How to Realize Your Potential: Lessons from Expert Performance

“You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path. You are not on your own path. If you follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential.”

― Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work

For an aspiring entrepreneur at the beginning of their journey, it can be difficult to know where to start. I use the term ‘entrepreneur’ very loosely here, to refer to someone who dares to pursue their own unique creative path in the direction of their dreams.

We begin on this path at the darkest point. We have a sense of our potential, but it is unclear as to exactly how we should proceed.

The question arises for a budding entrepreneur: What skills should one be acquiring?

A musician plays music, a painter paints pictures and a bodybuilder pumps iron. In such fields, there is a more clearly defined path to success.

However, entrepreneurs wear many different hats. It is not always clear what skills to practice when striving to figure out how to build a financially sustainable life; getting paid to do what you love whilst serving others as profoundly as possible.

Perhaps, the answer lies in being an “expert generalist.” Someone who possesses deep knowledge in one domain along with generalist knowledge and skills in other areas. But this sounds a little overwhelming to someone starting out. Although, it is only overwhelming if you are concerned with the question of ‘what.’

Better, more empowering questions to ask are:

· How am I acquiring skills?

· How am I developing my abilities to perform at higher levels?

· How do I become valuable to others and to the market?

Right Practice

“‘Nobody ever takes note of [my advice], because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear,’ Martin said. ‘What they want to hear is, ‘Here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script,’ … but I always say, ‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.’”

- Cal Newport

I found this paper titled “How entrepreneurs acquire the capacity to excel” which inspired the post. I can highly recommend, it’s a little academic but readable!

Deliberate practice is defined as intense, prolonged and consistent effort that pushes you to the edge of your comfort zone. Another, aspect of deliberate practice is that you reflect on your performance and is open to feedback from others.

This requires you to be super focused and attentive. (Managing your focus and energy levels will create better quality, more engaged practice but that’s for another discussion!)

There are multiple ways in which you can apply deliberate practice to excel as an entrepreneur/creative/knowledge worker (or in life in general!):

1. You can deliberately practice tasks in your job or chosen field/business i.e. learning through doing and building experience

2. You can deliberately practice through observing and studying the actions of others. Anders Erickson (leading peak-performance researcher who coined the term deliberate practice) uses the example of world-class chess masters spending hours contemplating games between the very best players in the world. In the context of your own endeavors, this means finding world-class exemplars who have achieved what you are striving for (or something similar) and studying their work intensely.

3. You can deliberately practice in other areas of your life e.g. playing a musical instrument, learning a new language, studying for a degree, meditation, sports…etc

It is the time spent in deliberate practice which builds up your cognitive abilities. It literally enhances your brain power, over-time; your memory, reading comprehension, perception, intuition, and awareness can all be improved!

This enhanced brain power is transferable towards any path one might choose to pursue.

In short, it matters less what you are practicing what matters is that your practice is DELIBERATE!

Over time, your skills become “rare and valuable” to the working world as Cal Newport puts it. You literally become, “So good they can’t ignore you.”

Know the game you are playing

“A practice (as a noun) can be anything you practice on a regular basis as an integral part of your life — not in order to gain something else, but for its own sake… For a master, the rewards gained along the way are fine, but they are not the main reason for the journey. Ultimately, the master and the master’s path are one. And if the traveler is fortunate — that is, if the path is complex and profound enough — the destination is two miles farther away for every mile he or she travels.”

-George Leonard

“The 10,000-hour rule” is the amount of deliberate practice that researchers have identified that it takes to reach expert levels of performance.

This rule, however, creates the illusion that excellence is finite; that one day you will wake up accomplished and that’s it, job done, you can go and sip margaritas on a beach somewhere!

However, the truth is that you will never be exonerated! If you're hoping that one day the hard work will be over, then you’re in the wrong work!

True success and fulfillment are found, as Deepak Chopra puts it, in the “progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” It is empowering to know that the act of showing up, deliberately, is the game we are playing.

Over time these efforts will compound and expand into potential benefits and rewards. But that does not concern a master. They are too busy showing up…patiently, diligently and persistently working towards the realization of their own unique potential.

“Our infinite potential exists on the other side of our comfort zone.”

-Phil Stutz & Barry Michels, author of The Tools

By its very essence, deliberate practice is uncomfortable, often painful, and it certainly isn’t for the faint-hearted. It takes a truly heroic effort to show up day-in-day-out for an indefinite amount of time; delaying gratification and stretching the boundaries of what is comfortable. Through this work, we grow and expand into the next best version of ourselves.

As we walk the path towards our dreams and worthy ideals, we are continually questioned by life.

Do you step forward into growth or back into safety?

The choice is yours. Always. 😊