I find mySelf on the path (and I can't get up)... Will I be able to to stay?

A friend once told me that "you are what you practice." I don't know where he heard that or if it was his own amalgam, but I am clear that this is one of the best coaching contributions that I had ever received. George Leonard's wonderful gem of a book, "Mastery", helped me understand more than instinctively why that was true.

George's small (5x7, 175 pages) handbook is just what the name implies: pure mastery. I can easily write a report on each of the book's 14 chapters on how it helped me and the message for my clients; I found myself with over 11 pages of notes (almost as long as the book!). The underlying ones for me are:
- the path to being a good coach is to be in the practice of living a masterful life.
- the path to being coachable is to be on the path of mastery in some part of your life.


George warms up with giving us some background on being a lifelong learner:
- The FTSOW (For the Sake of What?) of Mastery is living a "good life" however we define it.
- What you care about is not a result, but a process, a journey. Once on the path, stay on the path.
- Our practices help us build the capacity to "hang out" in the midst of chaos and diversity.
Simply enough, mastery is where what is at first difficult becomes progressively easier and more pleasurable through practice.

Next, George outlines the type of people that he encounters at the Dojo. The Dabbler starts many pursuits with great enthusiasm, savoring the start rituals before waning interest and another shiny object distracts their attention elsewhere. The Obsessive wants results and fast, never able to settle for second best, even though those shortcuts don't allow long-term sustainable results. The Hacker gets the hang of something quickly and just stays at that level of performance indefinitely, only enough to get by.

That the world is made up as roughly thirds of each type is one thing; I can clearly see my dabbler tendencies: the guitar lessons, my tennis racquet, and tai kwon do among other activities that I became a hacker (at best) at and the inevitable learning curve of the next big thing.

I have changed my style as I have matured (a bit); I now have practices in areas I care about and am happy to be a hacker or dabbler in those I am just trying. My sitting practice, running, biking and weightlifting are my physical practices (along with a good diet and eight hours of sleep most nights). Always reading and designing in business helps my cognitive and learning being; on-going conversations contribute to my familial, professional, and personal relationships.
I will encourage my clients to explore what persona they invoke when they operate in different domains and also invite them to go beyond those stereotypes in the arenas that they want to improve and/or request coaching.


Mastery requires patient, dedicated effort, without attachment to immediate results.

Today's TV culture leads us to think the notion of mastery as running counter to our current common sense of unprecedented choices and the belief that any fantasy can be realized instantly and without effort. Climax after climax without ever reaching a plateau leads us to various forms of self-destruction; we do not spend our precious resources of time, energy and money on the things that we say we care about.

While our symptoms get immediate attention, the underlying causes remain in the shadows. When we stop and reflect, however, we know that the production of anything of real value requires patient, long-term effort; balanced, long-term growth cannot be produced while on the search for quick and effortless success or fulfillment.


From our earliest days, we are told to do something to get something else; we wind up living life stretched on a rack of contingencies. While in the pursuit of mastery, however, we go through long stretches of diligent effort without seeming to make progress; most of life is like that, we now get an invitation to spend most of our time on the plateau of performance and enjoy (and even look forward to) it...

We practice diligently and hone our skills for sake of practice to build our automatic habits. Our reflexive abilities reside at a much deeper level than our conscious thought; we must include sensing and movement to further embody our cognitive learning (Mind/Body/Spirit). This is what extends the repertoire of our muscle memory, our ground, when we are on autopilot and moving only in reactive mode.

This is the beauty and the real value of our practice; as we get stronger and more facile, it allows us to move more calmly in the midst of the chaos in our daily lives. From this, the most essential or authentic me emerges; at the same time that me is also the most enduring.

Even though Leonard sometimes sounds like a hippie philosopher (the path of mastery exists only in the present, love the eternal now), but the message is clear and it resonates deeply with me and anyone I can convince to join the journey.


The middle sections of the book outline the "keys" to Mastery:
1) Instruction: Get a first rate teacher that guides you to maximum performance while paying exquisite attention to the slowest student on the mat.
2) Practice: As a noun, not a verb, and on a regular basis as an integral part of our lives. Mastery via a practice is a license to lifelong learning willing to be on a goalless journey. Our practices not only become the most treasured parts of our lives, they also become the most reliable places for us to stand.
3) Surrender: We must be willing to give up our hard-won competence to advance to the next stage of performance. The courage of the master is measured by their willingness to surrender to certain indignities that allow the learning to get through. Surrender keeps us humble as beginners, with an air of calm sincerity while we are consciously aware of everything in our environment.
4) Intentionality: Character and attitude is enhanced through relaxation, confidence and mental rehearsals of our upcoming game. Our thoughts, images and feelings are most fundamental and most persistent; the mental picture lasts longer than the paper diagrams or actual devices that either of them represents.
5) The Edge: The Edge is a balancing act: we know our limits and make a conscious choice to challenge and surpass them; we take risks for the sake of higher performance. By playing the edge, we savor life and reaffirm our humanity and existence. We, however, remain on the never-ending path of our practices.

