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If You Don’t Become a Student First, You’ll Never Be Great at Anything
“Repetition can be boring or tedious — which is why so few people ever master anything.” -Hal Elrod
The difference between the professionals and the dreamers is that the professionals actually become students of their craft.
They study it. They buy books about it. They ask others about it.
They live and breathe learning and improvement.
It’s not just 10,000 hours of it, either. Becoming a student means developing your deep work abilities. It means you practice deliberately. Simply put, an accountant can still be a terrible accountant after 10 years of work.
Most people will never take the time to ever become great. This is largely because for most people, “good” is good enough.
As Jim Collins famously wrote:
“Good is the enemy of great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.”
If you’re ever going to be “great” at anything, you need to become a serious, committed student of it.
