The art of the learning master

‘… you might miss the talent to write, paint or compose, but everyone has been given the gift of being creative with their own life. In that perspective we are all called to become an artist, to give an unique shape to our lives, to make it something beautiful.’

In their book about the thematic of Mastery (Meesterschap) Paul Donders and Chris Sommer open with this Francis Schaeffer quote. A quote that made me recall a similar thought, one of Abraham Herschl regarding the human being: ‘To be human, is to become human’…

Mastery and entrepreneurial spirit

Secret number 4 of successful mastery = entrepreneurial management

Last week I have spent a couple of days with my wife and my 2 sons nearby Paris, in the ‘woods of Fontainebleau’. We went there to go climbing. Or to be more precise: to go bouldering. Bouldering means that you climb on rock-blocks of various heights, but you do so without any breakers. If you fall, only a small easy to transport mat, a ‘crash-pad’, will break your fall. Blocks of about 2 to 3 meters are often technically very tricky, but they are not very frightening. However, many of the blocks are 4 to 6 meters high. When you are climbing such a rock you notice the great impact that fear often has. The few times that I went above that 3 meter frontier I very much experienced what it means to take risks. And personally, I am not a big fan of risks!

Do you know that feeling? Why take chances. Why go on a new journey? Why take risks? Why go a new direction when the current way of doing things still seems to be working quite all right?

Create your own Tribe!

Becoming a master is a growth-process, enduring on this level is an art!

Secret 3: maintaining positive relationships. The professional who is doing everything on his own, without any feedback, encouragements, amendments, critique or support will possibly slowly start to lose inspiration and substance. Therefore, Chris and I belief that it is essential to create and maintain good relationships.

I have, next to my wife Sylvia – who is my best pal –, some buddies who know me for a long time and who know me really well. Last week Sylvia and I visited an old friend and mentor of ours, Pastor Heinz Schreckenberg, who knows and guided us personally and us as a family for over 30 years. Nowadays we only see him ones a year, but it is an absolute boost and encouragement every time that we see him.

An interesting and increasingly present platform for relations as a professional is the phenomenon ‘the Tribe’. Here are some ideas on how to create and build a tribe...

Challenging training

Becoming a master is a growth-process, enduring on this level is an art!

Secret 2: working like a master!

I am sure that you have noticed before how, after someone had his arm in plaster for some weeks, his arm would have become quite weak and thin. The reason obviously lies in the fact that he could not ‘train’ his arm for all that time. The second secret concerning ‘mastery’ covers exactly this phenomenon. When we are talking about ‘training’ and your ‘profession’ than we see 3 standard scenarios...

What are your sources of inspiration?

Becoming a master is a growth-process, enduring on this level is an art! In our book ‘Meesterschap’ we discuss the 5 secrets of ‘the master’. Secret number 1: a life full of inspiration! In regard to that: next to the phenomenon ‘burnout’, there exists something like the ‘creatieve burnout’…

Becoming a master is a mission, staying at this level is an art!

After an intensive working-day I am driving home. Hundreds of thoughts are crossing my mind. Then I decide to switch the audio-system on, and I start to listen to Janine Jansen, who is playing the Violin Concerto in E minor, opus 64 (by Felix Mendelssohn). It is an absolute stunning peace, performed by an amazing artist. My love for this peace probably is also a result of the violin lessons that I have had as a 5 year old child, and my fascination for Mendelssohn at that early age. Janine is a brilliant violinist, in the true sense of the word: a master in her trade, she is playing on a ‘master-violin’ (one of the very rare 318 Stradivarius), and always performs ‘masterly’.

Jan and Hubert van Eyck

Together with Sylvia, my wife, we stood and stared at an amazing work of art in the Sint-Braafs Cathedral in Gent for over half an hour. ‘Het drieluik – de aanbidding van het Lam Gods’. Truly one of the milestones in the history of art.