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.

Plan To Fail!!

It's the start of the new year and many people set off with resolutions in hand ready to take on the world. For many people, a few weeks into January is when cracks in the well laid plans begin to show up. Perhaps it's not following through and going to the gym, or not eating just a little bit more sensibly.

Although you may not have done exactly what you set out to do, this isn't the end of the world unless you decide that's the case. Richard Bandler, one of the founders of NLP mentioned something really interesting years ago. To paraphrase, he said that people should incorporate some failing along the way to reaching their goals. Most people can count on falling off their plans at some point, so you may as well plan on it. If you do, you can also plan to get back on track.

When people fall off of their plan, many define this as failure and stop. Instead, if you define it as a setback, or part of the overall process, you can pick it up again the next day and get moving again.

I love this shot of Andy Murray. Andy had come unbeliveably close to winning a major in tennis again and again. He had 4 runner ups before finally winning his first major. He was the first playing from the UK to win a major in 76 years. Not bad.

Mr W.

This is a wonderful little piece. Beyond being a clever short commercial, it really speaks to significance of a person finding their unique talents or calling in the world.