Latest / Man In Your Corner with Shaun Tucker / Mastery Doesn't Take 10,000 Hours: It Takes Precision | Ep. 127
Transcript
- Shaun: Hello, welcome back to the Reset. I am Sean Tucker, human performance scientist and authority architect. We are here in the Living Lab documenting the struggle, the science, and the shift for every high performance dad and founder who is ready to bridge the gap between their ambition and their presence. Does it really take ten thousand hours to be a master of anything? I don't think so, and I'll tell you why. I am a health scientist. I studied sport science at university. As my bachelor's degree, I remember very specifically this topic of does it take ten thousand hours to become a master of something? Because the old rule of ten thousand hours of intentional practice will make you a master of that skill. It's not a hundred percent the full truth. First of all, how many reps does it take to get really good at anything? It's subjective, yeah. Some people have a natural acumen for whatever skill they're trying to learn. This is Because of many different factors. Genes, environment, you name it. Like there's abilities, it's what you're gifted with, and then there's the trainable aspect of it. I know I'm not gonna be, no matter how many hours I put in of intentional practice, I'm not gonna be the world's best sprinter. I'm not even gonna be world class as a sprinter. But I'll tell you something. The more effort and the more conscious effort and intentional practice I put into a skill, doesn't matter what skill it is. I will get better at it. Will I become an absolute master of it? I don't think there's a guarantee around that. Some people are really good at certain stuff and other people are not so good at those same thing. So what are you really good at? I know for me, I'm really good at communicating. I used to be terrible at communicating because I didn't know how to articulate myself. And maybe you're sitting back right now and saying, ⁓ yeah, I'm not the greatest at communicating either. But it comes back to having a willingness to show up and to serve. The reason why I started this podcast was to serve and to show and develop the skill of my voice, being able to articulate and get my message across even more precise. Because if you really want to become a master of it at anything, you need to have focus. That's the whole intentional practice. Because you can make things habit you can make things habits. You can make them habitual. You can make yourself unconscious in achieving great health. Six pack abs. It might take a lot of discipline and work initially. But you can make yourself unconscious and keep those levels. Doesn't mean that you're great at them. It just means that you follow a system. And that system is an unconscious system. It's like when you drive a car, you're maybe not a race car driver. Right? But when you're driving, you can listen to music, you can have conversation. Can notice what's going on over there when there's some police or ambulance on the road, you see the flashing lights, you start noticing or you you start thinking about all these different things in that's going on in your life. But when you first start driving, what happens? It's like you take the wheel and it's you're pretty anxious. You're like, I don't know what I'm doing. Because you go through these levels of competence. At first you're unconscious and incompetent. Then you go to the stage of conscious incompetence. You're aware that you're not so great. Then you get to the stage of conscious competence. Right. So conscious competence just means that you are aware that you're getting good at that skill. But then there comes a time where you reach unconscious competence, which is where you don't even have to think about it anymore. You're just really good at that skill. But there's one element that I think is really missing in here, which is being really, truly, absolutely conscious. Cause yes, conscious competence, do I have to think about it? It's not so much about thinking about it, it's observing, it's being there. It's actually seeing what's happening. Cause you can be very good at something and still be absolutely absent. You can raise kids and have absolute disconnection with your kids. And they can go to private schools, they can have success on the outside. Yeah. But when it comes to that relational aspect, that connection with you, maybe that's the thing that's missing. So there are levels to this, of course. And I think that's what I'm trying to the message I'm trying to get over today is working on a specific skill. How many reps does it take to get good at it? I don't know. Keep practicing, keep refining, keep becoming more precise. And if you need feedback, well actually go and see someone who's done it. Go and ask questions to people who have already done it. Because skills are transferable. And what I mean by that is if someone's become really great at something, they can help you become great too. There are definitely limitations to that. But the other thing to this is what I mean by skills are transferable, is if you become really good at say measuring your food and it's just become a discipline routine thing for you every single day. Well then when you go into your business and you start tracking all the metrics, it's probably not too hard because that skill that you've acquired when it comes to tracking your food, yes, the vehicle is different. You're no longer in a taxi, you're maybe in a van or in a truck. Or in a supercar, I don't know what it what it is for you. But the skill is essentially the same. It's a little bit more nuanced if you're driving a truck versus you being a passenger in a taxi car or being in a supercar. They're all different. They're all very nuanced. Right? But the skill is ultimately transferable. The skill of driving is transferable. And then it's just a matter of refining and becoming more precise. Because even every single weight plate you pick up is slightly different in the gym. Every machine you use, even if they were side-by-side factory created the s the same, even if there's a 1% difference or 0.01% difference. Yeah, it's gonna have a slightly different level of precision to it. And it's the same like our DNA, right? I guess this is the most true example is when we look at human DNA, it's within point zero one percent difference of each other, or something like that. So someone with blue eyes someone with brown eyes, someone with black hair or or blonde hair. When you put them side by side, there's only very, very minuscule of difference. But look at the form. They come they look totally different, yeah? Someone's tall and someone's short, someone's skinny and someone's fat. This is what I'm talking about. So yeah, the skills are transferable and no, it doesn't take ten thousand hours to get masterful at something. It just takes a lot of work and a lot of precise, focused work to get good at that skill. So keep trying, keep practicing, and most importantly, just have fun while doing it. That brings us to the end of the episode. Thank you so much for staying here and tuning in with me today. If you found it valuable, share it with one person. Most people wait for their life to change. We are the ones who architect the choice. Change your state, choose how you show up. I am Sean Tucker, I'll see you in the next one.