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The Mastery Riff

[THE TALK:]

[As many peo­ple know, I’ve given a lot of thought to the sub­ject of “Mas­tery” lately. With that in mind, here are the VERY ROUGH notes of the talk I gave recently at the first ever Ignite Miami:]

1. Like every­body else here tonight, I give a lot of thought to “Suc­cess”. What does it take to be suc­cess­ful, pros­prous, happy, have a sense of pur­pose etc? What does THAT actually look like?

2. And by suc­cess­ful, I don’t mean “lucky”. I don’t mean peo­ple born rich or lot­tery win­ners. That kind of suc­cess never comes from within, that kind of suc­cess is too exter­nal and ran­dom to bother worr­ying about.

3. Of course, the media LOVE suc­cess models of the outra­geously for­tu­nate– cele­brity artists, cele­brity busi­ness­men, cele­brity spi­ri­tual lea­ders, not to men­tion the Rea­lity TV, famous-for-being-famous crowd.

4. The thing is, I know TONS of super suc­cess­ful peo­ple, but none of them fit this extreme, celeb-lottery-winner TV model. Some of them are actually pretty boring, to be honest. But they lead happy lives and do VERY well career­wise. THAT is what most suc­cess looks like, if you think about it. The stuff on TV or in the movies just isn’t REAL enough to be that use­ful for us.

5. So I was thin­king about this again, recently, HARD. What model would work for these peo­ple, folk like you and me? A model that didn’t mean you had to sell your soul to Wall Street, Holly­wood or Washing­ton? A suc­cess model that doesn’t rely solely on the unli­ke­lihood of outra­geously good for­tune or plain, dumb luck?

6. Then quite by chance, I saw a great docu­men­tary the other week: “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”, a film about the world’s grea­test sushi mas­ter, and a light­bulb EXPLODED in my head.

7. Our man, Jiro doesn’t have a lot of money or own a fleet of trendy res­tau­rants in all the world’s capi­tals, a-la Wolf­gang Puck. He just has just a small, plain, dingy, ordi­nary, low-key sushi bar with ten seats in a Tokyo sub­way, the kind you’d pro­bably just walk by without stop­ping if you saw it. Ten seats!  Yet he’s the best in the world at what he does.

8. Jiro works over 350 days a year, ser­ves sushi and sashimi to peo­ple in very small num­bers, and THAT’S IT. Just sushi. No salad, no appe­ti­zers, no deserts. Like I said, JUST SUSHI. And by stic­king to this bare-bones for­mula, he’s become the first sushi chef in the world to win three Miche­lin stars.

9. A tiny little sushi bar in some ran­dom sub­way sta­tion. Yet peo­ple wait in line, peo­ple book a stool at his sushi bar as much as a year in advance, a pri­ces star­ting around $600 a head. Peo­ple have been known to fly all the way from Ame­rica or Europe, just to expe­rience a 30-minute meal. In a sub­way station!

10. I was lucky enough to have a simi­lar expe­rience first-hand when about eight years ago, I star­ted wor­king with the English Savile Row tai­lors. They make the best suits in the world; all– hand made, they go for about $5000 a pop.

11. The tai­lors have a simi­lar shtick as Jiro. They’re gene­rally not that rich, their busi­nes­ses are tiny, yet the great and the good worship at their feet. Cele­bri­ties, cap­tains of industry, peo­ple who are also world-class at what they do, like Jiro’s cus­to­mers, wai­ting as long as a year in advance to get their next suit.

12. Like Jiro, the tai­lors just get up every mor­ning and do their thing, day-in-day-out, humbly, quietly, without a lot of fan­fare, totally dedi­ca­ted to their jobs. I’ve seen it. On the sur­face, it’s quiet, calm and kinda dull.

13. And like Jiro, from my obser­va­tions they seem to have this sense of inner satis­fac­tion my Wall Street tra­der friends (who easily make ten times as much, on  a good day) can only dream of.

14. So as a result, Jiro and the Savile Row tai­lors are the peo­ple I really try to emu­late. Because it’s doa­ble. I can do that. I may never be as rich as Steve Jobs or Warren Buf­fet, I may never be lite­rally a rock star like Bono or Jag­ger, but I can be like Jiro and the tai­lors… or at least, more like them.

15. So like them, I live quietly, I get up every mor­ning and quietly get on with the busi­ness cran­king out my pro­duct, my car­toons. Like I said, quiet, calm and kinda dull.

16. So what’s their sec­ret? THE sec­ret? What is the sec­ret sauce that lets these other­wise quite ordi­nary peo­ple like Jiro and the tai­lors, lead such extraor­di­nary lives?

17. In a word: MASTERY. They’ve MASTERED something. Something inte­res­ting and valua­ble. They are MASTERS of their craft. It may be an old-fashioned word that makes peo­ple uncom­for­ta­ble, but that’s only because it’s something that elu­des most people.

18. Though, having watched these mas­ters care­fully first-hand, I can honestly say MASTERY is more satisf­ying than money. If you’re up for it, yes, MASTERY MATTERS MORE THAN MONEY, MASTERY MATTERS MORE THAN SUCCESS.

19. And it’s por­ta­ble. It tra­vels with you, whe­re­ver you go. No land­lord, no boss, no reces­sion, no Wall Street analyst, no news­pa­per cri­tic can take it away. It’s something that truly belongs to you, for always.

20. So when a young per­son asks me for career advice these days, I tell her, “Don’t worry about so much about money, fame, suc­cess, wha­te­ver. Worry about Mas­tery– that is something pre­cious you can actually con­trol. And yes, if you’ve achie­ved mas­tery, you’re more likely to be suc­cess­ful and pros­pe­rous, any­way.” Again, MASTERY MATTERS MORE THAN SUCCESS. So go for it. Thank you.

[P.S.: Thanks to Alex and Ana for making this hap­pen for me. I had a great evening!]

[MORE:]

“CIRCUMNAVIGATE RELENTLESSLY”

[One of Shrigley’s pie­ces that he did for The Guar­dian etc.]

Glas­gow artist, David Shri­gley is one of my favo­rite car­too­nists. And I have very few of those.

Unlike a lot of my car­too­nist heroes (Stein­berg, Gorey etc) David can’t draw to save his life, at least, not in the con­ven­tio­nal sense. His for­mal draf­ting skills (the ones he choo­ses to show the world, any­way) are just plain bad. I mean, REALLY bad.

And you know what? It doesn’t mat­ter. Actually, it may even be a good thing.

You see, the whole point of Dave’s work is NOT about the dra­wing. It’s ALL about his ideas.

And his VERY crude dra­wings work bri­lliantly for that. In fact, I’d wager that if his draf­ting skills were more for­mally deve­lo­ped, his car­toons wouldn’t be nearly as sharp, as inte­res­ting or wic­kedly subversive.

His is a great exam­ple of what I like to call “cir­cum­ven­ting one’s limi­ta­tions”. Tur­ning weak­nes­ses into strength. Shri­gley is a mas­ter of that, he really is.

And yes, I think if you’re to achieve mas­tery in your craft, your job or your career, you have to learn how to do what David did: Cir­cum­vent.

You also have to be deter­mi­ned and relent­less. David is all that as well, as this inter­view nicely demons­tra­tes.

Even if you can’t draw to save your life. Even if you didn’t go to the right uni­ver­sity. Even if you’re not that good at making money. Even if you have an ave­rage IQ. Even if you can’t get ven­ture fun­ding. Even if you weren’t born insa­nely talen­ted at something. Even if you have to wait tables or bar­tend for a cou­ple of years.

Cir­cum­vent, relent­lessly.

Exactly.