It’s About Time, Become a Master at Something

Have you ever heard of the vibe, ‘Pick one thing and work at it for the next 5 years. Master it such that if anyone within a 1000 miles radius needed help with it, they would locate you even when blindfolded. Because your name has rippled across the oceans singing your praise!’

Meaning, Jack ain’t your portion. But Master is. Because as far as your thing is concerned, you are the pro!

You mean business.

But wait a minute, I bet you haven’t heard this version of the vibe because I just came up with it.

Come on, I’m an upcoming philosopher, an artist by calling, and writing is my bae. That earns me the right to theorize stuff and spread them across the globe for human consumption. Better still, how about you share the card below among your fellows?

Here is something I have learned over the forty-something years I’ve been around. Every expert has taken time to perfect their art, hence earning the G.O.A.T position in that area. No matter how tiny it seems at a glance. And when they have perfected their way through it, they create a name and businesses around it.

Copy This!

Think of the fellow with an angelic voice, singing their own compositions time and again. They didn’t begin in the lime light where you met them. Absolutely not. More often than not, they practiced in their family’s shower amidst the shouts of their siblings calling them to, “Get out, I need to bath too!”

That watchmaker your grandfather trusts with his aging Rolex has been tinkering with watches of all levels long before you were born. But he began at a street corner like any ordinary fellow. Then he saved enough to own the corner shop where your mates buy their bougie watches. Dare you ignore the experience he garnered over time as he perfected his trade.

How about the sought-after team building coach most organizations hired during their end year outings?

She started off with what seemed like childish games helping kids work together. Probably at her church. She then graduated to mind games for young adults. And realizing that folks in her office were growing cold and uptight by the day, she introduced Friday night meetups where her colleagues would play organized games in groups. That’s where the best ideas her company ever had were birthed. Then she branched out and became a solopreneur. A coach in the making.

The Hidden Gems

But what exactly stands hidden in the three examples above? Can you see the gems that turns a jack of all trades to a Master of one?

No sweat. We will visit each ingredient, one at a time.

Oh, and if you think this is all about New Year Resolutions, bearing the time of the writing, you are right because you thought so. But you could be wrong because you probably are reading this article somewhere deep in the year. May be even a pile of years down the line.

That leaves you with one option; to put this content to use wherever it finds you.

Hidden Gem 1: Time

Remember my quote;

‘Pick one thing and work at it for the next 5 years. Master it such that if anyone within a 1000 miles radius needed help with it, they would locate you even when blindfolded. Because your name has rippled across the oceans singing your praise!’

The ‘5 years’ indicates time, duh!

But that doesn’t mean you need to put in 5 solid years into a practice to create a business around it. Neither the watchmaker, nor the teambuilding coach needed to wait that long. They began learning their art and went to serve the masses. Only that they did it daily and time accumulated as they went to work, earning them the experience, the mastery, they have today. So did the singer. And every other G.O.A.T you know!

Whether you are moping around wasting time or fishing for gold in the dirt, whatever you put your mind to do daily begins to show results as early as in the second day. And by then you will either attract fellow time wasters, or bystanders wondering how far you can sink the gold mine. You will also gain experience in whatever you are doing, forming new brain patterns and turning the little activities into habits. Hence, getting better, and noticeable, by the day.

Lesson:
It doesn't take anyone 5 years to earn the title, 'fool'. A few days of practicing stupidity does the trick. Click To Tweet

Hidden Gem 2: Focus

But time alone doesn’t earn you the Master title. You need to give undivided attention to whatever it is you desire to excel in. Your something. The team building coach had to focus on observing people’s behaviour to create new and exciting games. Without such, all she would come up with would have been child’s play.

She had to ask herself difficult questions. The ‘what ifs’, ‘why nots’ and ‘how abouts’. She had to take to bed, for a jog and chill with uncomfortable scenarios so as to create mind-awakening activities around them. She had to practice behind the scenes and watch the results unfold.

That undivided attention bore the pro team building coach she turned out to be. If she was all over the place practicing 10 careers in the same season, she wouldn’t have become the expert. The master. The go-to-person on all matters team building.

Lesson:
When you spread yourself thin over several careers, time will only confirm the situation. You are in the No-Pro-Zone. Click To Tweet

Hidden Gem 3: Discipline

Ok, this bit is meant to wipe of that goony sneer from your face. I promise you it will.

Do you see that ripped dude with shoulders to die for?
If he told you that he invests at least 30 minutes every morning to do 5 sets of 50 push-ups with 5-minutes planks for breaks, would you still consider the shoulders worth dying for?

Discipline’s middle name is consistency. You can’t separate the two.

Think about it. The ripped dude not only crashes the extreme weights, but also religiously follows a diet that promotes wild muscle growth. His defined muscles, that you hardly can keep your hands from, takes consistency to build. Not to mention, he observes focused training, in this case training certain muscle groups at a time, hence wise time investment.

Lesson:
Unless you know what exactly you are working on, being disciplined in doing nothing yields a huge pile of nothing. Click To Tweet

What Then?

Towards the end of August 2022 I began noticing some outrageous lack of interest in almost everything I did. Trust me I did a lot. I trained and mentored folks in setting up and running businesses. The reason why this website existed. Note the past tense. I wrote, the content you read in this blog, and on Upwork as a freelance ghostwriter. I had several gigs as a teambuilding coach. And still facilitated various events over the course of the year.

The four activities stretched me thin and I began to morph into a jack of all trades, a master of none. Talk of all-over-the-place!

The question, “What am I really good at?” dominated my mind, yet I couldn’t come up with an answer.

Everyone knew me for one thing and not the other. And it was becoming difficult for me to define myself.

What to do? What to do? What to do?

The Eureka Moment

Actually, I didn’t know until this morning. I was talking to my ‘son’ and from the depth of the conversation I mustered, “Writing is bae.” And there it was. But I have been struggling to write. In fact, if you look closely, the posts here are far spaced.

The eureka moment though flooded torrents of wisdom pointing to one thing, what I write about here. I love writing things I can identify with. Things that don’t leave me feeling like fraud. And that’s what business training and mentorship made me feel because I’m yet to build enviable muscles in this area. Think business and recognition.

Even though I have the content right and my presentation skills are top notch, I still feel the need to grow before I can gather my own disciples. This is a feeling I can no longer ignore.

That leaves me with the option to elevate my writing. Commit 1-hour daily writing time. Focus on developing fictional stories with applicable every day life and business lessons. And do this consistently, nurturing the discipline that creates high expectation from my readers spread across 1000 miles radius. Thanks to the Internet, this is now child’s play.

That’s what I’m working on as we speak. And will persist in it until grandbabies are born and spread all over the world. So help me God!

I don’t know about you, but the truth is, if you don’t pick that one thing you want to excel in and begin working on it now, 5 years from today, you will look back and only see the quagmire of life you have created.

Yes you will make the money, and probably be happy, but if making a name is anything to go by, you will score ‘confusion’ in that sector. You can kiss the ‘Master’ title goodbye

I don’t mean to be mean, but what other means is there to mean ‘pick one thing and become a master in it’?