Facilitate Means to Make Easy
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| Why don’t I feel serenity? |
Do you feel successful? Think a minute about what you and/or your organization do. Does it feel like enough? Too much? Does it make you and/or others happy? Fulfilled? Do you feel successful (or not) based on what other people say and do? Based on how much money you make or how famous you are? Or does fulfillment come from something deep within that defines your purpose? Let’s take a moment to consider the way we define ‘success.’
Is there a ‘secret sauce’ to create success? Recently I watched a YouTube video about mastery from the inimitable cartoonist/philosopher Hugh MacLeod, and I’m persuaded that mastery is the ticket. Not fame. Not fortune. Just doing something really, really well that you love. Hugh talks about seeing a movie called Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Jiro owns a 10-seat restaurant, underground, in the Tokyo subway. All he serves is sushi. He works 365 days/year. He loves his work. Others love his work. They wait up to a year in advance to be able to eat there. They’ll pay $1,000/head. The tailors of Savile Row in London have a similar model. They don’t have large overhead. They aren’t billionaires. Yet they have a year-long waiting list too. Sewing buttons, cutting cloth. Sewing buttons, cutting cloth. Over and over. And they have greater personal satisfaction than folks working on Wall Street for oodles of money. Through mastery.
Is mastery the secret to fulfillment? Hugh draws all day at his work bench. He says it’s boring; but he loves it. He, like Jiro and the tailors, does something simple and useful that people value. The secret sauce? Mastery. And no one can take this away from you. You take mastery with you wherever you go.
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| Cartoon from Hugh MacLeod, Gaping Void |
Mastery is a journey; not a destination. The journey begins whenever we decide to learn a new skill. In the book Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment George Leonard writes about the ways in which mastery leads to greater satisfaction and excellence. He notes that mastery is not reserved for the super-talented. Anyone can travel this path.
Those on the path to mastery enjoy the practice just for the sake of practice. Even when the work is frustrating, or seemingly not moving forward towards a defined purpose, it’s still enjoyable. Every step along the way is meaningful, even though the pay-off isn’t quick or easy.
| How to win with so many choices? |
People who win the lottery don’t feel successful.They feel lucky. And thrilled. But the thrill wears off and they go back to feeling mundane. Sometimes they even feel guilty. It turns out that ‘having it all’ without having found an underlying purpose is not really that satisfying.
The ‘kicker’ is that finding an underlying purpose, and deciding to do something really well, means foregoing other opportunities. You
can’t go down all paths simultaneously. And since the journey towards mastery is long and slow, you can’t go down too many paths sequentially either. So you must choose; then put on blinders to everything else. Otherwise, you become what Leonard describes as a ‘dabbler’ (yard-long resume filled with 1-year stints) or a ‘hacker’ (passable tennis player, but nothing more) or an ‘obsessive’ (sacrifices enjoyment of the journey for getting to the end result as quickly as possible). In other words, keeping all options open may lead you to become the infamous “Jill of all trades; master of none.”
can’t go down all paths simultaneously. And since the journey towards mastery is long and slow, you can’t go down too many paths sequentially either. So you must choose; then put on blinders to everything else. Otherwise, you become what Leonard describes as a ‘dabbler’ (yard-long resume filled with 1-year stints) or a ‘hacker’ (passable tennis player, but nothing more) or an ‘obsessive’ (sacrifices enjoyment of the journey for getting to the end result as quickly as possible). In other words, keeping all options open may lead you to become the infamous “Jill of all trades; master of none.”
Life in the 21stcentury offers a dazzling array of choices at all times. It’s difficult to decide what to focus on in the next half hour, let alone the next 10 years. One of the reasons we favor the urgent over the important is it postpones our decision; in our minds we don’t have to give up on anything. We’re constantly busy and active. Yet we don’t choose to act; the situation chooses us and we react. And we imagine that this makes us important. Yet does anyone strive to have “Was a part of every email chain” on their gravestone? Choosing not to choose does not lead to fulfillment.
If we choose thoughtfully, there are things we can master. There are things our organization/business can master. And there are things our supporters, through us, can master as well. These things will be meaningful because we love them, and because others value them. By embarking on the journey towards mastery, we will achieve fulfillment and success.
What have you mastered that people value?
What do you do that is outstanding and that no one else does quite the way you do?
What can your supporters master through you? They may not be able to save the entire world, but who canthey save?
