How to Be Better at Almost Everything

by Pat Flynn

  Guilt is good, but deadlines can also help keep your hand out of your pants. Don’t give yourself any longer than you need to be productive at the task at—I’m hesitating to say—hand. Clearly it would be impossible to set a specific time frame for how long you should practice each skill, but again, this is where you look to other people for guidance. See what the teachers say. This stuff really isn’t all that hard to figure out, I assure you. If you think it’s hard to figure out, you’re probably just being lazy. You’re using lack of information as an excuse for not getting to work. Which brings me to another important point: information as an excuse.

  It seems that a lot of people believe they aren’t succeeding because they don’t have enough information. Some of the time, that’s true. A lot of the time, however, they have more information than they know what to do with. I know this almost as much as I know how to eat and breathe, since through all my years as a fitness coach, the most common complaint from people was that they had so much information that they didn’t know where to start. “There’s just too much information,” they would tell me. “It’s all so terribly confusing.”

  When I first got into fitness, I remember being so enthralled by the sheer amount of information on the internet. I was so excited at the prospect of getting in shape that I’d spend hours a day reading articles and watching videos to learn as much as I could on the subject of exercise. And while I certainly learned a lot, I also absorbed no shortage of pseudoscientific twaddle along the way. I took in more than I needed to get started and get ahead, and there even came a point when I spent too much time reading and too little time doing. A lack of information became an excuse for what was really a lack of work ethic. I didn’t need to know more; I needed to do more. I needed to stop reading so many damn fitness articles.

  I see this a lot. People spend hours reading all the countless articles on exercise and nutrition. And that’s all well and fine until they forget the fundamentally more important aspect of self-improvement: actually practicing the thing they want to get better at.

  Read all the articles you want. But at some point you’re going to have to squat if you want to get stronger. Watch all the handstand tutorial videos you can find. But only turning yourself upside down on a regular basis will cause you to finally master one. Burn through every business book you can get your greedy little hands on. But you’re not going to make a dollar until you actually attempt to sell something. I’ve come to appreciate this seemingly obvious but often overlooked notion: the so-called low-information diet approach, in which you willfully limit the amount of time you spend acquiring information about something, (hopefully) forcing yourself to spend more time implementing the information you already have. (Again, Integration > Isolation.)

  I’ve found this approach to be virtually foolproof for calling yourself out when you should be practicing but instead think it’s somehow an adequate substitute to just read up more on the thing you’re neglecting to do—and this is true for nearly any skill, by the way. For example, I used to fall into this trap constantly when “learning” the guitar. I’d put off practicing and act as if watching guitar clinics online would accomplish the same thing. Funny how even though I learned things, I never seemed to improve until I stopped watching so many damn guitar videos.

  This is normally where I’d sit a person down and say, “Listen, my little iguana, the problem isn’t that you don’t have enough information; the problem is you don’t know how to take action on the information you do have.” This is where we go right back to that fundamental principle of generalism, Integration > Isolation, and go on that low-information diet for a while. That’s where we consume just the minimum amount of data we need to get to work and then do exactly that. And only when we feel we really and truly need more information to move ahead do we seek it out. Otherwise, we keep our information intentionally limited.

  I think people like to hoard information because it gives the illusion of progress. That may be the case if you’re studying history or something, but it certainly isn’t the case with any skill that requires perspiration. For most skills, you want to put action above information. You want to do more doing than reading. None of this is to say I have something against reading; I read quite a lot. And that’s because I write quite a lot, so reading is a part of that practice. I’m also reading only the type of material I’m attempting to write myself (Integration > Isolation)—I’m not reading to acquire information just for the sake of saying I know things. I’d rather people say I can do things because of what I know. Not just that I know things.

  Yes, some skills may require more initial information than others, but the goal should always be to spend less time seeking information and more time putting it to work. Be a minimalist. Start with the fundamentals, and take action as early as you can.

  Ah yes, to be a minimalist: this brings us to our final point. It seems to me that if there’s anything left to figure out, it’s how to bring it all together. I can’t tell you exactly how to do it since I can’t know how long or in what order or in what way you should practice all the specific skills you personally want to get better at. But I can give you a mind-set to go along with the approach I already presented. Let’s talk about minimalism.

  Minimalism is doing the least you need to get from A to B, and not a follicle more. That is, a minimalist is someone who finds themselves at the crossroads of effectiveness (doing the right things) on the one hand and efficiency (doing things right) on the other. I say this is a mind-set—or rather, an intention—because it’s impossible to achieve perfect minimalism. No person can ever be perfectly effective and perfectly efficient in the way they practice. But every person should at least strive to be.

