We are born with the potential to learn and to work towards a level of mastery in what we passionately produce in our life through our work.  In early formal education, we memorize such  foundational skills such as reading and writing.  Later, we add to this a  foundation with identified fields of learning such as history, science, mathematics, the arts, etc.

Some go on with a formal learning process to earn a post-secondary degree, learning more of the general fields and then concentrating for a couple years in an area of study to begin to learn a specific craft.  In some specialized fields, you even begin the learning process of applying what you are learning.  In my case, I earned a teaching certificate and spent twelve supervised weeks in an internship where I began to learn more about teaching.

A level of mastery is said to require 10,000 hours of deep practice with each skill.  In my teaching internship, I likely invested less than 500 hours of applying what I had learned.  From the culminating point of formal education where I became degreed, who will set my course for the next 9,500 hours to become a masterful teacher?  Setting a disciplined practice of applied learning toward mastery is largely on us, the learner, for the remainder of your life.

I am an educator and a coach by nature.  The significance that I work to create here is to supply daily references of masterful intellects that have supported my own prescriptive practice of applied learning.  Should you read and apply what you discover here in a effort that enhances your learning practice toward mastery, a ripple effect of extending impact has then been created.  Coaches coach, I coach here to build the learning capacity of others.

“Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure.  But it’s the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others:  we are merely born with the capability to do it.  The skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.      —  Goethe  —