Want to Become the Best at What You Do
Want to Become the Best at What You Do
As Jason Fried and DHH have said: "Many amateur golfers think they need expensive clubs. But it's the swing that matters, not the club. Give Tiger Woods a set of cheap clubs and he'll still destroy you."
When you're confident about what you do and clear about where you're going, the right strategy will make itself known. Hence, when your "why" is strong, you'll figure out "how."
The how comes from the why. Not the other way around.
If you're looking for how to be successful, you're going about it all wrong. You're doing it for the wrong reasons. And you'll continuously be left searching for the next patch of land to find gold.
What will be left?
An open field of half-dug holes, three feet from gold.
If you know what you want and why you're doing it, you're not worried about the "gold." Your security is internal. You aren't worried about the outcomes because you already know they are coming.
For you it's never actually been about the rewards. It's only and always been about seeing how far you can go. About achieving the impossible. About never stopping.
Take everything external away and you're still going to continue with the same intensity you always have. Give you everything -- fame, money, whatever else -- and it wont derail you.
Here's how to become the best at what you do:
1. Work On Yourself, Not On Your Job
"Work hard at your job and you can make a living. Work hard on yourself and you can make a fortune." -- Jim Rohn
Your work is a reflection of you. If you're not getting the results you're looking for, stop looking for better strategies.
Instead, look inside.
Are you currently the person who would attract the level of success you seek? Your outer conditions are a reflection of your inner reality. As James Allen has said, Your circumstances reveal you to yourself.
Where you are right now: that's you.
If you want something different: improve you.
Most people focus on their craft or their "job." That's all well and good. However, you'll get far more bang-for-your-buck by focusing on yourself.
20% of your energy should be devoted to your work.
80% of your energy should be devoted to rest and self-improvement. This is what fuels your work and makes it better than anyone else's. Self-improvement is more than books and true rest is renewal.
While others are trying to improve their job, you're continuously improving yourself, expanding your vision, skills, and abilities. This is akin to Stephen R. Covey's 7th principle: Sharpen your saw. Most people are trying to chop down their tree -- their "job" -- with a dull saw.
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." -- Abraham Lincoln
Within a short period of time, you'll have developed true mastery. Everyone else is trying to hone their "craft." Don't work on your job. Work on yourself.
When you do, your work will far exceed what other people are painstakingly producing. Your work will be cleaner, clearer, and more powerful because you'll be more evolved as a person. Most people you're "competing" against are an inner mess.
2. Consistently Put Yourself Into Situations Others Can Only Dream Of
"Necessity is the mother of invention." -- English Proverb
Your results aren't a reflection of your talent. Lots of people have talent. Few people, however, are required to rise to a difficult challenge.
Most people never put themselves in demanding situations -- situations that humble and scare you.
You need to put yourself into positions that create immense pressure. The kind of pressure that will either make or break you. This is how you purge out your weakness and small-mindedness. It won't be pretty. But it will change you. And eventually, you'll rise up. New. Changed. Better.
You need to be taking on challenges that require you to become so much more than you currently are. You need to put your back against the wall so you have no other choice but to produce.
This is how you evolve.
How do you put yourself into these situations? You initiate. You don't wait for life to come to you. You don't wait for the "next" opportunity.
You improve your current situation or "job" by providing actual value. You pitch ideas. You ask questions. You try and fail. You take on roles that require greater responsibility.
"Leadership" is available to everyone. You just need to assume a leadership role. You can do that right now, in whatever situation you're in. You do this enough, and continuously pitch yourself and your ideas, you'll create opportunities. You then maximize those opportunities and more will come.
Opportunities are like ideas. The more you use them, rather than let them simmer, the more will come. Most people sit on their ideas far too long and they become stale. Similarly, most people sit on their opportunities too long and they stop coming.
3. Don't Copy Other People. Make Them Copy You.
"From this point, your strategy is to make everyone else get on your level, you're not going down to theirs. You're not competing with anyone else, ever again. They're going to have to compete with you." -- Tim Grover
If you're still mimicking the work of other people, good luck.
If you're trying to replicate the work and results of other people, what does that say about your own inner compass?
What does that say about your motivations?
Are you just trying to find what's working?
Are you looking for the "how"?
Do you actually know where you're going?
If you're following someone else's tracks, where do you think those tracks will lead you? To your own destination or to theirs?
