[beat]

A lot of it is about learning how to learn. Developing skill and mastery is a similar problem in almost any field, and you can learn a lot by reading from masters in other fields. I'm currently reading Handmade: Creative Focus in the Age of Distraction, by Gary Rogowski, who makes furniture. The first half of the book, at least (that's how far I am) is all about the wide variety of difficult lessons he's learned on the way to mastery of his craft. There are many other books like this, and they tend to be very instructive.

[dcx]

This is interesting to me. Would you have any other book recommendations in this vein?

[beat]

Effortless Mastery, by Kenny Werner. The Music Lesson, by Victor Wooten. Both of these are about music, but are really about mastery.

Shop Class as Soulcraft, by Matthew B. Crawford. This is a much more philosophical/academic argument that skilled manual labor is both intellectually and morally superior to most office work - you're shaping reality, rather than shaping yourself. I happily lump the craft of software development in with physical labor here, though, as it faces the same kinds of reality-based limitations.

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki. Transcribed lectures by a well-known Zen monk. The entire book is basically about learning how to sit still. If you can't even sit still, how do you expect to do anything else well? And do you have any idea what it even means to just sit still?

[dcx]

Thanks for the recommendations, I've added these to my book list! In exchange, have you seen this [1] report about excellence in competitive swimmers? The lifetime of a swimmer is short and outcomes vary wildly, from local swim meets all the way to the Olympics. It's a great case study on the differences at each level. There should be copies on sci-hub or other online summaries.

I also liked Mastery by George Leonard [2] - it's a little booklet about mastery with the same kinds of generalisable takeaways, drawing on his experience as an Aikido practitioner.

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/202063?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont...

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/81940.Mastery