Daily Closer

According to Malcolm Gladwell's acclaimed novel, Outliers, the formula for expertise is a matter of time invested honing the skill. 10,000 hours to be exact. Allegedly, the only difference between a virtuoso of the violin and a non-violinist can be attributed to a mere 10 year, 3 hour per day investment repeatedly practicing the craft. I believe this to be an improper analysis of a complex issue converted into a wrong unit of measurement - numbers. There are late bloomers, explosively quick learners, early birds and mid-life yet thorough innovators and they all have stories behind them that cannot simply be equated to a matter of time invested. What if there were a way to predict gainful expertise in an area, though, and you could do it by looking at three key things in the developmental stages of the knowledge? Would that be interesting?

I'd be inclined to say so, which I did and began probing through the skills acquired by moderately to extremely wildly successful industry folk. I'm absolutely convinced that no matter what it is you wish to become an expert at, the foundation upon which you build those skills is the most critical component. The foundation I'm talking about is being a masterful beginner, or I should say, becoming an expert at beginning things. Due to the fact that our entire first impressions of a craft are based upon our initial reactions with it, we must actively take a stance that sets us up to become extraordinary or no matter how "genetically prone" or however many hours you invest in practicing it you will fall short of outstanding. Excellent at best.

The great news is you can change today and even rebuild a new foundation for an old attempt of skill architecture. Here are three killer ways to start your path towards becoming a better beginner...



3. Get Seriously Curious 

The things we inevitably become "naturals" at are those which either start with an innate, deeply underscored curiosity or a forced sense of curiousness. When you're a child you experience this phenomenon effortlessly, and over time due to our brains picking up on similar patterns of everything we do and experience in life this can start to slightly fade. Unless you purposefully tune in to it and work your curiosity like a muscle on a daily basis. Look around and remember the world is changing on a moment by moment basis while your busy going about your daily routine. A lot of times opportunities arise within our line of sight but we lack the tuned in vision to see that something new has popped up in our reality, so the opportunity goes unnoticed. Remaining curious will keep your keenly aware of these things, and also be the kick start of motivation that propels you to dig deeper into topics and things of interest. It will drive you to constantly adapt while learning the array of new skills you're immersing yourself in to become an expert at your craft, which is an essential part of practice.

Think about it, if you monotonously played the same sequence on a piano over and over again, you'd be rehearsing technically but would you be growing? If you're not growing every time you practice or utilizing a skill, you're not pushing yourself. Imagine a bodybuilder that used the same weights whenever they hit the gym. Their body would undergo some minor strength changes but it would adjust to the current stimulus and nothing would change, so their physique (expertise) would remain the same. In order to progress you need to thrive on challenge within any area of study whether you're learning to play guitar or working on becoming an outstanding salesperson.



2. Physically, Mentally & Emotionally Embody A Master

Recent studies done from Northwestern University explicitly show that what you wear affects you inside and out. Mood, intellect, attentiveness, the works. Essentially, you are what you wear but moreover you are what you immerse yourself in totally. The more thorough and convincing the immersion the better, so go all out, if you want to become a computer programmer buy or rent out every book, video and mp3 you can get your hands on that has anything to contribute to programming knowledge or industry. Join the forums, maybe attend a college campus class and start associating with others who are interested. Don't settle for general interest, though, you've got to be absolutely intrigued down to a gut level. Study what the current masters do. Eat it, breathe it, live it.

Let's say you've never been a so-called people person but for whatever reason you wake up one morning and decide that with all your heart you want to become a mobile home salesperson. You've never been overly talkative but mainly you've just been expected to be a more reserved person so you've played your role up until now, but deep down you've always felt a burning sensation to take control of social situation and influence people on a deep level. You want to inspire people to take action, and you want to be the best at it. So how do you go about undoing the old programming and contradicting beliefs you've picked up along the way? Simple. Begin eliminating the cues.

What's a cue, you ask? Any emotional, verbal, or physical event that acts as a trigger for that belief system and reinforces it. Sometimes they're people, in which case the simplest yet daunting route to go is to distance yourself from them. If they're in your life on a daily basis, you're going to need to make some cuts. Cut it down gradually if need be, but the fact remains that as long as you have these influences putting contradicting inputs into your mind you'll be fighting an uphill battle about removing your old limiting beliefs. We just have to get rid of them. Identify which people, places and things in the past have reflected that perception of you not being an exceptionally social individual - and cut 'em out, one by one.

After that it's just a matter of immersing yourself in sales and just like any position, you've probably already began acquiring complimentary skill sets up until this point that will aid in the process. Analytic skills, emotional intelligence, body language reading, etc.

We're a race of imitators. It's the basis of our creativity and how we have evolved technologically, too. With that in mind it's important you...



1. Eliminate The Beginner's Perception

When you first pick up a bicycle to learn how to ride it, you don't glare at it and wallow in your amateurism. You don't wonder what will happen if you never learn how to ride it. You just do it. Your deep level of interest drives you to just follow the path towards delving deeper into what you're interested in, which is riding a bike. Our minds learn to second guess, triple guess and re-evaluate every little thought and emotion we encounter as we age and our logical brains develop. We assess the nature of all things around us constantly, sometimes over-analyzing to a fault. The key here is to just immerse yourself in whatever it is you want to do, refuse to look at yourself as a beginner, and constantly be pushing what you can do with your craft. This is entirely different than faking it until you make it, but if you start out with your lack of experience in mind you'll be focused on the lack and less focused on progress. It's literally the difference between someone who fails and someone who refuses to accept logical explanation. "Beginner" is a reasonable explanation and being reasonable about your goals and aspirations just isn't that productive. Michael Jordan was unreasonable when he decided his high school coaches were wrong about him not being cut out for basketball. He did also become one the most iconic athletes in American history and very unreasonably wealthy.

Decide you are the greatest at a thing, do it and refuse to judge yourself along someone else's linear scale of great and you will become an expert through sheer willpower, persistence, and hard work. Will it take 10,000 hours of intense dedication to a thing for you to become an expert? Who knows.

I can assure you of one thing: you sure as hell don't want to spend 9,999 hours as a beginner.