And even if you'd be happy with their destination, do you really think you could do it better than them? It's their path. They're driven by something deep and internal. You can't get ahead if you're always a few steps behind. If you're always reacting rather than creating.
If you don't know who you are, you'll always try to be someone else. And thus, you'll never be the best. Your work will always be a cheap imitation. It will lack the feeling that produced the work or the idea.
4. Stay In Love With The Process
"The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war." -- Norman Schwarzkopf
The process -- or the work itself -- is all there is. Results come and go. And it's never been about the results. Success is inevitable.
Success comes easy because it's the last thing on your mind. You already know it's going to happen.
The work itself -- and becoming better and better at it -- is what drives you. It almost doesn't matter what you're doing. It's why you're doing it that matters.
The "what" can and does take many forms. Don't over-attach to one role. Whether you're a leader, writer, athlete, parent, "employee" -- the what doesn't matter. Why you do it and subsequently how you do it is what matters. Hence, how you do anything is how you do everything.
When you are in love with the process, you seek feedback, mentoring, and coaching -- even when you're at the top of your game.
You surround yourself with people who aren't afraid to tell you the truth. You avoid people who suck-up and only tell you what they think you want to hear. Those aren't friends. They have an agenda.
Self-transcendence comes from collaborating with others who are driven by a greater and grander vision. When the whole becomes fundamentally different than the sum of its parts. When the work is the reward.
Going beyond anything you've ever imagined. Complete openness to the possibilities. Unless you're continuously improving and working with better people, you'll never realize this.
When you hone yourself, your work, and you produce -- opportunities will come. They won't help but come. Because you're a magnet, pulling them in.
5. Never Forget Why You're Doing This
"So many times it happens too fast
You trade your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive"
-- Survivor, Eye of the Tiger
It blows me away how often I see people throw their value-systems out the door in hopes for quick success.
When I see this happen, I already know these people won't succeed long-term. They clearly don't have a "why" -- or they forgot it. They don't have an inner compass. Consequently, they don't really know where they're headed. It's a destructive path.
The moment you start compromising, you won't stop compromising. As innovation expert, Clayton Christensen, has said:
Many of us have convinced ourselves that we are able to break our own personal rules "just this once." In our minds, we can justify these small choices. None of those things, when they first happen, feels like a life-changing decision. The marginal costs are almost always low. But each of those decisions can roll up into a much bigger picture, turning you into the kind of person you never wanted to be.
This, unfortunately, is more common than not.
It's so common, in fact, that it's almost expected. Hence, few people become the best at what they do. They end up becoming something far less.
Conclusion
Becoming the best is about never being satisfied with what you've done. It's about continually improving who you are.
It's knowing success will come because you know who you are and what you stand for.
It's about initiating -- continually creating situations that force you to become more than you currently are. Purging yourself of all your imperfections. Evolving.
This is your journey. Take it.
10 Things You Must Do To Become The Best At Anything In The World
1. Start With What You Love
Before you head off to the races, you need to get to the heart of what you love—you will never be part of the 1% unless you are doing something you are deeply, madly, obsessively in love with. And sometimes you won’t know this right off the bat. To give you some perspective, in the World of Warcraft there are a bunch of different classes you can play (and there are studies out there done to show how different personalities choose different classes). For the first year of my playing the game, I played what is called a Shaman. The Shaman class is no expert in any single domain, but rather a “jack of all trades.” As a result, I wasn’t that great of a healer, I wasn’t that great of a damage class, and I wasn’t really fit to tank—but I could do all 3, so at best I was a support class.
After a year of playing I realized that even though my class was a hybrid, I was playing it as if I were a 100% focused damage class. And I realized that I would never truly be a successful damage class as long as I stayed a Shaman. So what did I do? I deleted my character and started over. I now had a clear grasp of who I wanted to be and what I loved doing—in the World of Warcraft, I loved doing “damage.”
START WITH WHAT YOU LOVE.
2. Explore Your Potential
Before you can find your “sweet spot” of talent, you have to explore the extremes. Sticking with gaming here, I had to explore my new class (a Mage) and understand just how far I could take it, both offensively and defensively. I had to know how long I could survive playing very aggressively, and how long I could survive playing very timidly and defensively. And once I knew those two extremes, I could begin to create a style of play that blended the two.
The only way you’re going to find this is to ignore the concept of “mistakes” and explore, explore, explore. Try new things. Test your skills, combine strategies, do anything and everything that comes to mind so you can better understand the frame of your own potential.
