That’s quite the grandiose title isn’t it? Hope I can live up to it.
Let me first start by making a blanket statement: no one is ever the best at what they do when they start out. The popular notion is that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of focused and intense work to be considered a master of a craft, which means that working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year gets you about 2000 hours into mastery. Now let’s say you’re only focused for about half of that (and that’s being generous, considering today’s adult attention span is roughly 7 seconds. Oooh shiny things!!!), we’re looking at about 1000 hours a year. This means that to be the best at what you do, you’ll need to focus on intense self-productivity and growth for about 10 years, give or take. During this phase, you’ll have to apply your knowledge, increase your knowledge, and make ways of generating your own thoughts in order to be considered a “master” of anything. On top of that, you have to be willing to step up to the plate and take a swing every once in a while, even if it means striking out. Failure is inevitable, especially when you’re trying to change the world.
The old saying “knowledge is power” is somewhat misleading. I know a few people who are ridiculously smart, hold phDs, and know everything there is to know about a subject, while asking you if you want a tall or grande coffee at Starbucks. There’s an axiom that I’ve heard from some trainers who have been very successful in developing their businesses: “The more certifications they have the less busy they are.” I don’t think this is true in many senses of the word, but I have seen a lot of book-smart people fail in the real world for whatever reason. Maybe they know so much they don’t know where to start? Knowledge is great, but you have to apply what you know, or else it is just going to sit there. In any given topic you can find thousands of books, but learning from them and then changing what you do based on the knowledge inside is what separates the good from the great.
With that in mind, check out the Recommended Reading header at the top of this page. It gives you links to some of the most influential books that have shaped how I train, how I train my clients, and my outlook on life and business. I always love sharing books and information with as many people as I can, so if you get something out of any of these books, pass it along. Always remember, knowledge without action is wasteful, and action without knowledge is dangerous.
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