Yesterday, I had a rather interesting conversation with my 10 year old son.
Like all 10 year old boys, he loves video games but hates school, or more so, doing his homework and studying for exams.
He would rather go to the dentist and have his teeth cleaned than have to do his homework.
For him, the mere word, “study” brings up all sorts of bad and negative images. It’s as though studying is his version of a four letter bad word.
I thought, I would explore this further to examine just how he came to link that up in his head.
I remember, an old cassette audio track of Tony Robbins, entitled, Power Talk.
In the audio, Tony explains a consultation he did with a young boy who was labeled learning disabled.
The young boy, met Tony for a one to one session, and brought with him his school record, which was, to say the least, rather large.
Tony, briefly looked over the school record, while glancing back at the young boy.
What he noticed, was that as soon as Tony examined the school record, the boy’s composure and attitude quickly changed from pleasant and alive to one of being depressed and hunched over.
Tony took the record, tore it up, and said, “This is horse wash!”
The boy was quite startled by this.
And Tony, continued to say, ” I know you are much smarter than what this school record says, I even bet there are some things that you are pretty good at, right?”
The boy, leaned in, and said, “Well, yeah, I like surfing.”
Tony then asked, “Tell me about surfing and what would you do if you created a surfing school?”
The boy immediately changed his entire demeanor and began to get really excited about the idea of a surfing school.
What Tony had done was pure genius.
He had connected a word that the boy liked, surfing, with the word school, one that was not so high on his lists of favorites.
Now every time the boy talked about school he got really excited.
The end result, this boy’s “learning disabilities,” quickly vanished and the boy began to get high marks at school.
Regressing back to the original story about my son.
Having remembered this story, and knowing that my son’s all time favorite thing in the world to do is to play video games, and that the absolute worst thing in the world for him to do is to study, I proceeded along the same lines as Tony.
I asked my son about video games and how did he learn to get so good?
He told me all the moves and maneuvers he had to learn.
I then asked him, how did you study all those moves?
He told me that he watched others that were better than him and practiced.
I asked, “So you studied all of those players that were better than you, and you learned how to be the best?”
He said ,”Yeah, of course.”
I asked, “And what would you think if you had a video game school, where each class was a different video game and you were the professor, what would you have to do?”
He got all excited, and proceeded to shared all of his ideas.
I then, asked, “So you studied and learned to become great? Isn’t that what you sort of do in school now?”
His eyes had a confused look, which is a great thing, it means, that he has a new perspective, the tiny little circuits in his brain, were now firing and re-wiring differently, sort of like the proverbial light bulb over the head, kind of moment.
And then he told me, “Oh I see, studying is a good thing? Right?”
I said, “Yes studying and learning are both good things?”
In conclusion, the way to mastery can be found in this short story that I have shared with you.
Lessons to Mastery:
1) Find something that you are passionate about. i.e. Surfing, Video Games, etc.
2) Find those that are better than you.
3) Imitate, study, and learn & practice how those that are better than you, do what they do. For example: physiology, mental syntax, beliefs.
4) Keep practicing and learning, until you get to where you want to be, and then after that, keep practicing and learning even more. The life of mastery is not a destination, it is found in the journey.
Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.
Albert Einstein
1 Comment