“I’m Bill S. Preston, Esquire.” “And I’m Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan.” – Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Be excellent to each other. Oh, and party on, dudes.
Why do you want to get better?
The better you are, the more you can do. The more you can do, the more lives you touch. This provides more life satisfaction – the idea that you’re good at something is one facet of meaning. And if you’re good at the right things, it also means more money.
Let’s look at Amazon©. Jeff Bezos was a huge help in writing this post tonight. I got the following from Amazon®:
- Ink for pen that I took notes with.
- Notecards that I put my notes on.
- Laptop that I wrote the post on.
- Extra charger for the laptop because the dog eated the first one.
Let’s look at Microsoft©: Bill Gates and Paul Allen were the founders and leaders of the company that made:
- The operating system on my laptop.
- Microsoft® Word™, which I wrote this post on.
Together these three men during their lives have touched massive numbers of people. Oh, wait, that was Harvey Weinstein. But when you create a business that legitimately touches people’s lives and fulfills their desires? Yeah. You’re going to get money in addition to the satisfaction of sending notecards to a guy who ordered them on his couch at midnight.
When Bezos goes grocery shopping, Bezos goes grocery shopping.
I know that there are reasons to be concerned about both companies, but that’s not this post. The principle remains that the economic way to make money is to make people happy. And the only way you can do that is if you’re excellent. The more excellent? The more money. And it’s Wilder Wealthy Wednesday . . . so . . .
So how do you get better?
Step 1 –Study. And Do. And Study.
I’m not sure which one comes first. And it doesn’t matter. Sometimes I read a book about a subject before trying it. I’m sure that The Boy would have preferred I just jumped into diaper changing, but reading the book only took two hours. Man he could yell.
Sometimes I try something without reading about it. Say, programming an infinite loop into the school’s mainframe that caused it to store zeros until its memory overflowed – this actually happened. You should have seen the printout. Good times.
Practice and study are critical. Practice without study is just action. Study without practice is just academic. You have do both together to make meaningful progress.
Is study limited to books? No. Studying the results of your actions is studying. I study the results of my blog:
- Which posts are most popular? (Ones where I use the word “booger”.)
- Which method of writing brought the best quality post? (English, rather than a language I made up myself, regardless of how musical it sounds when I throat sing a translation of Poker Face.)
- Is blocking out the post on notecards better than writing it out on loose paper? (Yes. Better still? Bake it into a clay tablet.)
- Is Ben Affleck better in The Accountant® than he is in Justice League™? (Yes.)
- Am I getting tired of listening to Ben Affleck as I write these posts? (Yes.)
Step 2 –Get Feedback. Honest Feedback. (Or, better living through jerkishness)
Honesty is hard to find. Unless you know a horrible person like me. Let’s go into the wayback machine to when I was in college. I may have written this story before, but follow along anyway – this will be a better version.
I was a sophomore in the Humanities Honors program. It was like the regular classes, but you got a B instead of an A for the same quality work. Part of the rather chaotic curriculum was giving speeches. I can’t remember the topic, but the speeches were long. Really long. Twelve minutes to fifteen minutes long.
One student got up to give a speech. I’ll call her Sandra.
She was nervous. Horribly nervous. The speech was halting, and punctuated with “uh” throughout. At the seven minute mark of the speech I started counting the “uh” content of the speech while I timed it. Every time she said “uh”, I put a hash mark on a piece of paper. As she continued speaking, I kept putting hash marks on the paper in front of me.
At the end of the speech, I tallied up the number of times she said “uh”. It was in the hundreds. Really a huge number. I then divided by the number of minutes I’d been counting them.
I have no idea why the instructors went around the room to ask for critiques from the students, but they did. Most people said, “good speech” or some vaguely worded praise.
Not me.
“You said ‘uh’ 221 times in the last seven and a half minutes of your presentation. That’s 29 times a minute. That made it really hard to listen to.”
The room went silent. If a stare was dangerous, Sandra’s eyes would have been coveted as a weapon of mass destruction by nation states that use handfuls of brightly colored tissue paper instead of actual money. I think the United States developed a “hate stare” weapon during the 1960’s, only to shelve it due to the Geneva Convention banning its use as a war crime.
Anyway, it was that kind of stare. Ever make a woman really, really, really mad at you? That stare.
The next person then gave a vague “good speech” comment.
Fast forward a month. It was the next time for a presentation. Sandra got up to speak.
And it was amazing. Eloquent. Perfectly pronounced, not a single “uh” to be found. Not one. It was certainly the best speech that day. During the speech, when her eyes looked up from the podium, they looked directly at me. They were not happy eyes.
Once again, the professors turned to the students for critique. My turn. “That may have been the best speech I’ve heard this year. Great job, Sandra.”
Not a bit of emotion crossed her face. But her eyes said, “I hope you are nibbled to death by flaming diseased miniature poodles in hell again and again and I want you to have to watch Ben Affleck movies while they eat you.” That was oddly specific. But, hey, she was on a roll.
I’m sure she hates me to this day. But she’s better because of me – I changed her life.
Real friends give real feedback. And at least at my house, we’re pretty honest. Do a good job? Praise is coming in. Whine and make a sound like a coyote in a blender? It’s gonna be a long day for you as we mock you. But it’s universal. It’s meant in love, and a requirement of feedback is trust. My kids know I’m on their side even when I’m being critical.
Did I have that bond of trust with Sandra? Not so much. But don’t let anyone tell you that hate isn’t a performance enhancing drug.
The poet Robert Burns said it best: “O wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us!” But based on the typing? He was drunk.
