Break the rules often. So, what you want to do is, in your field of mastery, you want to study the great ones, you want to practice daily, you want to optimize consistently, you want to be monomaniacally focused on being BIW, Best in the World of what you do. Don’t try to master many things. Picasso wasn’t a chef. So, focus on one thing and do it really well. Play a very long game. Outlive your peers. It’s amazing what happens when you stay in one field longer than the world thinks you should stay in the field. People just get distracted, or repeat that again, people just get distracted. Unless you are in a field where the field is your oxygen, when you hit a wall, you’ll probably give up or you’ll get bored and then chase the next shiny toy.
So, this is the GCA, a Gargantuan Competitive Advantage. Stay in a field longer than anyone thinks you should stay in the field. And what you’re going to see is, people will start dropping out, they’ll start getting interested in other things, but you’re staying monomaniacally focused on being the sovereign leader, the supreme genius of what it is you do. And then, master the rules. Be the best in the world of what you do. Do it like no one else can do it.
Remember Steve Martin, he was asked by a young Hollywood comedian, how can I be the next Steve Martin? He said, be so good at what you do that we can’t ignore you. I want you, I challenge you with great love and respect, be so good at what you do, that when you do what it is you do, no one is able to do what it is you do. By the way, if you look at the best of the best, they’re so good at what they do.
When you watch them doing it, they make it look simple. Well, it takes 30 years of daily practice to make something look really simple. Because, creative masters know what not to do. If you look at a great artist like the masters, the great creatives, these people understand that it’s more about what you have the knowledge to leave out than what you put in. So, master the rules so that you can then break the rules. If you study Picasso, for example, I love going to the Born district of Barcelona and going to the
Picasso Museum. And what you’ll see is, early on his paintings were perfect. They weren’t surreal. He’s a master of surrealism. But, if you look now and you think about Picasso, it’s these strange figures and these strange faces. But, if you look at his earlier stages, he was technically perfect. If he was going to draw a human figure, it was the perfect human figure. He mastered the rules, he understood the traditional techniques.
Your job as an artist and a legendary creator is to understand the rules of your field, and then master the rules of your field, and then destroy the rules of your field. Because, then you stop listening to your intellect and you start trusting your instinct, and you have the confidence and you build the confidence to go, this is what the status quo says is the way to do my art, whatever your art is. But, I’m going to disrupt the field, and I’m going to be a merchant of wow, an MOW, a Merchant of Wow, and I’m going to
destroy the rules because I want to follow my heart and I want to do something special and here’s what excites me. Please write this down. When you do what lights you up, you light up the world.
And so, if you look at the magicians and the great artists, and I want you to be a great artist, whether you’re an entrepreneur, whether you’re an astronaut, whatever it is you do, you’ve got to master the rules through study and having a mentor and rigorous training year after year after year, sometimes you’re going to spend 25 years in anonymity before the world sees your gifts. But, don’t do it for the applause and the gifts and the appreciation of the world. Do it for what the path of mastery makes of
you as a human being and the virtues it teaches you like authenticity, and trusting your instinct, and independence of thought, and patience and resilience. When you get knocked out and laughed at you, keep on going. That’s the real reward of the path of mastery not being out in the world and everyone saying you’re amazing. That’s just ego-stroking. It really is. I want you to be one of those rare-air performers who pursues mastery for the internal heroic virtues versus for FFA, Fame, Fortune and Applause.