In society today, everybody seems to be good at something but it is rare to find someone who has complete mastery over his or her work. Let me share with you a story of Pablo Picasso, a world-renowned artist and a master in his time.
The story goes that Piccaso was out one day drawing on his canvas. Suddenly, a lady who recognised who he was approached him, “You are Pablo Picasso! Can you draw a portrait of me please?” Picasso said, “Sure!” and started to draw. He took out his pencil, took one look at her and completed her portrait in under one minute.
The lady gasped, “that looks exactly like me!” and was excitedly reaching out for her purse. “How much do I owe you?”, “Madam, that will be $5,000.”
She was in shock and exclaimed, “$5,000?! But it took you less than a minute!”. To which Piccaso replied, “It didn’t take me a minute – it took me a lifetime”.
This is true mastery. A life of intense hard work and constant honing of your skills. How can we be like Piccaso and achieve mastery in our field? There are 3 phases to become a master in any field you pursue.
1. Learning
The learning phase is the most painful process towards being a master.
Prior to being a trader, I had to learn everything about the financial markets. I had to understand what are the up and down trends. I had to understand the platform I was trading in and I had to understand every other knowledge to be a better trader. From this process, I established myself as an expert trader in the financial markets.
Moving on from this, I decided to start a business. Again, I had to learn everything from ground zero. How do I start a business? How do I solve a market need? What are the things that I need to do daily to be successful?
According to a book entitled Mastery by Robert Greene, he said there are two things you need to do:
- You need to discover your calling
- You need to submit to reality
What this means is that you simply need to submit to the reality that you have to start from ground zero!
The crucial thing about learning is this, there are two states that you need to take note of. In this stage, you are essentially moving from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence.
Learning takes you from unconscious incompetence – a state of “you don’t know what you don’t know” to conscious incompetence – a state of “you know what you don’t know.”
In this phase, you need to be hungry for knowledge. You need to find a mentor, get resources or any information that provides you with relevant knowledge. Once you are confident that you can bring a certain level of success in your field, you can now move on to phase 2.
2. Earning
The earning phase is likened to a fresh graduate landing his/her first job after going through 4 years of college education, they can finally start earning money for the knowledge they acquired in school.
The earning phase is where you start to enjoy the fruits of learning, knowledge, and patience. This phase moves you from conscious incompetence to conscious competence. Here, you are starting to see results from your knowledge.
During the learning phase, I had to learn everything about the financial markets. As I moved to the earning phase, I started to see profits in my trading account. Similarly for my entrepreneurship journey, I started to see profits in the bank after learning the ins and outs of operating a business.
However, most entrepreneurs get stuck in this phase instead of moving to the next because of one reason: comfort.
Entrepreneurs tend to become comfortable with the profits they are starting to receive and remain in the earning zone. You need to move from earning to creating!
3. Creating
In this final phase, I am not referring to creating new businesses. I’m talking about creating consistent result again and again and again. Once you find a formula that works for your business, you have to ensure that you’re creating the same result consistently.
Don’t let your success in the earning phase allow complacency to creep in. You have to focus on creating consistent results! Your business may eventually hit the wall and profits may start dropping.
I had a friend who once asked me “What happens when I create results consistently? Do I remain there and stagnate?”
No, once you complete the creating phase, you go back to learning new things about your creation and start the process all over again. This is the cycle of mastery.
My friends, mastery is an ever expanding circle and a life-long commitment. I want to share with you a quote from a famous Formula 1 driver,
“When I’m driving at my best, the last thing I’m thinking about, is driving” – Ayrton Senna
This quote shows that Ayrton Senna was in absolute flow with his craft. He was moving from unconscious incompetence, to conscious incompetence, to conscious competence and finally to unconscious competence. Driving became so natural to Senna that he do not need to think about driving.
That my friend, is mastery.
To your success,
Mario