Another great way of putting this is, as a musician, you have to know the dynamics of your voice when you’re screaming at the top of your lungs, and when you’re wispily whispering. Once you know where those extremes lie, you can begin to shape your voice within the two and float in that space in order to create emotion and dynamics.
Never mistakes, always lessons.
3. “Starting Over”
Everyone thinks the path to mastery is a clear shot. It’s not. At any moment, you have to be willing to throw everything out the window and start over again. But the more times you are willing to do this, the more times you can “reinvent” yourself, the more you will know and the better you will be.
To give you a sense of what it took for me to truly learn and understand my World of Warcraft class, a Mage, I leveled three (3!) separate characters to level 60 within my second year of playing. My reason for doing so was because back then you couldn’t pay to move your character to different servers, so in search of better competition I would have to level a new character every time. Each character, 1-60, probably took me a few hundred hours—especially back then when the game was still “hard.” And every time I started over, I learned something new about the class. It was never something big or flashy or monumental, but rather a simple understanding, a small fix, that allowed me deeper control over my character and to have a more profound sense of the game and how I could maneuver myself within it.
4. Find A Mentor
Nothing, nothing, NOTHING will make you grow as fast as learning beside someone who double, triple, quadruples you in skill. I swear to you, the learning doesn’t even come from direct “now do this, now do this.” It comes from being beside someone bigger, faster, smarter than you, and you soaking up their knowledge—like a growing tree beside an aged oak, learning how to reach towards the sun.
When I turned 16, I decided I wanted to take World of Warcraft seriously. I was starting to see signs that the game was going to be bigger than anyone had ever anticipated, and I wanted to be part of whatever it was going to become.
There was a Mage on another server named Cachexic who had made some gameplay videos that I absolutely loved, and I wanted to play just like him. His style was the style that I wanted for myself. So I made a character on his server and asked if he would teach me. Thinking I was just some fanboy, he said, “Sure kid. If you level a character here, I will teach you. But I doubt you’ll make it to level 60 without giving up.”
I was so motivated by the prospect of getting to learn from such a talented gamer that that day, I created a character on his server, and I deleted my Level 60 Mage on another server—a character I had poured probably 1,000 hours into. I knew that as long as that character was still around, I would probably give up like Cachexic had said and resort to what was “easy.” So I removed that option. I deleted that character and leveled a new one on Cachexic’s server. When I hit level 60 4 months later, he was shocked. He went on to become my mentor and best friend for the following 2 years, and I attribute my success in that game largely to our friendship.
5. Be The Small Fish In The Big Pond, Not The Big Fish In The Small Pond
The prelude to the story in #4 is that the server I was on prior to playing with Cachexic, I was the big fish. I was known as the #1 Mage on the server and every single player knew my name—I was a mini celebrity. But was I really all that good? Nah, not at all, actually. I was the best Mage on that server, but that server wasn’t really full of top-tier players. When I saw videos of players on other servers, I could tell that they played quicker than me, they were faster and more intuitive. Those were the players I needed to learn from and play against.
This involves letting go of your ego. I could have stayed on that server (Wildhammer) and sat at the top, but then I wouldn’t have gotten any better.
Cachexic’s server, by contrast, was a top tier server. Some of the best players and best guilds in the world played there, and the day I hit level 60 and entered their arena I realized how little I knew and how talented I wasn’t. But after I made that move, I forever saw the importance. After becoming friends, Cachexic and I made it a habit to move servers every few months, always in search of better players and better competition. This principle is what allowed us to stay in a constant state of growth.
6. Practice, Practice, Practice
Look, I cannot say this any more clearly: You have to practice more than you think about practice.
A lot of people think about practice. I remember I used to download dozens of Mage videos made by other players and watch them, study them, trying to figure out how I could be like them. But one day, it clicked: I was never going to get better by watching. I had to DO. Again, I made the sharp pivot. I replaced all the hours I spent watching other players with simply playing myself.
Building off that: Do you know how much I practiced that game as a teenager? I practiced, minimum, four hours per day. MINIMUM. And that wasn’t 4 hours after school when the sun is still out. I wasn’t allowed to play on my computer during the week because that was the family rule. So I would pretend to go to sleep at 10pm, then sneak back to my computer and play until 2 or 3 in the morning, get a few hours of sleep, go to school, literally hold my eyes open through every single class, sleep through study hall, take a nap after school, barrel through my homework with my dad after dinner, and then repeat the cycle.
