“Always two there are, a master and an apprentice.” ~Yoda

Mastery resists definition but it is easily recognizable. Hard to describe but it comes in many varieties and its attainment follows certain immutable laws. Trouble is we have too few teachers to guide us or show us the path of mastery, and certainly too few students who seek mastery. Our modern world conspires against mastery as we are continually bombarded with promises of instant gratification, instant success, and fast temporary relief from everyday life. If one is to become a Master of anything the myth of instant and painless success must be recognized and neutralized.

If one desires to become a master there are certain natural laws that must be accepted and embraced. In my youth, I used to lifeguard and teach swimming lessons to children as young as two years of age. I found the younger the child the easier it was to teach them because they had no learned impatience.

Learning to swim, like any other athletic skill, requires mastery of certain basic skills repeated over and over and over again until they can be repeated unconsciously. Once a skill has been unconsciously learned – we now know it has to do with the creation of new neural circuits in the brain – we can proceed to the next more complex skill. This pattern of teaching basic skills and adding new more complex skills once the basic skills were mastered was repeated over and over. This is the same pattern of learning that allows a Michael Phelps – after many years of spending several hours a day swimming while staring at a boring black line down the middle of the swim lane – to win eight gold medals.

Same process applies to learning how to sell. Endless sales skills training repeated over and over again until new neural pathways are formed in the brain. Those unwilling – and there are many of them – to submit themselves to endless sales skill training should not be surprised that they don’t reach the pinnacle of financial success that comes with becoming a Master of Sales.

True mastery in sales – like true mastery in most anything – takes about three hours of practice a week, fifty weeks a year for about five years with a skilled teacher or coach. As those who have done this will attest; this is the beginning not the end. I am amazed after all these years how much more there is to know and learn.