Intro

Mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again - George Leonard

Premise

The premise of this book is that there are three possible levels someone can reach with their work, craft or art. That third level is what we call mastery.

This level is what allows someone to innovate, to create and solve new problems in their domain. It allows them to develop their own style. They can find new ways of doing things and explore new paths. This level is what allows people to be excellent in what they do. They bend their domain to their will.

To me, new is the most exciting thing and to create new you need to reach that third step. If everyone is just learning and applying the past rules we are not moving forward.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines creativity as "any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new domain"

Mastery is just applied creativity and as we go I will show that they are the same thing.

Second Gear

Most people, though, fail to get out of second gear and reach this level. They could be working in a field for years or decades and think they are crushing it, but they are not. They are stuck applying the rules but not innovating.

Titles or decades of experience are no guarantee that you will reach this third level.

The current zeitgeist is that it just takes time, put in the 10 years or, 10000 hours and you will reach it.

While I agree that it takes time, usually several years, that number is in no way a guarantee.

In the field of programming, it is clear that time is no predictor of reaching this level. There are endless “senior” developers that have that title by virtue of time, but not skill.

I think you can see this across many fields, where the so-called experts are horrible or mediocre at best at their jobs. They may know things but that doesn't translate into an actionable or predictive power.

Later research has debunked or failed to replicate the 10000 hours rule. ¹

K. Anders Ericsson who was a Professor of Psychology at Florida State University that studied expertise, argued

that what matters is not experience per se but “effortful study,” which entails continually tackling challenges that lie just beyond one’s competence. That is why it is possible for enthusiasts to spend tens of thousands of hours playing chess or golf or a musical instrument without ever advancing beyond the amateur level and why a properly trained student can overtake them in a relatively short time. ²

Making the implicit explicit

For the people who do reach it, they often find it through trial and error and some form of obsession.

I think we can do better.

There is an aura around mastery, creativity, and talent. Some people just have it, some can't. I doubt that is true.

I think it is learnable, I think the human brain is super plastic and, with time and work, it can capture many things.

The problem is that it is difficult to describe and even harder to teach. There are very few books on what it takes and what it looks like. We use hours because we haven't had a better way to measure progress.

All the books are on how to be a begineer, because those books are easy, but what happens when you get behind basic skills and standard rules?

I think and hope that I found a way to break down and provide a framework for understanding what separates the masters of their craft.

Everyone's journey is going to look different, but the goal of this book is to provide a framework and definition for what it means to reach that next level and provide a workable path. To try to make the implicit skills explicit. The goal is to teach how to be an explorer.

This is your journey and that is the best part, and while there is no destination, you will end up somewhere no one else has visited. You make your own rules.

References