Seth Godin: Self truth (and the best violinist in the world)

[rhockens]

An article from Seth Godin's blog that might be of interest:

Seth Godin: Self truth (and the best violinist in the world)

Self truth (and the best violinist in the world)

The other day, after a talk to some graduate students at the Julliard
School, one asked, "In The Dip, you talk about the advantage of
mastery vs. being a mediocre jack of all trades. So does it make sense
for me to continue focusing on mastering the violin?"

Without fear of error, I think it's easy to say that this woman will
never become the best violinist in the world. That's because it's
essentially impossible to be the one and only best violinist in the
world. There might be 5,000 or 10,000 people who are so technically
good at it as to be indistinguishable to all but a handful of
orchestra listeners. This is true for many competitive fields--we
might want to fool ourselves into thinking that we have become the one
and only best at a technical skill, but it's extremely unlikely.

The quest for technical best is a form of hiding. You can hide from
the marketplace because you're still practicing your technique. And
you can hide from the hard work of real art and real connection
because you decide that success lies in being the best technically, at
getting a 99 instead of a 98 on an exam.

What we can become the best at is being an idiosyncratic exception to
the standard. Joshua Bell is often mentioned (when violinists are
mentioned at all) not because he is technically better than every
other violinst, but because of his charisma and willingness to cross
categories. He's the best in the world at being Josh Bell, not the
best in the world at playing the violin.

The same trap happens to people who are coding in Java, designing
furniture or training to be a corporate coach. It's a seductive form
of self motivation, the notion that we can push and push and stay
inside the lines and through sheer will, become technically perfect
and thus in demand. Alas, it's not going to happen for most of us.

[The flipside of this are the practioners who bolster themselves up by
claiming that they are, in fact, the most technically adept in the
world. In my experience, they're fibbing to themselves when they'd be
better off taking the time and effort to practice their craft. Just
saying it doesn't make it so.]

Until we're honest with ourselves about what we're going to master,
there's no chance we'll accomplish it.