Quotes About Mastery

Mastery is a mindset: It requires the capacity to see your abilities not as finite, but as infinitely improvable. Mastery is a pain: It demands effort, grit, and deliberate practice. And mastery is asymptote: It's impossible to fully realize, which makes it simultaneously frustrating and alluring.

Children careen from one flow moment to another, animated by a sense of joy, equipped with a mindset of possibility, and working with the dedication of a West Point cadet. They use their brains and their bodies to probe and draw feedback from the environment in an endless pursuit of mastery. Then—at some point in their lives—they don't. What happens? "You start to get ashamed that what you're doing is childish," Csikszentmihalyi explained.

The best predictor of success, the researchers found, was the prospective cadets' ratings on a noncognitive, non-physical trait known as "grit"—defined as "perseverance and passion for long-term goals."10 The experience of these army officers-in-training confirms the second law of mastery: Mastery is a pain.

Type X behavior often holds an entity theory of intelligence, prefers performance goals to learning goals, and disdains effort as a sign of weakness. Type I behavior has an incremental theory of intelligence, prizes learning goals over performance goals, and welcomes effort as a way to improve at something that matters. Begin with one mindset, and mastery is impossible. Begin with the other, and it can be inevitable.

According to Goleman, IQ can influence the profession one enters. My IQ, for instance, is way too low for a career in astrophysics. But within a profession, mastery of L-Directed Thinking matters relatively little. More important are qualities that are tougher to quantify, the very kinds of high-concept and high-touch abilities I've been mentioning—imagination, joyfulness, and social dexterity.

When used in these situations, "if-then" rewards usually do more harm than good. By neglecting the ingredients of genuine motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—they limit what each of us can achieve.

What is true is that mixing rewards with inherently interesting, creative, or noble tasks—deploying them without understanding the peculiar science of motivation—is a very dangerous game. When used in these situations, "if-then" rewards usually do more harm than good. By neglecting the ingredients of genuine motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—they limit what each of us can achieve.

I may be a simple man, but I am very good with an axe.

The vast majority of sportsmen are left with little choice as regards how to play, serfs to their talent, but the very best are able to do so as they want, impressing personality upon ability.

The psychology of accurate intuition involves no magic. Perhaps the best short statement of it is by the great Herbert Simon, who studied chess masters and showed that after thousands of hours of practice they come to see the pieces on the board differently from the rest of us.

Remember, while the work can sometimes appear to be simple to a viewer, the ability to perform expertly, consistently, precisely, over and over again, under pressure and on demand is what's needed.

The true art is being able to take whatever the writer's done, and if it is a bit flimsy or it is a bit rushed or is just box-ticking writing, then the true artist would be able to make that come off the page and sing for an audience or a viewer. I'm still learning how to do that properly.

The painter has total control over what they're showing to the viewer.

I've been making sushi for 38 years, and I'm still learning. You have to consider the size and color of the ingredients, how much salt and vinegar to use and how the seasons affect the fattiness of the fish.

Viola Davis is just one of those actors who is never bad in anything. She could be in an awful film but you'd never come away from it saying she was bad.

Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.

The violin is my mistress, but the guitar is my master.

If you put your hand on the piano, you play a note. It's in tune. But if you put it on the violin, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. You have to figure it out.

Of course the most difficult thing on the violin is always intonation. The second one is rhythm. If you play in tune, in time with a good sound that's already high level. Those three are the main things.

Another thing that I don't like to do is show too much how it goes. I do it once in a blue moon. Sometimes there are lessons when I don't pick up a violin at all.

What drew me to the violin was mastering the instrument technically, which I'm continuing to do.

If you want to make films, you'll watch Kurosawa. If you want to play a violin, you listen to Seghetti. Same with somebody who has the ambition to play in the NBA. I watch a basketball game; I enjoy it. Somebody who really wants to learn to play is studying whatever is most magnificent that's going on out there.

It is very unnatural to dance while playing the violin. I had to practice so hard to learn how to do it, but now it is part of my expression, and it comes naturally. I have to know a song perfectly before I can even begin to move.

The craft of painting has virtually disappeared. There is hardly anyone left who really possesses it. For evidence one has only to look at the painters of this century.