Part 3: Manage Relationships Effectively With Your Specialization
Gaining mastery over yourself in terms of your time, priorities, and acquiring discipline is a minimum foundational part of fulfilling your potential. In the last section, we cover the internal aspects of arriving at that point. In this section, we discuss the external factors.
Your desire to win is not enough to succeed. Your motivation increases your focus with more intense preparation and performance, but that does not anticipate how your competition can beat you. In the business world, you will compete against many players who experiment with new ideas to out-think and outpace you and resort to psychological manipulation. In the academic world, elite schools take applications and make acceptance decisions based on subjective beliefs of who best represents their image and culture. How do ambitious and talented people compete effectively to win?
From a SELF-CARE standpoint, to win means nothing if the winning does not correspond with your fulfillment. As mentioned in the previous part of this post, human history includes numerous examples of people that earned great fortunes, achieved fame, and yet despite this, died miserably. To truly achieve success and to feel fulfilled by achieving a goal, winning contests, and overcoming personal limitations require that you accomplish self-awareness.
Managing relationships become especially important when you specialize in your choice of profession, art or area of expertise.
Acquire Skill
If your performance depends on motivation alone, your results will be inconsistent, and your career short-lived. Imagine going to see your favorite artist or athlete perform on a day when they lack the motivation, and it shows. Likely, you will not see them again, and your enthusiasm for them will drop. They deserve to lose you as a fan because they did not invest the time to appreciate your attention. The skill to perform consistently and under pressure depends on discipline, which only happens through practice. With practice, the excellence of your performance does not require an intense focus and high motivation. It will be there for you automatically because performing well become a habit for you as it does for professionals.
When you have a natural talent, the thinking part interferes less with the process of learning. Choosing your niche based on your natural ability also lessens the focus necessary to refine technical details. The more challenging part is finding a coach that will dedicate time to train you with devotion. Usually, such teachers are very selective in their choice of student and seek out those with natural ability as a preference. I learned this by doing research and finding one that was a good match for me.
A student-teacher relationship is unique because of the necessity for time investment while there is no assurance of their recognition or acknowledgment in return. There are also risks that the student can betray their teacher by failing to appreciate or acknowledge their teaching. You owe respect and attention to deserve a good teacher. In the same way, to follow yourself and dedicate time, following a plan, and improving yourself with effort is your discipline.
Build Community
Getting into the game will require that you sell yourself in a competitive field. Dedicating your time and building relationships requires this effort. Enthusiasm and a track record leading up to your involvement go a long way in building credibility. Even with a significant commitment, you may need to find a sponsor. To be accepted into Systema training, I needed introductions to a sought after instructor through several contacts. My advocate was my Aikido instructor referral to vet my character, skill, and attitude.
As you develop in your niche, you will learn about practitioners that have a reputation for being exceptional. Your level of skill, natural ability, track record, whom you are associated with, and how you work affect how you are ranked. It is important to discern your teachers, place of training, and demonstrate a high work ethic. Opportunities will find you if you can add something different to your art. Being likable also influences your specialization.
Whom you associate with says a lot about you in terms of your quality as a person. The way you handle criticism and negativity also demonstrates your confidence and maturity as an up and coming or masterful practitioner. To build a community around you, be mindful of the company you keep and the quality of people that you allow into your circle. Just as enthusiasm is infectious, bad habits and attitudes will also invade your psyche. Being associated with respectable people further opens ways for you to interact with the top performers in your field. Humility is a major criterion for your acceptance. Your specialization becomes known through this method.
Refine Ideas
Style differences become apparent at the top levels of any competitive field. The personality of the top performers shows through in how they express their talent when they compete. In the first stages of development, you master the basics. Through exposure to different teachings, methods of practice, and results, your strengths will come into view toward mastery. At the last stage, you develop your specialization. Theories of superior style are decided upon by real tests.
The ideas by themself, the various styles, and the contests have many variables that make a decisive comparison nearly impossible, but ultimately, less important than the practice. To outperform and outclass anyone in your niche or field requires that you continue to progress beyond your earlier set point. Competing and surpassing your last best performance is the key. The other important factor to address is the possibility that your competition can predict your approach, style, and signature moves. To reinvent yourself with innovations that include new techniques, you must compete often and against skilled opponents.
Promote Ideas
Conditioning shows up in your personality because you have been transformed by the practice of your chosen art. Your lifestyle, attitudes, and behavior are indirect ways to promote the principles, values, and ideas. Through your practice and mastery, the art has transformed you, and your way of displaying it has transformed the art. To ensure the continuation and further development of this art, you have to promote it.
Promoting the art to another generation requires that you synthesize your knowledge of how you gained that skill. The ability to acquire and teach students to become as proficient as you are is a next-level skill. In the Martial Arts world, Katas are used to teach and condition the student to learn. As the student advances in skill as tested by the effective demonstration of the kata, they must demonstrate the application of the techniques by sparring against more senior students.
The amount of time that you spend in the field of your choice also says much about you. Indirectly, your long-term involvement and growth in serving as practitioner, rank, students, and relationships build your following. Referrals and social engagements amplify your reputation and the style or philosophy behind your practice. This method increases the adoption and further refinement of the work that you have performed to reach your status.
Succession
For a business or trade practitioner, the mentorship to best teach and test capabilities is an apprenticeship. Knowledge transfer and learning are increasingly virtual, and this creates challenges in terms of building a student-teacher relationship. Social media, web-based video, and content platforms can make informational exchanges real-time, interactive, or on-demand. It is increasingly necessary to think about sharing this content in a consumable format that enables people to learn, provide feedback, and adopt.
The way to promote ideas is to first reflect on the way that your style and teachings have benefited you as a practitioner. Besides being successful in the practice of the way, how has the art influenced your development as a person, your relationships, and the deeper insights you gained from that style? What principles and values reflect your particular style? How is this style unique and valuable?
Inspirational teachers from practically all traditions have served as great examples for their unique style and their character. Beyond the competition and challenges they faced, you will also learn about the people they inspired to succeed. Succession is about successfully sharing knowledge and values with the next generation that inherit your traditions, and namesake.
Continue to Part 4: Your Longevity with SELF-CARE