Personal Mastery
You do not rise to the level of your knowledge… you fall to the level of your personal mastery.
Let’s be honest: how often do we avoid doing what we know we need to do? I don’t mean handling emergencies. I mean addressing what is truly important to us in the long run - like physical health & fitness, overcoming a personal limitation, addressing a problem that’s been festering, or cultivating an inner circle of valued relationships. How often do we act as if we don’t have the time for something important, when that’s actually just an excuse for doing something easier or more familiar?
In military circles, there is an expression: “Discipline is the exchange of immediate satisfaction for enduring self-respect.” Our hard-wired human tendencies, if left unchecked, will lead us to give up what we want most for what we want now. Every day, we encounter many moments of truth where we can decide to do what’s wise. Moment to moment, we can honour what’s truly important. Not what’s just comfortable.
When we have a high level of Personal Mastery, we notice the default human tendencies that don’t serve us, and we make better choices. This is what good judgement is. And this is what leads to greater success - both short and long term.
To skillfully navigate our ever-changing world, we need to be more powerfully human. Emotional self-mastery, creative resourcefulness and interpersonal intelligence will be key qualities of high performance in the age of disruption and artificial intelligence.
Connecting the dots to the real-world:
The broad goal of Personal Mastery is to bring together IQ (intellect), EQ (emotional intelligence), AQ (adaptive intelligence), and RQ (relationship intelligence) in a way that promotes the ability to achieve goals and make an impact regardless of external pressures.
While this is a long-term endeavour, it is also exciting to identify and quickly achieve abilities that drive immediate results. My executive coaching and leadership training specializes in simplifying and accelerating that journey.
Three general categories of exploration:
(Click Each To Expand)
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Instead of reacting to negative thoughts and emotions, regulate them so wise choices are the default. Details → here
Gain awareness of personal blind spots and address them
Build psychological mastery for effectiveness even in pressure or competitive situations. Detailed thoughts → here
Develop the ability to be non-attached to outcomes (fun exercise here)
More general details → here
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Grow your capacity for creativity and innovative thinking. Details → here
Intellect: Expand depth and breadth of knowledge. Suggestions → here
Strengthen access to intelligent intuition and pattern recognition. Details → here
Develop a rich and comprehensive skillset for agile and wise decision-making.
Some key resourcefulness principles → here
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“Okay, this is it. This is the one. You get to be the lead, and you get to take on a character that’s going to use every aspect of your talent … your instrument. It’s going to challenge you in ways you’ve never been challenged before.”
- Film Director Christopher Nolan offering the lead role in Oppenheimer to actor Cillian Murphy
This statement resonates with me because it strikes me as an inspirational call to action, to:
Bring to life all of our hidden abilities
Rise to the occasion, whatever that means for each of us
Does it speak to you as well?
