Commitment To Research

Let me make an assumption about you. That you want to be exceptional at what you do. That you want to master the field you currently work in, or are learning. That's the assumption I'm making about you, and from this basis I want to speak to you about an important piece that needs to be present for you to master anything. Be it training, coaching leadership, management or sports.

I will add additional blogs on the subject of mastery, at later dates. This is the 1st of what will be a series of blogs on mastery.

When you learn a new domain, lets say coaching (could be anything tho'). You'd likely attend a training course on the subject and received a training manual and made some notes. You would have likely been introduced to the information you need to know and perhaps (hopefully) you had opportunities to practice what you were learning and received feedback on your progress while on the training. Excellent!

Once the training is over you need to gain competency and confidence in the skills you've learnt and journey towards mastery of the domain (my assumption about you).

While practice is an integral part of your ability to gain mastery, I'm not going to speak about practice, but to a component that must be present on the road to mastery. That component is -domain knowledge.

The pursuit of extensive knowledge of the field you wish to master is a critical component for you to achieve mastery of it. This is a consistent factor in all who achieve a level of mastery in anything.

Mastery Is...

A brief description of what I mean by mastery is:

• They have the ability to gain conscious competence of their non-conscious processes, when performing. That is, they know what they are doing when they are doing, what they do! (Think about that one).


• They extend and give back to the domain in which they have mastered. They do this by having new insights, being creative and innovative with old processes and techniques. Continuously improving and updating both themselves and the domain.

Now that I've given a brief on what I mean by mastery. Let's follow this idea of domain knowledge.

Domain Knowledge

It requires you to find out all that you can about the area you wish to be masterful in. If it is leadership, this will require you to research the leaders of your specific leadership domain. Also it will require you to investigate associated fields that have contributed to it. This research is too often left up to "...doing it, as I grow in the role..."

This is not the approach of those who wish to be exceptional. They recognise the need for increased knowledge and pro-actively pursue this need. They will actively take charge of this, and commit to researching the field themselves, and not allow it to be on an, as needed basis.

These people are not happy with just attending the scheduled training days, receiving the training manual and the MP3 recordings of the training. They will seek out preferred and suggested readings, extensively search the Internet for the topic, ask of those who have gained success already, and do much more. All in an attempt to gain increased knowledge of the field.

This increased knowledge base will come to the forefront of their mind at a later date, and when needed. It will enable them to make critical decisions, evaluate the field effectively and determine future trends. It will guide them to make new understandings, and challenge long held assumptions by the domain. And ultimately, heavily contribute to their mastery of the field they have long laboured in.

I know of no-one who has achieved mastery and NOT been committed to gaining knowledge of their chosen domain byway of a commitment to research. In one of my modelling projects, I studied Bruce Lee, the martial arts phenomenon of the 1970's who integrated the eastern and western fighting arts to create his own fighting style, called Jeet Kune Do. In an interview of Dan Inasanto, a diligent student and friend of Bruce's. Inasanto speaks of Bruce's commitment to research all of the fighting arts, philosophy and psychology fields he believed would assist in developing an effective fighting system. He said that Bruce would say, "...a student who wishes to embrace JKD, must embrace research."

Do enough background research and you will find this "commitment to research" is a constant in reaching mastery. My collegue and friend Dr. Michael Hall, co-founder of Neuro Semantics and the Meta-Coach Foundation, is in my opinion, an avid researcher, modeller, committed to increasing his knowldege of related domains. All this as apart of his constant pursuit of extending NS and the MCF.

Change of Focus

Now lets talk about YOU.

Practice is a must as are other components to master any skill. That hasn't been our focus here. The question I have for you is:

"How much time have you given to research to grow your knowledge of the field you wish to be great at?"

When I was a professional strength athlete I would read all I could about the science of strength and power. As a result of doing this I soon realised that much of what was being said in the gym was nothing more than urban legend and myth! With very little or no fact to support accepted training methods, some, used by the current champions.

That's what domain knowledge can do for you. You will quickly grow in your skill level, assuming you apply what you know!

How committed are you to gaining knowledge? Have you brought a book recently, loaned one from the library? Have you searched the internet? Joined a study group or practice group? Linked up with a national body or organisation of your interest? Asked to interview a leader in the field? Have you brought DVD's, MP3's, MP4's of those who are acknowledged leaders? Do you regularly visit their blogs or websites for updates?

Enough... !

You've got the idea, haven't you?

If you want to master the field you are learning or your chosen career. Are you willing to commit to research and growing your doamin knowledge?

If so - then you have "1" spoke of a multi-spoked wheel called mastery. I wish you well in your development in growing your knowledge base. Do it with joy and curiosity and my own favourite mindset - ravouness pursuit!

I will speak to you again on this subject - Mastery (a favourite of mine).

Best wishes, and I hope you'll continue to return to this blog as an adjunct to your pursuit of domain knowledge.

P.S If you didn't know who the pictures of the Masters I've posted in this blog.

We have at the top Josh Waitzkin (International Grandmaster in Chess and 2 x Tai Chi Chuan Push hands World Champion) we then have John Dobson - Inventor of the Dobsonian telescope and acclaimed astronomer. Then Bruce Lee of movie and Martial arts fame and Dr. M Hall co-founder of Neuro Semantics and the Meta Coach Foundation and prolific writer.