use it as a catalyst for growth.
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