I had to violate so many family rules in order to play that game. I had to practice at odd hours. I had to play with guilds and teams that were in Australia because those were the only players awake and online consistently in the middle of the night. I had to live in a constant state of fear, afraid that at any moment my mother or father would peek into my bedroom and see me playing at my computer in the pitch black. But that is what it took for me to hit my goals in that game. I was willing to do WHATEVER IT TOOK to get back to my computer and practice.
Practice like your life depends on it, because if you want to be in the top 1%, it does.
7. The SKILL
My goal was to be the best Mage in the game—skill. I didn’t care about the epic items. I didn’t care about how much gold I had. I didn’t care about being in a prestigious guild or raiding the high-end dungeons or how many quests I completed in the game. The ONLY thing I cared about was how skilled I was against another player.
In order to do that, I had to give up everything else. I was poor and rarely had gold to spend on cool, rare items. I didn’t have the best gear because I didn’t spend time raiding or killing bosses. I didn’t really have that big of a “friend” group in the game because I kept largely to myself and my close, competitive friends who shared a similar goal. And do you see the real life parallels here? If you want something specific, you have to be willing to let go of the other stuff. You have to give up chasing the money, chasing the validation, chasing the rewards, etc., and you have to focus on the SKILL. You have to spend ALL of your time (95%+) on developing your SKILL. I cannot stress how important this is. I gave up instant gratification and validation to invest in myself and my talents as a player for the long-term benefit.
No matter what you want, whether it’s money, a title, status, it doesn’t matter. Don’t focus on the END, focus on the PROCESS—the SKILL. SKILL is what will get you to the 1%.
8. Walk Your Own Path
If you’ve made it this far, you are now in the top 15%. Congrats. That’s pretty good! But in order to get past the next 14% and into the top 1%, you have to be prepared for war and to fight your way through.
The entire time I played World of Warcraft, I was attacked by the real world. I was told that I was wasting my life. I was told that I wasn’t going to amount to anything. I was told that nothing could be gained from playing a video game, that I was on the path to destruction, that I was “an addict.” So as hard as the path to mastery already is, it is made harder by all the voices telling you that you should give up, that you can’t do it, and not just that, but telling you that you’re WRONG and a sub-par human being for doing so.
I didn’t listen.
If you want to be in the top 1%, be prepared to trust your inner voice and no one else. This is where mentors are extremely helpful, because they help make that voice stronger by adding their own. They help remind you of your dream and stand by your side to make it happen. That’s what Cachexic was for me.
Walk your own path. Stay true to your goal. And every time someone tells you to give up or not to press forward, use that as fuel to launch yourself further. Channel your anger and frustration. Turn it into inspiration.
9. Be Relentless
When you get close to the top 1%, you will be able to feel it. It will be just outside your grasp and it will tickle your fingertips, taunting you to stretch just a little bit further.
In the World of Warcraft, this was the title of “Gladiator.” At the end of the season, it is awarded to the top .5% of players in the 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 brackets. (No longer 2v2, but it was back when I played.) I wanted this title more than I wanted to get into college, more than I wanted to lose my virginity. I had worked so hard to get to where I was and I wanted to enter that top 1%. I wanted every single person in that game to know that I was the best.
A few weeks before the season ended and the titles were handed out, one of teammates on our 3v3 team got banned—he got caught using a bot in the game to get gold or something. So we quickly required a new 3rd player and played RELENTLESSLY over the next few weeks to get our team back up into the top .5%. The day before the season ended, we were the #1 3v3 team on the server and were guaranteed not just the title of Gladiator, but Merciless Gladiator—meaning that we were the #1 team on the server, and well beyond the top .5% in the world.
The night before the season ended, our new 3rd player went nuts and disbanded the team.
I had nothing.
I WAS RIGHT THERE. IT WAS WITHIN MY GRASP.
Did I give up and accept defeat?
The next morning, me and my longtime teammate made a quick 2v2 team and played for 7 hours straight (it should be noted that he was living in his mom’s basement and was a coke addict, and much cocaine was consumed that day on his end). We lost something like 5 games in 7 hours and in one straight shot went from a brand new team to being one of the top 20 2v2 teams on the server.
The next morning, we both logged in to find our Gladiator titles. We had achieved the top .5% title after all.