  To be a minimalist, you set hard and pressing deadlines. You don’t give yourself any more time than you need, and in some cases you give yourself dramatically less. For example, I would encourage you to imagine what you would do—that is, how you would practice—if you only had an hour a day to develop yourself as a generalist. What would you work to integrate? How would you structure your reps? How would you add resistance? And more important, what would you leave out? This exercise (even if it’s only mental) is utterly useful because it forces you to pull the weeds out of an otherwise cluttered practice plan.

  An hour a day is not a lot of time. How would you fill that hour? With what percentage of which efforts and of which skills? Would you strength train for twenty minutes, play guitar for ten, write for fifteen, and meditate for five? By examining and planning this one-hour scenario, you can make the most of any set of skills—obviously in the above example we’re “short-term” specializing in working out, since that’s getting the most attention. But this isn’t to say you should only practice for an hour a day. Sometimes, that may be the case. But other times, I hope you’ll practice for more. Either way, it’s about applying pressure to establish priority, even if that pressure is artificial. Once you establish those priorities, you can then stretch them out. Figure out what you’d do for one hour first. Then do it for four.

  Most of the time, this perspective will force you to work directly on the project you want to finish. If you want to write a short story, restricting your practice time will force you to spend most of your time writing that very story, rather than diagramming sentences. Not that diagramming sentences can’t be helpful, but is that really what you need to be doing right now? Get your hand out of your pants! Or say you want to post a skateboard video on YouTube. I don’t know enough about skateboarding to sound even halfway intelligent about it, but I’d imagine if you only gave yourself an hour a day to practice, this would force you to practice specifically just the tricks and techniques you needed to nail in the video, and probably leave everything else alone for now.

  How you fill your hour will vary wildly because so much will depend on what you’re trying to achieve at that point. If my goal is to record music, that hour will look rather different than if my goal is to learn music. Start with a clear
vision of the end, restrict the amount of time you give yourself to arrive, apply the principles of generalism, and get to work.

  I can’t say that any of this is going to be easy—surely, it won’t be. But I also can’t imagine you picked up this book because you wanted things to be easy. I imagine you picked up this book because you want to be better, and better at a lot of things. Being better doesn’t mean having it easy, and why should any of us want to have it easy? Nobody who’s done anything and achieved a status worthy of praise has had it easy—so easiness, smeasiness, what kind of goal is that? Process and enjoyment of process are to be the goal, and things can be challenging and we can still enjoy them. In fact, we will enjoy them to the extent they are not easy, but meaningful. There is nothing meaningful about doing work just to sit on the couch. But when we start to see our progress take hold, when we start to rediscover ourselves and reinvent who we are and what we thought we could do—none of that is easy. It is fulfilling, though. When we get better at things and we combine those things to increase our freedom and abilities of expression; to offer a little chunk of ourselves, our personality, and our passions; to help people and improve the planet; and to make life just a little bit brighter and more simple and fun—again, none of that is easy. But it is meaningful.

  I’ll finish with this: The greatest tragedy in life would not be to live only a short amount of time, or catch a horrendous disease that turns you into an astonishing case of disfigurement, like Joseph Merrick, whom you may know as the Elephant Man. The greatest tragedy in life would be to live a very long period and catch no horrendous diseases, but to miss the very meaning of life itself, which is to develop virtue, to orient yourself toward creative expression and “willing the good of the other,” and to know and make and do good things. Love may be a simpler way to put it. Not snuggly love but hugging-the-whole-world kind of love. That’s when you know you’re getting better for the right reasons, that you’re improving in ways that are themselves improving your soul. You don’t need every skill to be able to do this, but you at least need some skills, and the pursuit of skills under the right intention is something I feel is just indispensable.

  Remember the reasons you got started or wanted to get started; think back to those moments that first sparked your will to self-actualization. Recall the person who exposed you to goodness and beauty and made you want it, and hopefully that person inspired you in the same way E. B. White inspired me, when I read why he spent so many hours developing his craft: “All I hope to say in my books, all I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.”

  Now, as you make your way into the world, I want you to take this with you: Help each other out. Don’t forget to call your mom. Hold the door and smile at strangers. Drop some non-stale bagels off at the food pantry. Learn as much as you can about whatever interests you. Be a solution maker, not a problem starter. Don’t get caught up in too many arguments online. Try not to judge. Chew with your mouth closed. Show that you are grateful for what you have by—oh, I don’t know—leaving a five-star review for this book on Amazon, maybe? Believe in something greater than yourself. Trust your gut unless you’re a cannibal. Learn one new thing every day. Meditate. Stare at flowers. Pet dogs. Go for walks in the rain. Wear footie pajamas, if you want. And never say no to drinking a glass of wine (or tea) on the back patio while catching the sunset with someone you love.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My deepest gratitude is extended to my wife, Christine. Her patience, constant proofreading, and moral encouragement is what made this project possible. I could not have done it without her.

