What is modeling and why bother?

I was wedged in between a bunch of people in a crowded club. The crowd was going crazy with applause and chanting for my buddy Mike's band to come back on for an encore. Mike walked out alone and started to sing while playing his guitar solo. Within a few minutes he had the crowd erupting again. As he walked off the stage, the crowd yelled for more. Mike returned to the mic and with a smile on his face said 'I have no more to give.'

Growing up, this type of experience made no sense to me. I also played music, but suffered from tremendous stage fright. I hated performing. What didn't make sense to me was that Mike looked like he was actually having fun. One day I asked Mike how he got himself to play in front of people and how he dealt with the fear. He looked confused and asked me 'What fear?' Mike explained that he loved performing and that he felt most like himself when he was in front of a crowd.

The fact that two people can have such a different experience of the world has always fascinated me. Modeling is a process that helps you discover what these differences are. Modeling is the process of learning how people do and experience the things they do. There are many different ways to model and as a result, there are many different types of models. One way to think about a model is as a description of how someone gets a particular result. A map is a model of the structure of roads. A recipe describes the steps to take to cook a particular dish. A good model will show you how to get a particular result or how to access a skill or behavior. 

I dream of sushi: Micro Mastery

In the film Jiro dreams of sushi, you get to take a look into the life of a sushi master. It's fascinating to see all the many aspects of this skill of making sushi and putting together what must be an amazing meal. Beyond that, you get to see several of his apprentices and what they experience from day to day. One character spends what looks like several months learning how to make a Japanese form of an omelet that's used in sushi. He attempts a particular part of the process where you have to flip the omelette. Again and again, he makes a mistake and the omelet is ruined. Then finally there is a moment when he gets it and you can see tears of relief in his eyes. 

Learning a skill can be very challenging and especially so if you have no idea how you're doing or if you're making progress. It can often seem overwhelming to practice all of the various elements of an ability.  In this situation, it can be really helpful to focus on a small aspect of the skill and focus much of your effort on that small realm. In this way, you can begin to develop some sense of competence at least in that area. In other words, you get to feel some sense of accomplishment or skill throughout the process of learning. Once you begin to master that piece, you can expand the range of your efforts and pick your next area of focus. 

Reach Out or why You Should Crash and Burn

One day I was walking down the street and I saw a guy sitting on the stairs of one of those film trailers. He looked up and we both ended up saying hello. After I said hello, I looked at him a little more closely and said "You're Nick Nolte," to which he replied. "That's right." We chatted for a while and it turned out that he was a really nice guy.

Not long after that, I was talking to one of my friends and he mentioned that he had received a letter from the president of Mercedes. I asked him how he had happened to get a letter from him and he said, "I wrote him a letter." He went on to tell me that in his experience he lad learned that people read their mail, even high profile people. As a result, he had learned to reach out to people when there was a good reason to do so.

Here's an interview where Steve Jobs discusses the same type of situation.

Chess and the Möbius Strip

I was playing chess with my buddy Mike one day and from the look of things doing pretty well. I seemed to have a decent position and was fairly certain that I was finally going to beat him.  I looked at my pieces thoughtfully as if contemplating where to move next, although I knew exactly where I was going. After just enough time to build reasonable suspense, I moved my piece, taking one of Mike's.  I could barely wait for the next move when I was pretty sure I would mate him.  Unfortunately things didn't turn out that way. Mike blocked my move and mated me on the following turn.

I was beat again and this helped solidify my belief that Mike was simply better then me in chess and that it was unlikely that I'd beat him any time soon.  We played a couple more games with similar results and then something interesting happened. Mike's sister joined in for a game and played me next. I was just getting concerned that chess talent might run in the family, but after a fairly straightforward game, I beat her. This was encouraging and started raising my spirits.  Next Mike and his sister played.  In no time at all, she whooped him. I couldn't believe it. I had yet to get a single game off of him. 

Next we repeated the exercise with the same results. Almost without fail, I'd beat his sister, she'd beat him and he'd beat me. In that moment I realized that I was both a better and worse player than my buddy Mike and his Sister. 

Learning to suck.

Want to get good at something? Learn how to suck at it. Actually, in the beginning of any activity, you're probably going to be pretty bad, so it's not so much about learning how to suck, but rather, learning how to deal with the fact that you suck at it for the moment.  

That's the key actually. You're only going to suck for the moment, and the greater your tolerance for being bad, the greater your progress will be.  Unless you can begin to make tons of mistakes and begin to learn from them, you won't be able to grow.

I ran into a wonderful example of this recently. I was sitting in a cafe and heard an American guy speaking in Japanese to a woman. I thought his Japanese was pretty bad. In actuality, his pronunciation was pretty bad. As I continued to listen, I realized that his Japanese was actually great. I speak some Japanese and although I think my accent is much better than this guys, he can speak much more than I can. He has a much broader command of the language. This is due to the fact that he's willing to speak again and again and again(I asked him.) 

I have tended to be extremely cautious in my speaking of Japanese. I want to sound perfect and don't feel comfortable taking chances. Ultimately, this has really hindered my progress. 

I notice that in the areas of my life where I excel, I got to the point where I was willing to be bad, really bad until I got good at it.  

Create an Environment for Growth.

Tony Robbins often says that if you want to change the quality of true life, change your environment. Nothing can be more true. In my own life, I can see that certain environments make progress virtually inevitable while others actually hinder progress.

Environment can include your physical settings, the people you surround yourself with, the groups you belong to and the culture at your work.

If you think you can't do something, surround yourself with people who are doing it. If you want to work out, find a community of folks who work out all the time.  If you want to learn a language, surround yourself with people who speak that language. If you'd like a new job, find people who make it a habit to further their career. Once you find the poeple, progress occurs virtually on its own. That being said, it doesn't hurt to ask people about how they've achieved the things they've done. I find that people are almost always excited to share what they know.

Be Like Miles

There I was again.  I was attempting to learn how to play a Miles Davis solo on my guitar and it happened.  Everything was moving along nicely and then he played a line that I just couldn't figure out, let alone play. This happened just about every time a tried to transcribe someone's solo. Miles was in fact pretty good learn from because he tended to play very few notes and he played them slowly. I found this incredibly frustrating. I was beginning to think that I wasn't cut out for this type of activity or that I had a 'bad ear.'

I must have played that particular line in the solo 100 times. I'd hit rewind endlessly to no avail. I started from the beginning of the solo and reviewed the pieces I knew and then a new idea hit me. I thought that I should go through as many solos of miles that I could find and just learn the easy bits. If I could only get a few notes from each that was fine. I started doing this and within a few weeks I was astounded by the results. Suddenly I could hear all kinds of things that I hadn't been able to decipher a few weeks earlier. My ears had seemingly grown.

Here are a few ideas that make this work.

Slow down:
Whether you're learning a piece of music or practicing a martial art, from time to time, slowing down the tempo at which you take in information, or practice something will help you learn more smoothly than stumbling at a quick tempo.

Practice small, easy pieces:
Focus your efforts on very short discreet pieces that are very easy for you. Practicing something that is too difficult can prove to be counterproductive. Furthermore, it's an indication that you haven't really mastered the skill that lead up to that.

Practice pieces that you like:
Practicing pieces that you like will build greater and greater motivation to keep practicing versus building frustration.

By applying these guidelines, I've found that  I'm able to make progress at a good pace in places where I had previously been stuck. Although you may not end up sounding like Miles or your favorite musician, I think you'll be pleased with the results.