Latest / the Daily Quote - Positive Daily Inspiration and Motivational Quote of the Day / George Carlin - "Some people have no idea what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it."

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George Carlin - "Some people have no idea what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it." · the Daily Quote - Positive Daily Inspiration and Motivational Quote of the Day

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  Dot com Welcome to the Daily Quote, the podcast designed to
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  kick start your day in a positive way.
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  I'm your host, Andrew McGivern, and this episode is brought to
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  you by a great news podcast because good news should be
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  heard. And the link is right here in
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  the show notes. Today's quote comes from George
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  Carlin, comedian, philosopher, social critic, and one of the
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  most brilliantly observant minds of our time.
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  In a career spanning nearly 5 decades, 23 albums, 14 HBO
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  specials, and three books, Carlin had a gift for wrapping
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  genuine wisdom inside a laugh. And this quote, it's no
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  different. He once said some people have no
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  idea what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at
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  it. Go ahead and laugh, but stay
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  with me here, because buried inside that wisecrack is one of
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  the most counterintuitive truths about mastery we'll ever
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  encounter. Psychologists have a name for
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  what Carlin is describing. They call it unconscious
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  competence, the 4th and final stage of learning any skill.
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  It works like this. When you first attempt something
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  new, you don't know what you don't know.
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  That's stage 1 unconscious incompetence.
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  Then comes the painful stage of realizing just how much you're
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  getting wrong. Conscious incompetence.
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  Then the slow, effortful self-conscious phase of actually
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  learning the skill conscious competence.
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  You can do it, but you have to think about every step, and then
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  something remarkable happens. With enough repetition, enough
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  practice, and enough time, the skill becomes automatic.
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  It moves below the level of conscious thought.
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  You stop thinking about what you're doing, and you just do
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  it. Unconscious competence.
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  The highest stage of mastery. And here's the beautiful paradox
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  Carlin is pointing at. At that level, the best
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  practitioners genuinely can't fully explain what they're doing
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  or why it works. Ask a jazz musician to describe
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  exactly how they improvise that solo.
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  Ask a seasoned surgeon to narrate every micro decision of
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  a complex procedure. Ask a master chef why they
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  instinctively added that pinch of seasoning.
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  They'll struggle to tell you because knowledge has gone
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  somewhere deeper than language. They have no idea what they're
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  doing, and they're extraordinary at it.
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  There's a flip side too, though, and this is where Carlin's joke
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  gets even sharper. Overthinking kills performance.
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  The moment a great athlete starts consciously analyzing
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  their technique mid competition, things fall apart.
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  Psychologists call it paralysis by analysis, and it's when
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  conscious thought interferes with unconscious competence and
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  the skill you've mastered suddenly leaves you.
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  The very act of trying to understand what you're doing
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  stops you from doing it well. Sometimes the path to mastery
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  runs directly through learning to stop thinking about it.
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  So here's the question. Is there an area of your life
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  where you're good, genuinely good, but you keep getting in
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  your own way by thinking about it too hard?
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  Because Carlin's joke is actually an invitation to trust
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  the work that you've already put in.
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  To stop narrating your own performance and just perform.
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  To have enough faith in your preparation that you can afford
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  in the moment to not know exactly what you're doing.
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  That's not ignorance, that's mastery wearing a very
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  convincing disguise. That's it for today.
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  I'm Andrew McGivern, signing off for now, but I'll be back
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  tomorrow. Same pod time, same pod station
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  with another daily quote.