Tag: mastery

What You Master in 15,000 Hours

If Malcolm Gladwell is right then it takes 10,000 hours to master something at the highest level.  I guess that means after the 15,000 hours a typical kid spends in public school they become a master and a half.  But at what?

Certainly not geography, or history, or math, or English, or any of the other arbitrary slivers of factual knowledge called “subjects”.  The learning is too fragmented, inconsistent, and lifeless.  If it’s not the subjects themselves what is the predominant trait or skill that happens consistently throughout that entire, nearly life-consuming 15,000 hours of schooled childhood?  What do kids master?

Seeking permission.

Children master the art of being permission seekers.  They lose the ability, to borrow from James Altucher, to choose themselves.  Each of those 15,000 hours share in common the absence of choice.  Students aren’t free to explore or follow their curiosity outside of incredibly narrow bounds, both metaphorical and cinder block and barbed wire.  Permission must be sought to speak, go to the bathroom, or do anything differently than the officially sanctioned authority figure has prescribed.

Is it any wonder people stick around in unhappy jobs and relationships?  Is it any wonder people numbly obey sometimes absurd and immoral laws?  Is it any wonder people don’t deviate from the education, career, and life path that was explicitly pushed on them?  Is it any wonder people don’t believe in or take pride in themselves or others in the absence of external rewards and badges and credentials?

Sometimes people say that anything other than 15,000 hours in school is radical.  I’m all for radical, but I can’t help but find it an odd way to view not sending your kids to school.  As John Taylor Gatto said,

“Is there a more radical idea in the history of the human race than turning your children over to total strangers who you know nothing about? Having those strangers work on your child’s mind, out of your sight, for a period of twelve years?”

15,000 hours.  Let’s hope Gladwell is wrong.

My Ceaseless Quest to Make Myself Useless

I’m on a ceaseless quest.  This quest it based on a belief about myself and the world:

For everything that I do there is someone somewhere who can do it better.

When I start doing something new my quest is always to find the person who can do it better and hand over the reins as soon as possible.

Where and when I’ve succeeded at that, I’ve succeeded.

I fully believe the maxim that you’ll be most successful when you find and do the things that no one else can do as well – the things that are uniquely you.  But if I always believe there is someone who can do everything I do better, and I’m always trying to find them and hand it off, what does that make me uniquely good at?

I don’t really know.  Here are two possible answers.  One is that at any given time I might be the best person for something.  So that’s what I’ll be doing.  But that time is limited.  In the long run, even though I might be uniquely perfect for something at first, someone else might be better.

The other possible answer is that my most unique and valuable skill is replacing myself.

Maybe I’m best at breaking new ground, getting the basics figured out, identifying nascent talent in someone else, and transitioning things to them so they can blossom in a way no one else – including me – ever could.

Whatever the answer I am totally confident that, given enough time, I can find someone who can do everything I do better.  This doesn’t threaten or bother me.  It fills me with excitement!  Where are they?  How can I find them?  How soon can I get them catapulted to heights I could never reach?  When can I replace myself with someone better?

If you share a similar disposition know you’re not alone.  If you know you’re a jack of many trades but master of none don’t fear.  That’s its own kind of mastery.  At least I hope so.  It’s worked pretty well for me so far and I’m having fun.