10,000 HOURS TO MASTERY Master Prophet E. Bernard Jordan LESSON 6 THE TRANSFORMATION OF MASTERY

“To focus on technique is like cramming your way through school. You sometimes get by, perhaps even get good grades, but if you don't pay the price day in and day out, you'll never achieve true mastery of the subjects you study or develop an educated mind.” (Stephen R. Covey

BECOMING… On the road to mastery, you will meet no one but yourself. Everything that you do is a reflection not of the skills you have learned but of the spirit and individual you have become. You are not being. Being is static, and stasis only comes at death. You are becoming. What are you becoming?

BECOMING… (CON’T) The treasure of mastery is not the new set of skills that you master, but the process that leaves you a different person than when you began. The journey is about becoming the being that God intended when He created you. God has an ideal in mind of who and what you could and can be. It is the mission and purpose for each of us to bridge the gap between the person we are today and that potential being of light and knowledge.

TRANSFORMATIVE MASTERY The bridge is mastery and its pursuit, the mental and spiritual purgation, development and refinement that can only come through the selfless pursuit of something greater. Key to “transformative mastery” - your pursuit of mastery must have a purpose. Making money is fine. Becoming famous is fine. Becoming great at something for its own sake is fine. But what is your larger purpose? What is your why?

TRANSFORMATIVE MASTERY (CON’T) Without a “why”, you will be nothing more than a skilled craftsman! Martin Luther King, Jr. was an incredible orator, minister and teacher. He was truly God-gifted and spent years honing those gifts to mastery. Yet without purpose, he would have remained a genius at speaking but nothing more. Because he found his purpose in the civil rights movement, he became more. Gandhi would have remained a vegetarian Hindu attorney had he not found purpose in the nonviolent struggle for Indian independence and dignity.

THE PURPOSE BEHIND MASTERY What is the purpose behind the mastery you seek? It is fine to make money, but what is the money serving? It is fine to be famous and live in a grand house, but what is your fame and your house serving? Mastery, ultimately, is about mastering yourself, not any set of skills or modes of thinking or understanding.

CHARACTER BEHIND MASTERY Gandhi said, “All of your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be vain if at the same time you did not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts and your actions.” The intense focus, single-mindedness and tedium of putting 10,000 hours into something gives you no choice but to explore your desires. It forces you to burn your spirit clean of false purposes and false motivations. The genuine pursuit of mastery exterminates hypocrisy and self-delusion.

CHARACTER BEHIND MASTERY(CON’T) You will not find arrogant or self-deluded martial arts masters. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of the Japanese art of aikido, was renowned not only as a master of the defensive arts, but also as a deeply spiritual man. In 1940, he had an experience of pure self- transformation, saying, “Around 2 A.M., as I was performing misogi, (a discipline of meditating under a fall of icy water) I suddenly forgot all the martial techniques I had ever learned.”

CHARACTER BEHIND MASTERY(CON’T) The techniques of my teachers appeared completely new. Now they were vehicles for the cultivation of life, knowledge, and virtue, not devices to throw people with.” Spirit and character morph in unexpected and unpredictable ways as you walk the path of mastery.

10,000 HOURS TO MASTERY Master Prophet E. Bernard Jordan LESSON 6 THE TRANSFORMATION OF MASTERY