  I would also like to thank my indefatigable agent, Giles, for pursuing this project with me, and finding for it a perfect home.

  Finally, to all the staff at BenBella (particularly my editors Leah and Scott), thank you for helping me shape this message into what it is. I am under many obligations to all of you.

  APPENDIX: PROFILES IN GENERALISM

  DAVID BOWIE

  * * *

  For those who knew him as a child, it probably wasn’t overly surprising to see where David Robert Jones’s ever-developing and robust skill set led him: to become one of the world’s most recognizable and influential musicians of the twentieth century.

  Even as a young boy, David Jones, better known as David Bowie, impressed choir teachers, headmasters, and schoolmates with his art and design skills, inclination toward a variety of musical instruments, and poise on stage. As the years went by, Bowie further developed each of his skills, adding others to the mix, including songwriting and acting.

  Stacking stagecraft, writing, design, acting, and musicianship, Bowie created his famous alter ego Ziggy Stardust; he acted in various productions, from theater to the big screen, and wrote some of the most memorable songs of the 1970s and ’80s. His diverse set of skills set him apart as one of the most iconic musicians and artists of his age and a quintessential generalist.

  DORIE CLARK

  * * *

  Dorie Clark didn’t set out to become an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and consultant with a diverse set of skills and multiple but congruent revenue streams. Instead, she started off as a student of theological studies and philosophy. Moving on from that, she became a reporter, covering the political landscape. Her experience there led her into becoming a spokesperson for presidential candidates. Then she ran a cycling nonprofit. She was also a documentary filmmaker.

  Many of these initial career moves didn’t work out—Clark got laid off as a journalist and her political candidates lost their elections—but she soon learned that she could uniquely stack the skills she had developed to create a new opportunity for herself and that she could make a profit by doing so.

  Clark’s experiences became fuel for her ideas on how people can reinvent themselves, become entrepreneurs, and get the most out of their lives and livelihoods without risking anything more than necessary. She mastered email and content marketing and became a regular contributor to esteemed business publications such as the Harvard Business Review. The books she has written showcase the writing, communication, and storytelling skills she developed over the years. Her networking and speaking skills led her to public speaking and conference gigs in which she discusses her unique vision of reinvention and of capturing and capitalizing on the entrepreneurial spirit; she provides something useful and new and different to a marketplace already teeming with marketing consultants. And without having taken any business courses or getting an MBA, she is an adjunct professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and has guest lectured at some of the most prestigious business schools in the United States.

  And as an author, consultant, marketer, professor, and business coach, Clark has combined essential and nonessential skills in a unique stack. “Generalists rule the world!” says Clark.

  TERRY CREWS

  * * *

  The term linebacker might conjure images of a robust and muscled man, a brute built like a wall with immense physical prowess but perhaps not much in the way of mental or creative abilities.

  Actor, artist, designer, writer, director, and retired NFL defensive end Terry Crews defies that stereotype.

  Crews initially went to college to pursue studies in art (he was even a courtroom sketch artist in Flint, Michigan, for a spell), and even while playing for the NFL, he supplemented his football earnings by producing portraits of teammates and NFL-licensed lithographs.

  After retiring from the NFL, Crews went onto to fulfill another passion of his—movies. He cowrote and coproduced a film about the devastating effects of drugs on young men in Detroit. He admitted the movie was awful, but it was the start he needed. Soon came a move to Los Angeles, and then over the years, roles in films and TV shows. Crews went on to write his autobiography, detailing his life as a Christian, an addict, and a man who overcame his darkest demons.

  His skills stack surprisingly well on top of one another. His creative artistry helps him in his Hollywood career. His physical abilities have
helped him in some of his physically demanding acting roles. And his understanding of his own addictions and flaws contributes to the sensitivity he uses to get into character and allows him to put himself in the shoes of the audience, asking himself what would they want to see and then performing it.

  Terry Crews is a modern-day generalist, a man who found and developed his skill set, then stacked it on top of his main passion, acting, to become a household name.

  DOROTHY DUNNETT

  * * *

  Scottish-born Dorothy Dunnett didn’t set out to revolutionize historical fiction writing, but as her skill set would have it, she did.

  Dunnett began her career in the public relations field, acting as a press officer for various government bodies. Midway through this career, she began to pursue something a little more creative. Drawing on her studies at the Edinburgh College of Art and the Glasgow School of Art, she often accepted commissions for portrait painting.

  In the midst of these dual careers, she met her husband, Sir Alastair Dunnett, and had two children. However, it wasn’t until her late thirties that the idea of writing even came to mind. When she lamented that she hadn’t anything of interest to read, her husband suggested that she write something. So she did.