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The Thursday Thesis  - 28/09/2017

A guy goes to see a psychotherapist about his problems. The man is in his fifties, married, with three grown-up children: he is also a multi-millionaire. Though he’s very successful and highly respected by his peers, he’s not well-liked: he’s miserable, bitter and unhappy.

The lady therapist steeples her fingers as she waits for her client to gather his thoughts.

“I’m so tired” he says. “Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve had to do for myself – and I’m so tired of it. Nobody is there for me, I have to do everything – same as I always have...”.

And so it goes for the next hour as the man complains and bemoans his life. Finally he falls silent, and the therapist leans forward a little, softly whispering.

“Who changed your nappies?” She asks.

Silence.

“Who gave you the breast when you were hungry and helpless?”

Silence

“Who cared for you when you were sick?”

Silence.

The questions continue, and the silence booms.

“Who drives you safely home in your limo?”

Silence

“Who cleans your offices and bathrooms?”

Silence.

“Who drew the pictures that you stuck on the refrigerator?”

Silence

“And who kisses you goodnight and prays for you?”

The man sobs, eyes closed as the truth breaks over him like a tidal wave.
 
Nobody makes it on their own.

Whatever you or I do, however much we achieve and whatever we aspire to, we cannot do it alone.

Close your eyes and take a moment to be thankful for the multitude of reasons to be grateful that are present in your life – because they are there. Take just one thing and thank the person who did it for you, a phone call, a card, a visit – let them know that you noticed them, noticed what they did, and that you appreciate it.

Notice it, and give thanks for it – because nobody ever does it alone.

So here’s me, to you: you make the writing worthwhile, and I am in awe of you.For your comments, your shares, and for reading the blog, I thank You.

The Thursday Thesis  - 21/09/2017

Malcolm Gladwell devoted a chapter of his book “Outliers” to the idea that it takes around 10,000 hours of practice to achieve Mastery in a field.

The book sold well and made Gladwell a ton of money, simultaneously propelling him to the status of credible pundit and positioning the journalist as an expert on learning.

But here’s the thing: the 10,000 hour rule was Gladwell’s invention, and it didn’t reflect the essence of the research that he referred to – a 1993 study at the University of Colorado.

So when Gladwell declared 'Researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: 10,000 hours', the chief of the research team, Anders Ericsson, was royally pissed-off.

“Gladwell cited our research on expert musicians as a stimulus for his provocative generalisation to a magical number", Ericsson said, then wrote a rebuttal paper entitled “The Danger of Delegating Education to Journalists”.

Nice one, Anders.

Gladwell’s snappy 10,000 hour “Rule” didn’t take much notice of the real conclusions of the researchers: significant variation of time taken to acquire skills, a variety of practice methodologies, and the apparent non-existence of anything that could be identified as “natural talent”.

I get it. I’ve been teaching guitar for 18 years, and I don’t believe in talent, either. There are a pile of books out there discussing Talent with a capital T, but I believe in acquiring the necessary skill – and that means learning from someone else, testing the skill by doing it badly at first, then refining it and making it automatic by consistent repetition. This is exactly like tying your shoelaces or learning to drive a car or ride a bicycle.

When was the last time you had to think about tying your laces?

So the 10,000 hour fallacy entered the canon of conventional wisdom, along with a load of other unhelpful “wisdom”. If you want to know more about how nonsense like this infects people you’ll find plenty in the blog archive and in my book 9 Weird Things Guitarists Do.

You see, I have a problem or six with conventional wisdom, and I have a problem with Gladwell’s assertion of certainty in areas where he is not a practitioner.

The 10,000 Hour Rule is a journalist’s opinion, rather than the conclusions of the guys who did the work.

And, tragically, the 10,000 hour fallacy deters people from pursuing their dreams because it sets up a high barrier to entry to a new activity – such as learning to play the guitar or any other musical instrument.

As my friend and former student, Tom Boddison observed in a recent email questioning Gladwell’s opinion, “10,000 hours is a bloody long time!”

And what about Mastery – did you notice that the idea of an observable standard snook in on the coat-tails of the 10,000 Hour Rule?

There’s a presupposition that one must achieve Mastery, isn’t there?

Bunk!

Mastery is neither or relevant when one is pursuing one’s own pleasure and following one’s own path – as one must when engaged in any of the so-called Arts.

I say we murder the myth of 10,000 hours!

I say we murder the illusion of Talent!

I say we murder the mischief of Mastery!

I say, let’s get these monkeys off our backs and do our own research!

