How to Perfect Your Craft | 10 Minutes of Mastery and Dedication

You have to study your craft.

I dedicated myself to my craft.

Develop that craft.

Perfect yourself.

Perfect your craft.

Hello, Believe Nation! Today we're going to talk about how you can master your craft. As you guys watch the video, if there's something that someone says that really hits you hard, make sure to write it in the comments below and leave it in quotes so that other people can enjoy as well.

Boy, this is the first time in years doing this all from memory. This is hard to remember, an old computer language. I not only designed this, every little metal trace that you see on here I strapped on onto a drafting table, and I, I built this whole board myself because I wanted the chips in the ultimate perfect position. I worked for a couple of weeks every night till about 4 in the morning laying out the little things on a big drafting table that would eventually become this board. And when I got done, I realized I had to drill 8 holes in the board, and I said, you know what, if I had only designed it a little bit differently, then I would have only had 5 holes. I tore apart my entire design for another 2 weeks, every night till 4 in the morning, to get it just that perfect with only 5 holes so you would never see the 3 missing. It had to be that artistically perfect to me because it represents yourself when you do something, when you do a great design.

If you're really going to get ahead, you have to study your craft.

You have to deeply study it. You know, I decided— what was it now— 18 years ago that I wanted to help inspire and motivate people, and I wanted to coach people one-on-one on motivation and on high performance, and I wanted to write books on the topics. So 18 years ago, I started reading a book a week on psychology, leadership, communication, marketing, anything I could get out of my hand about human behavior and high performance. I was studying everything I could in psychology every single week. Now, it's like people are like, "Wait, you read a book a week for 17 years?" I don't brag about it. I'm not like, "Oh yeah, look at me." That was for my passion. I knew if I really wanted to succeed at something, I had to study it and I had to study it deeply. And I couldn't, you know, spend all this time doing all the other things. So I had to study my craft. The great artists of our past history, that's what they did. They did one thing. They had a true level of depth of study in that area. Now, maybe they dabbled in some other areas too, but they became famous because they studied one area. And so what's your area? What's the thing you need to study on, develop a deep level of competence into how to do it and how that world works. Because, you know, we have this saying in Montana that the time to have the map is before you enter the woods. But a lot of people have a dream and they run out into the woods and they just start trying stuff. And they take this path and this path and this path and this path. And because they didn't study best practices, they someday, you know, they wake up and they're lost. They're confused about who they are and where they're at. And they're in this dark forest of the unknown with no plan to get out. They had no idea. They just jumped into something. They didn't study before taking that leap. And I always say, you know what, study, pay attention, learn from the best, model the most intelligent, smart, successful people you can in any given area that you want to succeed in in your life before you get into it. Then develop competency by doing it over and over and over and over again. Don't do it once in a while here and there. Over and over and over. That's how you get competence.

I've never particularly been asked to do transformations, but you know, you just go, you just get it in your head, then you just go, I need to. That's what I need to do. I don't know how to play that part without looking that way. I always talk with the director about it. It's just that they don't necessarily understand quite to what lengths I might be talking about.

I feel if I work hard, I can play hard.

Chop his head.

This is me. Did nobody get in there and put the gloves on for me? Did nobody go out there on that road and run miles and miles for me? Nobody took the broken ribs. Nobody took the bloody nose. I did it all. I dedicated myself to my craft, and I bust my ass. I'm gonna continue to keep believing in my skills, keep listening to my father, keep listening to my uncle, and sit on this throne for 30 months.

My father worked 2 jobs his whole life.

One was at a GM plant.

Yes, GM plant for 30 years, and then he had a trash truck. Trash hauling service. So he had his own truck and we would go door to door, pick up people's trash. And there was one situation where it was probably 7 below zero and very cold Saturday morning. And my job was to pick up all the loose trash. And so we— it was so cold that I got everything that I could just grab throw it on the truck, and I ran to the truck because it was just cold to jump in. By the time I got in and the door shut, my father opened it back up, grabbed me, and dragged me through the snow back to the barrels to say, "Son, you did a halfway job, and if you do this job in a halfway manner, you're going to be a halfway basketball player. You put in half the time." You only put in half the time as a student. And he said, you're supposed to do this job right, so I want you to go get that shovel and I want you to chop the ice until you can get all the trash that's trapped in the ice and put it on the truck. And that's what happened. And so he taught me how to be a perfectionist and do everything the right way.

And by the time I got to college, I made this album called The Language of My World. Yeah! And with this album, I did the same thing. I locked myself in my room for like all of college. That was it. I just worked my ass off in my room and kept writing, kept recording. And I wasn't great going into college, but by the time I got out, I had kind of like learned a little bit of the craft. And by the time that I got out of college, I read this book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Nobody's ready here. One person. Anyway, this book examines— this book examines this theory, right? And Malcolm Gladwell makes this point. He says it's not about what you're born with. It's not about the talent that you're born with. It's about the hours that you put into that talent. And he says that around— if you want to be a master, whatever it is that you love to do, if you want to develop that craft to its utmost potential, What you have to do is work. You have to work a lot. You have to put in hours. And he says that if you put in around 10,000 hours into that one thing, then eventually you will master that craft. I don't know how close I am to 10,000 hours, but every single time we step on stage, we get one step closer.

What struck us most about Michael when we met him all those years ago was his dedication to the long hours in the pool It's one reason why we train 7 days a week, why we train on Christmas, why we train on Thanksgiving, 365 days a year. There aren't many clubs that train 7 days a week, so that gives you one extra set training session every single week where you can pick something up. So, I mean, I'm getting 52 more practices than everybody else is, and that's gonna make that little or big difference in the end.

I've thought many times about the advice I might give a graduating class, and I can find no better quote than one that was given some 200 years ago by a Polish general, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, who had come to the United States to help Washington along with Lafayette win our independence. He was an engineer, fortified West Point, and was a major contributor to the success of American arms. He said shortly after the war to a group of students such as yourself, "Set yourself to work with reflection and intelligence, either at your prescribed duty, carried out in the most scrupulous manner, or perfect yourself in some science in which you should have true mastery." Perhaps in a shortened version, General Colin Powell summed it up: Find yourself something you're good at and do it to perfection. Something you enjoy. And if you do that, I can promise you, as I have over the past 30-some-odd years, you won't feel that you've gone to work a day in your life.

First, perfect your craft. Regardless of whether you're a singer, writer, producer, composer, choreographer, You gotta perfect that craft. Learn the business. And people always forget, you're in the music business. Understand how these contracts read. Get the right people, right management, right support system, right attorneys. Know what it is you're getting into before you sign anything.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed. I'd love to know what you thought of the video. Which clip moved you the most? How are you mastering your craft? Leave it in the comments below and I will join in the discussion. I also want to give a quick shout out to Mel Mel. Mel Mel, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book. Really means a lot to me. For those of you watching, if you want a chance at a shout out in a future video, make sure to grab a copy of the book and email in your receipt so we can keep track. Thank you guys so much for watching. Continue to believe, or whatever your one word is, and I'll see you soon.