4 Insights in Self Transformation from making 'ghee' at Home

The aroma was intoxicating as suddenly the turbid white clumpy emulsion separated into a beautiful golden clear liquid from the lumps of white fatty solids.

The lockdown like for many others had also given me an opportunity to experiment in the kitchen. And one of my first projects was to make homemade ghee (clarified butter). For more than 8 days, I skimmed the boiled milk off its layer of cream and stored it in the freezer. Then came the big day when I executed my experiment by turning the cream into ghee by application of heat and constant stirring.

I stared at wonder as the cream melted over low heat as I continued to stir. Though this was the quicker method of preparing ghee, the 45 minutes heating process was a test of my patience especially since the situation in the vessel did not dramatically change from the 15-minute mark to the 40-minute mark. Suddenly as I crossed 40 minutes of heat, the miraculous transformation took place and I had prepared my first batch of ghee. I almost shouted “Eureka” before realizing that I was no Archimedes in discovering ghee.

The ‘Eureka’ moment came much later when I was reflecting on the entire process of making ghee when it struck me that the process had provided an interesting analogy for skill building. The following are the 4 insights

1.    While every human being is a bundle of skills, we all start as beginners.

2.    As we learn and apply our skills, we increase our capability where we are at par with our reference group that translates into being average.

3.    It is difficult to hone all skills, so we work on sharpening one or two skills where we become better than our reference group and thus become specialists. Most of us give up here and rather than sharpen those skills even further, we continue our journey being a mix bundle of skills where most of it we are at average proficiency and at 1 or 2 we may be at a specialist proficiency. And here comes an important crossroad in our lives.

4.    To become a master and move from the specialist proficiency requires a disproportionate amount of effort. And it is here that most of us rather than building at least one skill to mastery level we add more skills through multiple capability building interventions. And since skills are only honed on application the horizontal adding of skills makes it nearly impossible for us to even become specialists in more number of skills, let alone mastery.

I have tried to explain this analogy in the graph below using my experiment with ghee making. The graph figuratively shows the effort required in transformation from one proficiency level to the next. The delta effort required from going from a specialist level to a master level is much more than what is required for going from generalist to a specialist level.

It is that effort that perhaps which gets captured in the price of milk, cream and ghee (I am not going into the individual merits or demerits of each of these substances.)

What was the purpose of writing this article? It has been heartening to see a lot of LinkedIn members utilizing this lockdown period to acquire new learning by enrolling into courses, webinars and getting certificates of completion.

While learning is definitely a step forward, learning becomes a skill only if it’s applied. The more it’s applied, the higher one goes up in the proficiency level.

As we hopefully near towards the end of a lockdown, it may help to a self skill audit to check one’s proficiency level at all the key skills and see what is our skill set comprised off before lockdown and now. At which level proficiency have we added or developed our skill set.

An honest self- assessment will not only give a reality check but also a path to your possible future action and aspirations.

How much milk, cream and ghee? It’s your decision.

Oh Yes, by the way , the ghee was delicious, and totally worth the extra effort both in terms of making it and exercising those calories .

P.S. If you have liked this article on self development, you may want to read another article on business transformation written by the author below

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/what-business-transformation-can-learn-from-deadliest-munshi-/