Are we foolish enough to just accept the opinion of a journalist when deciding whether to pursue our heart’s desires?

Get yourself a guitar, flute, sax, or whatever – a football or golf club and start hacking. Play some bum notes, miss the net and hack up a few divots - who cares if you suck?

This is supposed to be fun, isn’t it?

Am I making sense, here – am I convincing you?

Get out there and have some fun, make lots of mistakes and enjoy every single minute of it.

Fail gloriously - because only by learning to miss the net can you ever hope to score a winning goal.

The Answers Have Changed.

Albert Einstein famously gave the students on his course the same examination paper two years running.

Einstein’s assistant asked the professor if he’d noticed it was the same paper with the same questions he’d set the previous year, to which Einstein replied “It’s not a mistake, the questions are the same; but you see, the answers have changed”.

Back in the 1920s and 30s scientific theory was advancing rapidly, so Einstein wasn’t just kidding his assistant – the answers had changed in the intervening year.

And isn’t that true of almost everything in life?

The answers we have as children and teenagers are different than the answers we have when we are older and our lives have changed: parenthood changes everything, divorce and the death of our loved ones; accidents, injury and illness all conspire to keep the answers we need on the move and elusive.

Because everything you currently know is only your best guess, based upon currently available evidence, and that’s the reason why it’s so important to keep learning and to stay curious – because the answers have changed: that’s a fact of life.

If you’re not busy finding out those new answers you’ll probably keep on using your old answers, even though your old answers don’t produce the results you want anymore.

Think of life as being a long corridor with doors all along both sides: you can’t open a door until you’re right in front of it, so unless you are moving along the corridor you only have access to the one door. Learning and growing is what allows you to progress along the corridor, open more doors and find the answers that you need.

So, what are you learning today?

It might not be The Answer, but it could be a clue to where The Answer is hiding.

Stay Curious.

Magick - The Science of Success
Part 2 – The Rituals

The Thursday Thesis  - 7/9/2017

Every single one of us has our own daily magic rituals, but don’t panic - we haven’t gone over to the Dark Side or contracted religion, so breathe...

What I mean is that we all perform rituals every day: we brush our teeth, tie our shoelaces, commute to our workplace, and do a hundred other things every day without really giving it any thought. Our daily rituals help us to get through the day in much the same way that we did yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that, too.

Forming a ritual or habit allows us to have a reliable, pre-set way of performing an action. Once we have a ritualised way of doing something we don’t need to think about it, we just do it the same way that we always do it.

Ordinarily this is beneficial to us, as we can delegate our performance of a routine task and free-up our resources for other things.

So it makes sense to consciously craft our daily rituals to serve us, doesn’t it?

Because when we design our rituals to produce what we want we are truly using "...The Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with will..." as Aleister Crowley put it when he defined Magick.

If you are not already consciously challenging your normal, habitual ways of doing things then today would be a great day to start thinking about how you do things. Chances are good that most of your habits and rituals were learned accidentally and without a thought as to whether they were going to advance you toward your biggest ambition or hold you back from it.

Change your rituals and it will change your life.

Simply ask yourself “is this helping me or is this hurting me” when you do anything – especially if you do it in a certain way because that’s how you’ve always done it. If it helps you to achieve your defined goals, let it continue: if it isn’t helping, then do something else.

Build your own rituals, rather than doom yourself to repeat other people’s unhelpful ones.
If you are overweight, change what you ritually buy when you shop: make a list of healthy foods and ONLY buy what’s on the list. I know a guy who does this, and then (bizarrely) rewards himself with a bag of cookies for being such a healthy shopper! That’s certainly a ritual that he might want to change.

If you smoke, change your habit of reaching for instant relief whenever you feel a pang of craving: do something else – anything at all - other than lighting up. Prove to yourself that you are not a helpless, pathetic slave to a manufactured addiction.

Each morning I use a handful of designed activities to kick-start my day and move me towards my short, medium, long, and lifetime goals – I call them MAGICK, and it’s probably no surprise that it’s an acronym.

Movement: exercise and stretching to keep my body fit for purpose.
Affirmation: reinforcing my positivity, goals and my reasons for living.
Gratitude: recognising the great things in my life and nudging my mind to find more of them.
Inner-vision: solitude, meditation and self-examination.
Creation: bringing my dreams into reality – I have to do The Work, nobody is coming to the rescue.
Knowledge: keep learning and challenging what I know.

 So there you have it – my MAGICK rituals.

What about you – what are the rituals you want to keep in your life, which ones will you change, and which ones will you begin?