So here’s the thing nobody wants to tell you about mastery, and especially nobody wants to sell you a course about it…
It’s boring as hell.
Sitting here this morning, coffee getting cold while I bash out my thousandth email about whatever’s rattling around in my brain, and it hit me.
This daily grind of putting words on a page, is the least sexy part of writing. But it’s also the only part that actually matters.
You want to know why every guru, coach, and “thought leader” (Christ, I hate that term) is peddling shortcuts, hacks, and “revolutionary methods”?
Because repetition doesn’t sell. Nobody’s going to pay $297 for a course called “Do The Same Thing Every Day For Three Years Until You Stop Sucking At It.”
But that’s literally what works.
Malcolm Gladwell got rich telling people about the 10 000 hour rule, but he conveniently left out the most important bit. Which is those 10 000 hours are mind numbingly repetitive. It’s not 10 000 hours of inspiration and breakthrough moments. It’s 10 000 hours of doing the same fundamental thing over and over until your muscle memory takes over and your conscious brain can finally focus on the interesting stuff.
I’ve watched this play out everywhere. Musicians practicing scales until their fingers bleed. Writers churning out garbage daily drafts until something readable emerges. Comedians bombing night after night with the same material until they find the rhythm that makes people laugh.
Progress feels like stagnation most of the time.
You sit down to write and the words feel exactly as clunky as they did yesterday.
You practice that guitar riff for the hundredth time and it still sounds like a dying cat.
You work on your sales pitch and it’s still awkward as shit.
But somewhere around repetition number 847, something shifts.
Not dramatically.
You probably won’t even notice it at first. But other people will. They’ll start saying stupid shit like “you make it look so easy” or “you’re just naturally talented.”
Natural talent. Right.
What they’re really seeing is the compound effect of a thousand small improvements, each one so marginal you didn’t notice it happening.
Like interest in a savings account, except instead of money, you’re accumulating competence.
The dirty secret of every expert you admire? They got bored. Really, properly bored. And they kept going anyway.
Because repetition isn’t sexy. It’s not marketable. It doesn’t promise instant results or overnight transformation.
It just works.
And now with the world obsessed with hacks and shortcuts, maybe that’s the most radical thing you can do.
Show up. Do the work. Again. And again. And again.
Until you git gud or die. Whichever part comes first.
Here’s Malcolm’s book if you’re interested in it too.
Stephen Walker