Perfect Practice
This shit ain’t going to help you… the stranger said that to me as I perused the business section, looking for something specific I needed to read for work. I happen to be in front of the business for dummies books when he walked by, laughing and judging me, saying, “The best way to learn about business is to be in business. This shit ain’t going to help you.”
I smiled and gave an awkward chuckle, grateful that he continued on his way and I didn’t have to start a conversation that would have surely led to him condescendingly explaining “business” to me. As he left, I thought about how sad it was that he somehow had closed himself off to learning from others. Did he think his experience was the only one that mattered? What if everything he was learning by being “in business” was actually not the best way to do things? Is this what he does to everyone in his life - poke fun at them and make them feel silly for trying to improve themselves? Is he right? Should we be learning about something from just experience and not guidance from books and experts?
In their book, Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high, the authors touch on the idea that many people mentally prepare for difficult conversations, but fail because they haven’t seen what true success looks like. For all of us, our idea of how to have a confrontation comes from whatever we experienced growing up with the adults in our lives. Needless to say, many adults do not know how to have healthy confrontations and so the cycle continues. They argue that “Practice does not always make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.” Meaning you can do something over and over and over again, but if you don’t know what perfect looks like, then you’ll just be spinning the wheel, doing the same thing and expecting different results. They say, “you have to first know what to practice.”
While this is specifically referencing how to have hard conversations, I believe it holds true for anything we are trying to get better at. Malcolm Gladwell’s extensive research in his book, Outliers, showed that experts in their fields had accumulated over 10,000 hours of practice to gain mastery of their skill. In his Master Class, however, he explains when the book came out many people missed the point of the rule. It wasn’t just about the hours, it was the fact that 10,000 hours does not happen without help and support from people around us. You cannot master something by yourself - you need people that encourage you to get to perfect, and people who show you what perfect looks like in the first place.
True learning comes at the intersection of education and experience. One without the other will always be found wanting, so don’t ever let anyone make you feel silly for seeking a little guidance.
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