mastery is a way of thinking, a way of acting, and a journey you
experience. When what you’ve chosen to master is the right thing,
then pursuing mastery of it will make everything else you do either
easier or no longer necessary. That’s why what you choose to master
matters.
Mastery plays a key role in your domino run.
I believe the healthy view of mastery means giving the best you
have to become the best you can be at your most important work. The
path is one of an apprentice learning and relearning the basics on a
never-ending journey of greater experience and expertise. Think of it
this way: At some point white belts training to advance know the
same basic karate moves black belts know—they simply haven’t
practiced enough to be able to do them as well. The creativity you see
at a black- belt level comes from mastery of the white-belt
fundamentals. Since there is always another level to learn, mastery
actually means you’re a master of what you know and an apprentice
of what you don’t. In other words, we become masters of what is
behind us and apprentices for what is ahead. This is why mastery is a
journey. Alex Van Halen has said that when he would go out at night
his brother Eddie would be sitting on his bed practicing the guitar,
and when he came home many hours later Eddie would be in the same
place, still practicing. That’s the journey of mastery—it never ends.
In 1993, psychologist K. Anders Ericsson published “The Role of
Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance” in the
journal Psychological Review. As the benchmark for understanding
mastery, this article debunked the idea that an expert performer was
gifted, a natural, or even a prodigy. Ericsson essentially gave us our
first real insights into mastery and birthed the idea of the “10,000-
hour rule.” His research identified a common pattern of regular and
deliberate practice over the course of years in elite performers that
made them what they were—elite. In one study, elite violinists had
separated themselves from all others by each accumulating more than
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