The Case for Being Good at Something

”The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field or endeavor.” - Vince Lombardi

No one went for a casual walk out their front door and ended up on top of a mountain.

Climbing a mountain takes planning, intentional effort, and persevering through challenges. Years of training must go into developing technical skills and building physical endurance, and the summiting of the mountain itself requires hours or even days of serious physical exertion.

Climbing a mountain is no accident.

Similarly, success is no accident.

Yet many people expect to accidentally stumble upon success or have it given to them. They go through life without any focused effort to achieve their vague goals. As soon as obstacles are encountered, excuses are thrown up and work stops. Then they complain about the effort required and how difficult it is, wondering why their lives aren’t where they want to be. People expect quick wins with little effort and get surprised by obstacles. Which isn’t how life goes.

If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Even though those are some broadly painted strokes, the general thread still rings true.

As society goes more digital and interconnected, attention spans are decreasing as we become conditioned for immediate gratification. Millennials maintained an average attention span of 12 seconds and Generation Z’s attention span shrunk down to 8 seconds. People are losing the ability to focus through a 30 second social media video, let alone persevere through the months or years of effort required for long term skill gains and completion of big goals.

People think about and dream about the outcome or reward of accomplishments - a trophy, big house, fancy vacations, or the praise of peers. But that’s where all of the thought and dreaming goes - the outcome. The actual process of achieving the outcome is often completely ignored. There’s no training montage in life like there is in a movie.

In a society that is conditioned for dopamine hits with the swipe of a thumb and nothing is ever good enough - the ability to focus, learn, persevere, and complete our goals is a revolutionary skill.

Perseverance doesn’t happen by accident. Perseverance is developed over time through focused effort. By learning how to learn, work through obstacles and failure, complete long term goals, and focus on the present moment, our lives can be greatly enhanced. These skills can be applied throughout our lives creating compounding growth.

This is why I believe it is so critical for people to pick a skill, any skill, and become great at it.

It doesn’t matter if that skill is practical shooting, a career focused skill, chess, lifting weights, or anything else with a high skill ceiling. The lessons learned and character development that comes from the path of focused effort is revolutionary. Naturally, the scope of this book is focused on practical pistol shooting. But the lessons learned can apply across all forms of skill development

There’s no need to be the best of the best, winning competitions and pursuing shooting as a full time career. The level of effort for that fits with very few lifestyle priorities - and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s also nothing wrong with become great at something, and then moving onto the next pursuit. But by becoming really great, well above ‘good,’ we will learn things that cannot be truly learned any other way.

Pursuing excellence unleashes so much potential that helps across all areas of life. By becoming a highly skilled shooter, I have learned more than I ever thought I would and have been able to use what I learned to help me in all other areas of my life.

Ever wonder how people become really good at multiple things? It’s not because they’re born with talent, it’s because they became really good at one skill and then replicated that growth onto the next skill, and the next, and the next. Becoming “excellent” becomes “normal.”

So pick a challenge and do what it takes to become excellent.

Choose your Challenge

“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.” - Seneca

((Needs some iteration on this here. Make it read better. Make the flow better.)) Not everyone gets to choose the challenges they face. From cancer, to losing a job, to auto collisions, to toxic people - there are a wide variety of obstacles that we will face in life. Overcoming obstacles requires determination, effort, strategy, and more. All of the things required to overcome obstacles are skills that can be developed and improved.

By picking a challenge to overcome, we can become stronger and better, helping us develop the skills to overcome challenges that we don’t get to choose.

“I get to do this.” I have the blessings and opportunities to be able to pursue this challenge, and by pursuing this challenge I can become better at life.

((Mention how a great challenge has a blend of physical requirement and mental requirements. I think those are the best because they improve physical health and mental health. The physical and mental could be combined into one thing, like practical pistol shooting, or split between two things, like chess and running.))

((The more I push myself, the more I figure out who I am.))

Pursuing excellence results in many amazing personal benefits

((Need a Segway here))

Productive Dopamine Hits

((The journey is better than the destination.))

We crave those oh so precious dopamine hits. We want to get those happy chemicals.That desire is why social media apps, slot machines, bags of chips, and more are designed the way they are.

They are designed to provide easy access to pleasure in a repeatable format, even if they aren’t good for us.

People living in first world societies are having their productivity and drive undermined by these addicting systems. They are losing the ability to stay at something for an extended period of time, be it focus on one thing in a single working session or repeatedly work at the same thing over the long run to accomplish a goal.

The pursuit of excellence at something helps counteract the addicting pull of so many systems in the modern world.

((Maybe move this to the we can’t focus on anything session. )) ((Don’t like the flow of what I wrote, but I like the point made. Then again, dopamine might be too scientific of a thing for me to go over and might be too big of a topic for me to add to this book. Or… do I just do a quick touch on the topic or something?))

Develop skill of self analysis

((The ability to teach yourself and self learn is very important. It is a skill in of itself.))

Endurance / Work Through Obstacles / Resilience / Embrace failure

((Endurance and pushing through obstacles is the same, but different.))

(become comfortable with being uncomfortable) “Comfort is a slow death.”

How to Learn ((this seems like the same as self analysis))

((Don’t dig deep into how to actually learn, but go over the benefits of knowing how to learn.))((These sections should probably be 2-4 paragraphs, keep ’em short))

There are processes and systems that go into learning new skills, which can be re-used to learn other skills. As we learn new things, our brain gets ((rewrite))((expand on what happens to the brain as we learn))

Build Endurance (Discipline for Consistent Effort Over Time)

(discipline over whims) ((Consistency of effort)) ((Making a choice and following through on that choice))

Processes to Set and Complete Goals

Slay the ego

True honest growth to becoming great requires leaving the ego behind and replacing it with confidence.

Ego holds us back. Ego prevents the best growth.

((Explain the difference between confidence and ego. “I can do this because I know my skill.” vs “I am a more valuable human than the people around me because I can do this.”))

Build Confidence

“Confidence is at least 30% of performance.” - Steve Anderson, practical pistol instructor

Confidence is internally contagious. Building confidence in one area of your life helps build confidence in other areas. Building confidence is a lifestyle choice and it helps improve our shooting performance and our performance in life. Slay those negative intrusive thoughts and build thoughts of confidence.

Reduce Stress

(went to an interview completely relaxed with the perspective of this was less scary than nationals)

Joining a community of people pursuing growth

((Needs cleaning, but is an excellent point to make))

Not everyone pursues excellence in their life. The type of person that truly pursues excellence at something has certain character traits and qualities. There’s incredible amounts of consistency of these traits we have discussed.
These type of people are amazing to be around. Pursuing top level excellence just changes who someone is as it requires certain mindsets, levels of discipline, and character qualities. These type of people are amazing to be around. Elevating the self to become extremely skilled at something allows us to gravitate towards other people who pursue excellence. These communities are amazing to be part of.

People pursuing excellence don’t even have to be the best of the best to find these positive character qualities. Genuine pursuit of excellence brings out amazingly constructive qualities.

(Something about my GM journey wrapping up all of those points)

Tell my GM story and the personal growth that has come from it.