Seek honest feedback. And treat it earnestly – it’s a gift, or a “giftie.” Or I can provide the feedback for a small fee. For a larger fee, you can hate me. For an even larger fee I’ll watch a Ben Affleck movie with you while you hate me.
Step 3 –Get Better Each Time. A Lot at First, A Little Later On. (As proven by a graph on a sketchy blog.)
The Mrs. mocked me when I bought little notecards that were graph ruled.
“When would you ever need to use those?”
Well, tonight:
See the pretty graph? I did it myself, bet you can’t tell! And, see, I DID SO have a use for those notecards!
This is an S-Curve. An S-Curve is a particular curve that describes several natural phenomena. It’s also known as the “Logistics Curve.” Here I’ve applied it to learning.
Several studies have suggested (not that I necessarily take them as gospel) that it takes ten years or 10,000 hours of constant study, practice and effort to become world class at something. That’s reasonable. I mean, not reasonable, that seems like an unreasonable amount of work. Maybe realistic is a better word.
But Pareto taught us the 80/20 rule: 80% of the work is normally done by 20% of the workers. 80% of a need words in a foreign language is learned in 20% of time required to master the language.
And that’s the good news: in two years (or less) you can get to an 80% competence level. And that’s good enough for most people. “Meh” is most of what we really need in our daily lives.
But the last 20% is where greatness is. Yes, you’re not going to get world class recognition if you don’t have at least some talent. Unless you’re Ben Affleck.
Now the fine print: this world class thing does not apply to the talentless or stupid or physically unable. You’ll just never get there unless you have some basic ability in what you’re doing.
But beware: talent can be your enemy. I’ve seen some talented kid wrestlers start out winning early on, say “state champ” at age six. But they’ve got a great move, say a headlock. Headlocks are like Sesame Street®. They work great on kids, but are ineffective, no matter how well they are done when you hit high school. So the “state champ” who had a talent for headlocks . . . now can’t win a match. They never had to work to learn to be fully competent in wrestling. And Marcus Aurelius used wrestling as a metaphor, so that makes me smart.
Remember, the core tenant of Buddhism is “babes are excellent.”
Step 4 –Experiment. Each Moment Is A New One.
I was listening to the radio one night and an odd guest said one of the most profound things I’ve ever heard. “An infinite possibility lies between one word and the next. That space, that pause gives you the ability to change the future with your words. The space between the words is infinite. Own it.”
Okay, he didn’t really say that. But he did say something that made me think that. Each time I write is an experiment. An opportunity with infinite possibility. So I try new things. I even try things that didn’t work in the past. Maybe I just sucked. Maybe the audience was distracted by shiny things that day.
Every experiment is like that space between the words – filled with infinite possibility.
And don’t be focused on victory today. Like that six year old state wrestling champ, victory now is probably not as important as victory later. Sometimes focusing on victory now robs your ability to be daring and experiment, and because World Emperor or something later.
I’ve learned more from times I’ve lost than times I’ve won. Seek to push yourself to failure.
Experiment.
Step 5 –Experts. Find Them. There are Smarter and More Experienced People Than You.
We’re spoiled by YouTube. If I want to learn to lay tile, I can find video after video teaching me how. This dispersed knowledge and these teachers can help you get to 80% competence more quickly than ever. You can learn everything from floor tiling to making cookies to forging a sword to rifle shooting to melting aluminum cans into aluminum ingots in your back yard, although that’s probably not legal in California.
Lincoln was also a wrestler. I’m sensing a theme here . . .
But learning from these experts requires humility. And humility requires courage. The best advice I ever gave a new employee is in this story:
John Wilder: “So, did you get [that thing] done?”
New Graduate Employee: “Well, you see that I was working on trying to . . .”
I held up my hand. “Stop right there. What rank did you graduate in high school, top of your class?”
NGE: “Yes.”
John Wilder: “And in college, you were near the top, right?”
NGE: “Yes.”
I gestured up and down the hallway. “Every one of your coworkers was best in their high school class. Every one of them was near the top of their college class. Each of them is smart. Some of them are smarter than you. When you were in elementary school, they always asked you the questions, because you knew the answers, right?”
He nodded.
“You’re not expected to know the answers here, you’re expected to be honest, work hard, and learn. You’re smart, so you can do those things quickly. My boss? He’s smarter than me. And I graduated at the top of my class. The crazy thing is, when he doesn’t know something, he asks people to explain it. No hesitation. So when I ask you a yes or no question . . . answer yes or no. Don’t tell me a story. Answer the question. And for heaven’s sake, if you don’t know something? Ask.”
Best advice I ever gave, outside of never engaging in a land war in Asia. Why do they never listen?
Step 6 –Never Give In, Never Give In, Never, Never, Never . . . (Unless You Should)
Giving up on the excellence graph is easy. Working for years is hard. Even worse? Working for years at something you don’t like that you’ll never be good at. I’d love to give you some sort of meter that told you which was which, but that’s life – you have to figure it out. But see Step 5 – you can ask.
Again: for most things in life, a “Meh” competence level of 80% mastery is awesome.
Morpheus would have been awesome in Bill and Ted! Oh, wait . . . maybe Bill and Ted is the prequel to The Matrix?
So, that’s it. Follow these six steps and you can be excellent.
Parting thought: Ryan Holiday (link) wrote that passion is about you. Purpose is about a mission that’s bigger than you – and that’s a reason to drive and strive for excellence. So, have purpose, not passion.
But passion is forged in competence. If you get better, it breeds passion. And if you can have your passion and purpose? Why not both?
