How to Master Anything in Life

We are all apprentices, but with focus and intention, we can become masters of any domain. 

Some people are highly gifted, but that gift will lay dormant without focus and intention. 

A teenager, newly landed in Philadelphia, joined the summer basketball league and finished the season with zero points. His father, Joe, had played in the NBA. He was distraught and disappointed, thinking he let his father down. His father told him that he was proud of whether he scored 60 points or zero. But this teenager aimed to score 60 points one day. So, he started planning and practicing every aspect of his game--from footwork to foul shots, dribbling to jump shots.

The next season, he scored some, and by the second year, he climbed to the upper ranks of the league. He practiced daily and multiple times a day to improve and excel. In a few short years, he was one of the best-ranked basketball players in the country. He was the youngest to be drafted to the NBA at 18. Chappeau (hats off) to you, Kobe, as they say in the biking world.

THE EXCUSES:

But that’s Kobe. He was special. Not me.

Epigenetics is the physical manifestation of the DNA in our genes. While our DNA does not change, our mindset and actions can activate or deactivate genes into proteins, which changes our physical, mental, and, I believe, spiritual being. 

There are also neural pathways and blood pathways that are built with all three parts of our being. In the mind, we call this neuroplasticity. In computer science, we call these neural networks. 

What if Kobe didn’t practice every day? What if he practiced a few times a week like everyone else? He wouldn’t have activated his genes and his neuroplasticity. 

Before any actions, our world is a world of thoughts. 

Positive vs. negative, certainty vs. uncertainty, confidence vs. doubt, faith vs. fear.

What kind of mindset do you think Kobe had? Positive or negative, confidence or doubt? It is unlikely Kobe would have made it to the NBA if his thought world was not positive and hopeful.

It’s too hard: So start with just one a day.

I started doing pull-ups daily and biking daily for a ‘season,’ sometimes years, and I quickly realized that if I did one thing daily, I would become top 10% of the world, top 10% in my community, top 10% of my age group or top 10% of my potential. I can do 15 pull-ups daily right now. I can do 50-diamond push-ups with ease. I can ride 100 km a day for a week. How? Because I started with one pull-up and one ride a day and did it consistently over time.

But consistency is not enough. There must be an intention to improve and fulfill your potential.

I’ve been driving for 40 years, but I don’t feel like I am a great driver because I drive without the intention of getting any better, whereas a race car driver is very focused on driving better and faster. 

But I am too old or too weak

My father had a major stroke in 2014, at age 78, that left the right side of his body paralyzed for a month. I had lost hope. He had lost hope. I gave him pure extract green tea tablets and a capsule of omega 3s daily. He was admitted to a rehab centre. He started moving his right knee so slightly that it was hard to notice. By three months, he was limping. By five months he was walking 80%. His rehab doctor said it was a miracle.

But during COVID, he lay in bed all day and lost a lot of muscle (Sarcopenia) and mobility. This year, on his 89th birthday, he could barely walk. He was so unsteady on his feet that he had fallen twice on the way to my car. So I showed him the muscle graph.

The rate of muscle decline increases after menopause and andropause in one’s early 50s and then further at 75. To combat that, he had to exercise daily, every hour. He started by squeezing one of those hand grips for a few months and noticed his right grip strength became stronger. 

I then asked him to do 20 squats each hour five times a day for a total of 100 squats a day. He was soon doing 200 squats a day and then 300. Then, he started to kneel on the ground and move his body up and down from the floor 100, then 200 times a day. Why? He had a day where he had fallen and couldn’t get up for four hours and was ‘rescued’ when my sister came home. He was determined to be able to get up if he fell again. Now, he can go from lying on the floor to getting on his knees and getting up. He is motivated by the law of muscles I showed him below. Muscles can’t help but get stronger with resistance. I told him astronauts couldn’t walk when they came back to Earth because they had no gravity (or resistance) in space.

You can be as fit at 80 as when you were 55 if you actively exercise!

10 Levels of Mastery

In Judo, there are 7 levels one must pass to go from a white belt to a black belt. But did you know there are 10 degrees of black belts? Getting a black belt is like a medical doctor getting his medical degree. It is just the beginning, and to be a master, you must go through nine more degrees of mastery. 

Define the ten levels of mastery you want in anything you really wish to do. I became a master of domains, but I stopped at level 5 after 7 years. Imagine if I continued for another 18 years until now. I started biking again in 2008 and have kept it up and increased my intensity and consistency. As a result, I’m definitely in the top 10%, probably the top 1% for my age group. 

MrBEAST’s Mastery of Youtube: 340 million subscribers

Mr Beast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, started posting YouTube videos in 2010 at the age of 11 to show the unboxing of his Christmas gifts to his grandparents. Just look at his yearly subscribers and growth. Wow.

2012: 22 subscribers
2013: 612 subscribers
2014: 1,604 subscribers
2015: 15,429 subscribers
2016: 460,551 subscribers
2017: 2,009,414 subscribers
2018: 13,322,625 subscribers
2019: 28,417,290 subscribers
2020: 49,540,718 subscribers
2021: 87,033,676 subscribers
2022: 125,377,344 subscribers
2023: 224,698,814 subscribers
2024: 340,691,570 subscribers

MrBeast has repeatedly shared three major principles that helped him grow into the biggest YouTube creator in the world:

1. Obsess Over Mastery
   MrBeast treated YouTube like a science, studying thumbnails and titles and watching time for hours daily with a mastermind group. His growth came from relentlessly analyzing what worked and constantly improving every detail over a decade.

2. Reinvest Back In
   He reinvested nearly all his earnings back into his videos, making each one bigger, more viral, and more valuable.

3. Make the First 30 Seconds Irresistible
   MrBeast optimized every opening to immediately hook viewers with suspense, surprise, or a massive prize.

When you look at the curve above, you start to take a long, consistent view of mastery. You start to think in years, five years, and decades.

Read on for a big life question (only one-minute more). It helped me in my life and I hope it helps you in yours.