Hey everyone Daniel here from next level life and welcome to Part 2 of our look at Robert
Greene’s book: Mastery.
In part 1 we talked about how to find your calling and if you missed that video there’s
a link to it in the description below or you click on the card in the upper right hand
corner of this video to get caught up.
Now once you’ve found your calling, what the next step on the road to mastery?
Well you’ve got to start an apprenticeship in order to learn the tricks of the trade
so to speak of whatever career path you’ve chosen.
And that’s the question we’re going to explore in this video.
How do you find the ideal apprenticeship?
And what exactly should you be doing during it?
Let’s get started.
In the stories of the greatest masters throughout history you can identify a specific phase
of their life where all of the skills that would make them household names were being
developed.
This part of their lives is often a self-directed apprenticeship that usually lasts 5 or 10
years, but it rarely receives much attention because this part of the master's life doesn't
contain any great discoveries or achievements.
But we're going to change that today because without this ideal apprenticeship our chances
of achieving mastery in our own lives are slim to none.
There is one principal to keep in mind while going through the apprenticeship phase.
The goal is not to accumulate money, or to get a good position, title, or even a diploma.
The goal is to transform your mind and your character.
When we first enter the working world most of us are still somewhat socially naive and
unprepared for the political games people play.
Our heads are full of dreams and fantasies about the future.
But this naivete is exposed in the light of the real world.
And we’re naive at this point because our knowledge of how the world works is based
on our own emotions, insecurities, and limited experiences.
To succeed we need to ground ourselves in reality and transform ourselves from someone
who is somewhat impatient and scattered into someone who is disciplined and focused.
Which means that we should choose the job that offers us the most opportunity for gaining
practical knowledge and objective feedback from others.
Once we've made the transformation into a disciplined and focused person we can begin
the three-step process of the ideal apprenticeship.
The first step is deep observation and this is where you will observe, without any preconceptions,
two essential realities of the world you've just entered.
The first are the rules and procedures that govern success in the workplace.
Some of these things will be told to you and you'll know it when you hear phrases like
"this is how we do things here."
But others, such as unwritten rules or what the company objectively values in it's employees
may not be.
I’m going to use a professional basketball player as an example.
During this phase of the apprenticeship the basketball player would be watching games
on TV.
Closely studying what the most successful players do.
And not just fundamental things like their dribbling moves or shooting motion, but also
things like their body language when dealing with teammates and opponents and how they
use things like trash talk to get under the skin of their opponents.
In a business setting you can find answers to the unwritten rules by watching who is
on their way up the corporate ladder and who isn't.
Since those who are moving up are more than likely the ones that are following the unwritten
rules and showing the behaviors that the company actually values.
Take your time with this step because it will help you navigate your way up the corporate
ladder faster and avoid costly mistakes.
The second step is the skills acquisition phase of the apprenticeship.
This is where you’re putting in your 10,000 hours that everyone talks about.
Let’s go back to our professional basketball player from step one.
He’s observed everything from how to shoot the basketball to how to deal with opponents
and get a competitive advantage.
And this is where he is going to start putting what he’s learned into practice.
Now you don’t want to critique yourself at this point in the process.
You just want to focus on every part of the process and get as many reps with it as you
can.
The goal here for you is the same as the goal for our basketball player.
You want to develop a kind of muscle memory for each part of your job.
In the beginning, focusing this intensely is going to take up all of your mental energy.
But what’s exciting is that eventually you enter a cycle of accelerated returns where
the process of whatever task you're working on has been hardwired into your brain enough
that the practice starts to seem a lot easier.
You enter a state of mind that psychologists refer to as “flow” where you don’t have
to think about what to do because it comes to you almost automatically.
For our basketball player this would be when he developed that muscle memory when dribbling
or shooting enough that he can stop thinking about that and start focusing on how to best
attack his defender based on what the defender is doing at the time.
And once you get to this point you can start the third step of the apprenticeship.
The third step is the experimentation phase.
This is where you begin to critique yourself as you practice.
You try new things to see how you can make the process better for yourself and actively
seek out constructive criticism from others.
Our basketball player might start trying to fake out the defender instead of just trying
to blow by him on the drive.
He’ll be talking to his coaches and other players to try and figure out what he needs
to improve on as well as to get new ideas of what to try out.
So in summary you find the ideal apprenticeship by searching all the opportunities in the
field that you’ve chosen and choosing the one that gives you the best opportunities
to learn and develop the skills you’ll need to succeed (even if that means that you won’t
be paid as much).
And once you get there remember to keep an open mind, keep expanding your horizons, don’t
let your ego get too big, and trust that the process will get you where you want to go.
Mastering a skill is like chopping down a huge tree.
You won’t take it down with one swing of your axe.
Or three or four swings for that matter.
But if you keep chopping away at it, eventually, whether it wants to or not, the tree will
fall down.
So that’ll do it for part 2.
Now you might be asking yourself, “How can that be it?
We’re talking about the ideal apprenticeship and I didn’t mention finding a good mentor
once.”
Well you’re right and the mentorship aspect of the ideal apprenticeship is exactly what
we’re going to talk about in part 3.
Unfortunately I have my final exams coming next week so I don’t think I’ll be able
to get part 3 out by next week, but I do have a summary of Martha Stout’s book: The Sociopath
Next Door that I’m almost done making.
So what I think I’ll do is upload that summary next week and then come back for part 3 the
following week.
So until then, if you liked what you saw here be sure to subscribe.
Thanks for watching and have a great day.