Mindset

How to be the best you can be? “Nobody worked harder than Mozart. By the time he was 28 years old, his hands were deformed because of all the hours he had spent practicing, performing and gripping a quill pen to compose.”

MISSING ELEMENT
“That’s the missing element in the popular portrait of Mozart. Certainly, he had a gift that set him apart from others. He was the most complete musician imaginable, one who wrote for all instruments in all combinations, and no one has written greater music for the human voice. Still, few people, even those hugely gifted, are capable of the application and focus that Mozart displayed throughout his short life.

EASY AFTER 20 YEARS OF PRACTICE
“As Mozart himself wrote to a friend, ‘People who think my art comes easily to me are wrong. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times.’

IT IS ALL ABOUT FOCUS
“Mozart’s focus was fierce; it had to be for him to deliver the music he did in his relatively short life, under the conditions he endured, writing in coaches and delivering scores just before curtain went up, dealing with the distractions of raising a family and the constant need for money. Whatever scope and grandeur you attach to Mozart’s musical gift, his so-called genius, his discipline and work ethic were its equal.”

Mozart’s “gifts” were study, discipline and work ethic.

If you want to get mastery in your craft without spending 10,000 hours as Malcolm Gladwell suggested.
The mindset to realize is that your success depends on you having zero talent but 100 percent dedication.
Discipline, persistance, perspiration is far more important than qualification, talent or inspiration.
So, we need a methodical system in order to improve consistently.

Famed business strategist and peak performance coach Anthony Robbins once said mastership of a discipline means you can differentiate on the smallest level.
For instace, the Inuit have hundreds words for snow, while most Western languages only have one – snow. Now why is that ?
It’s based on survival. The Inuit live in snowy regions. The ice is a part of their lives, so differentiating between hundred kinds of snow is essential to their survival.

It’s no different in the creative business. Show some clueless person a pencil and he says, yeah, well, it’s just a pencil.
Show a pencil to an illustrator and she’ll say, it’s a 4B pencil with a lead that breaks if you hold at a steep angle. It works best on rough, yellow cream paper. It’s best used for rough drawings because the lead is soft and won’t allow for details. It easily smears and can easily be erased, opposed to pencils in the H range that crank out fine details but are hard to erase and destroy the paper because the lead is so hard it edges right through it.

If you want to get damn good at your craft, you have to do the same. And dissection will get you there.
Dissection means you break your craft down to its tiniest components. Here’s how.

Ask yourself the right questions
If you want to learn kick-ass writing, take it apart. Choose paragraphs that you think are well written and ask good writers what makes these paragraphs part. Or find it out yourself. When I read Seth Godin, I asked myself what made his writing so effective. Asking top people in the field to help me analyze them is the best education you can get.

Learn the principles
Once you get used to breaking down your skill in its essential parts, it’s time to learn the underlying principles.
Now remember – principles are not rules, they are tools that can evolve and change.

Do the original remix
So first you break your skill into its pieces.
Then you learn the basic theory of assembling the pieces.
And now ? You learn how to assemble pieces in different ways.
Originality is really good remixing of existing ideas.
Ergo, lack of originality is really bad remixing.
The more original you want to be, the more original you have to choose your remix-able sources.
That’s why you should get interested in topics OUTSIDE of your chosen craft.
A broad, multi-interest in diverse topics will maximize your potential for original remixing.
And the further the sources of your input are from each other, the more original your output.

Now, what do you do to get damn good at your craft?

Source: Mars Dorian

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THE MINDSET SHIFT THAN CQAN TRANSFORM YOUR WORK LIFE
Employee and Onwer think dont learn, think, or decide the same way. But could they?
Is there something you think your business should do to make things better? Have you wondered why nobody is doing anything about it? Well, your boss and your company are waiting on you. Your colleagues need you to start thinking and acting like an owner. Don’t wait for a “mandate” from management… Instead, take action and test out good ideas.

What you can do today to start acting like an owner? Is there a project you’d like to take on or a problem you want to fix? The only path to becoming a real owner, to growing your income, and to advancing your career is to start acting like one today.

8 WAYS AN OWNER THINK ABOUT BUSINESS

1. An owner thinks about his reputation and how he wants the business to operate a decade from now, and acts accordingly.

2. Because reputation matters, an owner treats everyone with respect: Customers, vendors, staff, and peers.

3. When an owner encounters a problem, he takes responsibility for the problem and works to fix it.

4. An owner is brave. He’s not afraid to ask hard questions. He’s not afraid to take action. He understands that sometimes he’ll make mistakes and he accepts this inevitability. He sees these mistakes as just part of the process so he’s quick to forgive himself and others who make honest mistakes.

5. An owner wants to get better every day. He sees the potential in people and works to encourage them. He sees the potential in the business and isn’t satisfied until that potential is realized.

6. An owner is never a victim. He accepts responsibility for his circumstances, the good and the bad.

7. An owner is a builder. He loves brainstorming new ideas, but knows that taking action is the key to success.

8. An owner takes initiative. He gives himself permission to act on good ideas and to do what he thinks needs to be done.

As the business grows, adopting an “Owner’s Approach” becomes critical because a top-down, command-and-control approach simply doesn’t work on scale. A large organization needs individuals who can think and act on their own.

Source: ETR by Cooper