Mastery: What is a Mastery?

What does mastery look like?

Think about a few people you consider masters of a craft, sport or science. Who are they? Einstein, Beethoven, Usain Bolt. Maybe you had a great music teacher growing up or a friend who became a professional sportsperson.

What makes that person a master? Why do they stand out to you? Think about that answer for a few seconds...

Great masters have a few attributes in common.

They are often great teachers, able to expain a concept at multiple levels, whether to a fellow expert or a five year old. This ability to teach comes as a biproduct of a depth of knowledge the person has gathered. But teaching is only one indicator of mastery. There are many examples of masters who were not great teachers such as Tiger Woods or Bobby Fischer. So we must look further.

They perform at a high level, making new discoveries and beating records.

They draw from a vast toolkit of knowledge, mental models and techniques.

They innovate, experimenting with new techniques to expand their domain.

Their experience makes them confident, able to defend their opinions. They stand apart from mere experts by becoming reflexive in their thoughts and actions. An expert may still need to think and take time to come to a conclusion. But a master does not need to think - they react instinctively.

They have worked diligently in their domain for many years and have developed a deep curiosity in their craft.

Their domain has clear rules for success. Everyone needs to compare that person to everyone else and say "They do that much better". World records, academic papers and scientific breakthroughs are examples of standing above the masses. In contrast, it is difficult to consider someone a "master of parenthood" because we don't have clear criteria for high success as a parent.

How do different fields define mastery?

For many fields, we have strong criteria for what classifies "mastery". Different fields have different criteria to identify masters.

A violinist is a master if she can perform advanced pieces consistently for an audience. A sprinter is a master if he wins competitions and breaks records. A master painter would exhibit in the top galleries in the world.

But other fields have weaker criteria to recognise mastery. Teaching, parenting, managing - it can be difficult to figure out who stands above the rest.

Or what does a master leader looks like? Is it the way they work with people? Is it the way they drive an organisation? Should we consider Steve Jobs and Elon Musk master leaders despite being extremely difficult to work with? Is a software engineer a master when he has become the best at 1 language or when he has learnt the most languages?

Clearly some fields have better criteria than others for mastery. This raises the question - how do we know when someone has accomplished mastery?

Is Mastery a journey or destination?

I think it's fair to say there isn't an exact point where someone graduates to mastery.

The Dunning-Kruger curve is an image that explains why we may be overconfident or underconfident in our assessment of our abilities. If we observe the Dunning-Kruger curve, you can see I've put mastery somewhere along the "plateau of sustainibility" (see the red zone on the right in the diagram).

Masters accelerate through the "valley of despair" by teachin and solving increasingly complex problems. This experience helps them build up a body of wisdom from which to draw from as they move to mastery where they start to innovate novel solutions and solve complex problems.

And after all of that is done, they must have the interest, curiosity and energy to continuously dive into new problems and explore new knowledge.

Clearly, there is a point at which one can call themselves a master, but it is only the starting point of a continuous journey.

What is the difference between a master and an expert?

There are many experts in the world, but few masters. The experts are experienced, able to solve complex problems and can understand a situation quickly.

But the masters standout from the crowd in two clear ways.

Firstly, They can analyze a problem and innovate brand new solutions. They understand their techniques so in-depth that they can refine them and create new novel techniques. This allows them to take complex problems and use a seemingly simple technique to solve them.

Secondly, the master is unconsciously competent. Where the expert needs to think, the master can react to situations intuitively. Their accumulated body of mental models and practice means their cognitive processes can run extremely fast. They can think of the perfect counter-argument without hesitation. They instinctively know how to adjust their body for the new terrain. The master doesn't need to go through the journey of problem solving - he can jump straight to the solution, often surprising even himself that he knows the answer but not the reason.

Is Mastery only for the highly gifted?

A study of conservatoire violinists by Anders Ericsson found that the top performers, as selected by the teachers, studied almost twice as much in their youth compared to those who were categories as excellent but not the best. While Mozart was considered gifted, he actually started being trained as a musician as young as four. In fact, Anders Ericsson's research has disrupted the notion of "gifted" people. Inevitably, we find that the "gifted" person has 1000's of hours of deliberate practice behind them.

This is terrible news - it means we don't have the excuse of saying "I'm not gifted enough". If we want to master something, it really is in our grasp. It will be a long and difficult journey, but it is within everyone's grasp to become great at something.