Why Success Is Essentially Boring

I want you to imagine identical twins in their mid-40s.

After years of inactivity, they’re a bit stiff, their joints achier and less mobile than usual. They decide to take up yoga.

One twin decides to first read every book in the library about how to do yoga. They’re going to research it thoroughly until they know more about yoga than even the instructor. After they’ve studied it for a while, they’ll sign up for a class. 

The other signs up for a class and gets started, doing the same yoga poses in class day after day.

After a few months of training, the second twin is more flexible, stronger, and overall getting much better at yoga. 

The first twin finally tries yoga, expecting their abundant knowledge to deliver expertise, and bombs.  

Education is obviously important, and being an expert in a field does require commitment to ongoing learning. But a client of mine, reflecting on a recent Masterclass noted an obvious pitfall with the continual acquisition of knowledge.

She said, paraphrasing:

“I’ve been walking around assuming that I’ve experienced something because I’ve read it and theoretically ‘know it’. It’s obvious with experiences like riding a bike, learning an instrument, the only way to become better, is to do it over and over and over again. But I hadn’t applied it to this”. 

While she was talking specifically about the Masterclass, where we show you how to integrate the science of choice into your life, the same can be said of many tasks – knowing it is not the same as experiencing it.

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