This part of the book serves dual purposes: it provides the coach a framework to diagnose a client's "stuck-ness" or non-performance in a particular domain that they care about while also giving clients and potential clients food for thought (and design) when we begin to work with them. Having some area in their life where the client is winning or on the road to mastery will provide us with a good bridge to use when guiding their journey in other domains.


The last part of the book outlines "Tools for Mastery."

First, his chapter on why resolutions fail and what to do was a breakthrough in my understanding of the biology of change. As humans, homeostasis has us resist any significant change, whether for better or worse; our self-regulating respiratory and metabolic systems keep us on the hunt for equilibrium, where we stay the same within narrowly confined limits. Thus when encountering change or helping another navigate their way through changes in their own lives, we need to be aware of how homeostasis works (the entire system (includes friends, family and co-workers) has to change when any one part does), be able to negotiate with resistance (play the edge: don't back off, but don't bull through), put a support system in place (sharing something important provides backup when down and encouragement when successful), be in regular practices to incrementally improve our game (provides a stable base and comfort while embodying new moves), and dedicate ourselves to lifelong learning and change (the process changes how the learner deals with homeostasis all the time). We are left to travel the path of Mastery, the path that never ends.

Next, we understand what it takes to generate the time and energy needed for the masterful journey, how to reach our untapped potential. Maintaining physical fitness (diet, exercise and sleep) and feeling good about ourselves through being in touch with nature and our own bodies provides a good base. By acknowledging the negative and accentuating the positive that we encounter, we are able to face the truth, make corrections and move on while concentrating on the best in ourselves. Tremendous energy is both released and preserved by simply telling the truth always. By honoring, but not indulging our dark side, we regain the energy that is stored there without acting out that which is submerged. In setting our priorities, we choose one direction while forgoing others; while one option or goal will never match the possibilities that we are giving up in all of the other options, accepting our limits will have us be less scattered and more successful in the long-term. Making our commitments public and then taking action moves us toward interim goals along the "goalless" mastery journey; our commitments generate more energy toward our success. Again, we are encouraged to get on the path and stay on it.
Leonard's following chapter outlines pitfalls on the path and the challenge of staying on that path: conflicting lifestyle (balancing job and path), obsessive goal orientation, poor instruction (see Key #1 for help), lack of competitiveness or over competitiveness, laziness, injuries, drugs, prizes/medals, vanity, dead seriousness, inconsistency and perfectionism are all pitfalls that can hold us back or derail us while on our journey.

In "Mastering the Commonplace", we learn to avoid our attention on goals, results and the quick fix in order to stay in touch with our every-day experiences; most of our life is spent on "in-between time" doing the stuff that we need to take care of before getting to the next set of things that count. George shows us how we can bring Mastery to all aspects of our lives if we so desire and are willing to remain aware, using driving, household chores, and relationships as a backdrop. The section on relationships provides Joy and I a framework for working together for the rest of our lives; I look forward to using it to assess our situation. Getting help, steadfast practices, surrendering and giving more, intention and being open to the adventure of new experiences are all things we have done over time, but we can now coordinate and concentrate differently than in the past and perhaps access new levels of intimacy in our relationship than we have over the past 25 years or so.

The last chapter helps us pack for the journey ahead of us; our understanding of homeostasis, energy stores and pitfalls add embodiment to the cognitive understandings of the rest of the book. Leonard's Energy Training (LET) uses the body as a metaphor (see how we deal with life) and as a learning facility (change how we encounter life). Balancing and centering, returning to Center, gaining energy from unexpected blows, breath (fundamental energy, connects all things) and relaxing into power (to be able to) all help us to become and stay a learner (willing to be a fool). By learning to empty ourselves, we make room for new things to come into being


I will enjoy continuing to work with this book in more depth in each area both personally and with my clients; I feel like I have barely scratched the surface, but I have already learned so much. I am glad to have another great tool in my repertoire.