10. “Anybody Can Get It / The Hard Part Is Keeping It”
Ah, so now you have made it. The top 1%—and a title to match! Every single person in the world knows that you are among the most talented, the most successful. In real life, this would be the mansion, the Ferrari, the dapper suit and the beautiful blonde, the fitting title of CEO or your name in the big lights. You have it all.
Now the question becomes: Do you have what it takes to stay there?
This was the most fascinating part of the journey for me. As soon as I had that title of Gladiator, I changed as a player—and not for the better. I was instantly offered everything. I had sponsorship requests. I had the top players around the world asking me to play with them. My gaming blog was being read by thousands of people. But along with that, I started getting complacent. If I made a mistake in a match, everybody would laugh and say, “Man, that was so funny! We’ll get them next time no problem,” not wanting to call me out and always assuming that I was, in some sense, a perfect player—all because of my title.
Over time, this made it easier and easier to make mistakes and not be hard on myself. It made it easier to get rewards and external approval without having to work all that hard. And sure enough, the next kid who was grinding and putting in work started to catch up to me, until I was no longer the best. I had stopped putting in the tough work. I had stopped focusing on the SKILL.
As much work as it takes to get into the top 1%, it takes even more work to stay there. 
So, here are my 10 best tips for achieving anything you want in life.
1. Focus on commitment, not motivation.
Just how committed are you to your goal? How important is it for you, and what are you willing to sacrifice in order to achieve it? If you find yourself fully committed, motivation will follow.
2. Seek knowledge, not results.
If you focus on the excitement of discovery, improving, exploring and experimenting, your motivation will always be fueled. If you focus only on results, your motivation will be like weather—it will die the minute you hit a storm. So the key is to focus on the journey, not the destination. Keep thinking about what you are learning along the way and what you can improve.
3. Make the journey fun.
It’s an awesome game! The minute you make it serious, there’s a big chance it will start carrying a heavy emotional weight and you will lose perspective and become stuck again.
4. Get rid of stagnating thoughts.
Thoughts influence feelings and feelings determine how you view your work. You have a lot of thoughts in your head, and you always have a choice of which ones to focus on: the ones that will make you emotionally stuck (fears, doubts) or the ones that will move you forward (excitement, experimenting, trying new things, stepping out of your comfort zone).
5. Use your imagination.
Next step after getting rid of negative thoughts is to use your imagination. When things go well, you are full of positive energy, and when you are experiencing difficulties, you need to be even more energetic. So rename your situation. If you keep repeating I hate my work, guess which feelings those words will evoke? It’s a matter of imagination! You can always find something to learn even from the worst boss in the world at the most boring job. I have a great exercise for you: Just for three days, think and say positive things only. See what happens.
6. Stop being nice to yourself.
Motivation means action and action brings results. Sometimes your actions fail to bring the results you want. So you prefer to be nice to yourself and not put yourself in a difficult situation. You wait for the perfect timing, for an opportunity, while you drive yourself into stagnation and sometimes even into depression. Get out there, challenge yourself, do something that you want to do even if you are afraid.
7. Get rid of distractions.
Meaningless things and distractions will always be in your way, especially those easy, usual things you would rather do instead of focusing on new challenging and meaningful projects. Learn to focus on what is the most important. Write a list of time-wasters and hold yourself accountable to not do them.
8. Don’t rely on others.
You should never expect others to do it for you, not even your partner, friend or boss. They are all busy with their own needs. No one will make you happy or achieve your goals for you. It’s all on you.
9. Plan.
Know your three steps forward. You do not need more. Fill out your weekly calendar, noting when you will do what and how. When-what-how is important to schedule. Review how each day went by what you learned and revise what you could improve.
10. Protect yourself from burnout.
It’s easy to burn out when you are very motivated. Observe yourself to recognize any signs of tiredness and take time to rest. Your body and mind rest when you schedule relaxation and fun time into your weekly calendar. Do diverse tasks, keep switching between something creative and logical, something physical and still, working alone and with a team. Switch locations. Meditate, or just take deep breaths, close your eyes, or focus on one thing for five minutes.
You lack motivation not because you are lazy or don’t have a goal. Even the biggest stars, richest businesspeople or the most accomplished athletes get lost sometimes. What makes them motivated is the curiosity about how much better or faster they can get. So above all, be curious, and this will lead you to your goals and success.
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