Tag / mastery

by Nathan Coumbe

What skill have you developed in the last five years?

For most of us, I’d bet it’s something like this:

“In the last five years, I’ve gotten really good at reading and sending emails and instant messages. But also, I’m really good at going to meetings.”

Not exactly skills you can sell when you’re looking for your next gig, are they?

For those of us who don’t make or sell tangible products for a living, skills are all we have to trade for money. But the nature of knowledge work means more of us are developing fewer skills the longer we’re in our careers.

We’re spending more and more of our time talking about work rather than doing work. We’re building fewer things and completing fewer projects.

AI is only exacerbating the problem, as we outsource more of our making and thinking to AI chatbots (and getting worse outcomes as a result).

Without projects that we do ourselves—without making things that challenge us to learn—we’re deskilling ourselves. And as a result, we’re making ourselves less marketable in the workforce.

The best time to develop a new skill was five years ago. The next best time is today.

by Nathan Coumbe

How to learn a word

The best way to learn a new word is to have it paint a picture in your mind.

Adjectives conjure images of people who embody their meaning.

Verbs project images of the actions they represent.

Few people learn words by memorizing dictionary definitions and reciting them in their minds every time they hear them. The definition is great when it’s completely new and unfamiliar, but it’s only the first step. Mastery comes from the imagery conjured by the words.

Eventually, we develop an intuitive “feel” for the meanings of words and no longer need either the definition or the image they conjure. We become fluent, and the words roll off the tongue.

This path from incompetence to mastery is present in all learning. The “grammar” is just the first step.

by Nathan Coumbe

Leaders must let workers work

The most beneficial thing a leader can do in 21st-century knowledge work is to allow employees to spend most of their working hours applying the high-value, high-return skills for which they were hired.

They should be allowed to do this without being encumbered or distracted by the “busy work” of modern knowledge work, such as email, Slack messages, and administrative overhead.

Imagine if it had been necessary for Charles Darwin to respond to 40 letters a day. How long would it have taken him to publish On the Origin of Species?

Or what if Mozart had to deal with five unplanned visits from other musicians every hour? Would he have become the musical genius we now know him to be?

Yet, between instant messaging software, email, and open-office pop-ins (for those not working remotely), these hypothetical scenarios are everyday occurrences for most of us.

It’s no wonder we feel overwhelmed, overworked, and chronically unproductive, even with all the stuff we’re doing.

The solution, then, is to build workflows and processes so that your teams can spend less time discussing tasks that need to be done and actually complete those tasks (while also having the slack necessary to think and rest).

by Nathan Coumbe

Love and mastery

What topic do you most connect with?

What subject fills you with an almost religious fervor?

What do you spend your time thinking and learning about, regardless of what you’re paid to do?

This feeling of love for a field might be pointing you toward something worth mastering.

by Nathan Coumbe

Expertise must come before audience

We have the process backward for becoming well-known.

The current wisdom is to become famous (most likely on social media) to obtain a big audience. Once you have said audience, you can make a living off them by selling their attention or whatever random idea you decide to push.

However, the opposite approach is not only less sleazy but will also lead to lasting rather than fleeting success.

Imagine building a huge following on social media, then selling financial advice (or God forbid, products!) to that audience without knowing anything about the field. You’d quickly be labeled a fraud or scam artist. (Unfortunately, this happens every day.)

If, instead, you started by building your expertise in the field of finance, then built an audience who would benefit from your knowledge, you would have a group of people who trusted you. And trust is almost as good as currency in the modern economy.

by Nathan Coumbe

Copy the masters

If you want to improve your drumming, copy musical phrases from masters like Elvin Jones or Tony Williams.

If you want to learn a new style of art, copy the sketches and brush strokes of da Vinci and Van Gogh.

If you want to  become a world-class copywriter, copy the best, most successful ads from people like David Ogilvy or Claude Hopkins.

From medieval apprenticeship practices to their modern-day equivalents in universities and 1-on-1 mentorships, the best creatives know you must first start by copying the masters. 

You learn the fundamentals of most everything first by imitation. Only then can you add your own touch to create something wholly your own.

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by Nathan Coumbe

What’s the project?

Go ahead: read the books, watch the videos, and take the courses. 

But at the end of all that, you need to take action. And the best way to do so is to have a project. 

I don’t mean a 3-panel trifold board school project that you dread so much you put it off until the night before it’s due. 

I mean a project that puts into action the stuff you’ve just learned. Something that fires you up. And lets you use your new skills in a way that will let you experiment while also helping others.

Maybe that’s:

  • Writing and submitting an article to practice your research skills
  • Building a website to practice your design abilities
  • Creating a YouTube video “lecture” to teach someone what you just learned
  • Playing a solo for friends and family (or dare I say, other, more critical musicians?)

When I was working and studying as a musician myself, I learned this was an unspoken rule of improvement. 

Everything you learned had one goal attached: perform what you learned in front of someone else.

That pressure to perform led to vast improvements in my playing abilities, especially my weekly recurring jazz trio gig. I had to be laser-focused on putting newfound abilities to use on a regular basis. 

My unspoken mantra became: “If I can’t use this tonight, I haven’t really learned it yet.” 

Until you can use what you’ve “learned” in the real world, nothing has happened. 

Human beings are artisans and craftspeople: your brain is wired to make things and do something with what you learn. Not just have it marinate in your mind after reading a book or watching a video. 

Making, performing, creating, teaching. These acts put our knowledge to use… and make us feel useful. Like the masters of a craft that we all have the ability to be. 

So, you need projects. 

They’re the key to learning new things. But they’re also the key to fulfilling work and a meaningful life. 

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by Nathan Coumbe

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing slowly

Rapid results rarely last. Everything worthwhile takes time and patience.

  • Parenting 
  • Marriage 
  • Reading a difficult book 
  • Getting a degree 
  • Learning a new skill 
  • Building a business 

Rapid weight loss is dangerous and usually leads to a reversal.

Speed reading might let you get through more books… But more books isn’t the goal. 

The goal is mastery, not rapidity. Deep understanding, not casual interest.

In a world obsessed with speed, be a tortoise.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Childhood inclinations

Don’t get in the way of your children’s natural inclinations.

If they want to write, encourage it. If they want to dance or sing, help them do it. If they want to play sports, give them the means to do so.

We all seem to be wired for different things. Trying to become something we’re not is the worst possible way to live.

by Nathan Coumbe

The shortcut to mastery

There isn’t one…

“There are no shortcuts to the creative process…the very impatience that drives you to desire shortcuts makes you unsuited for mastery.”

—Robert Greene, The Daily Laws p. 84

Do the work. Trust the process. It will be tough to master anything.

But it’s so worth it.