Why Mastery Matters

It's not about getting it perfect; it's about getting better.

While writing my first book, Communicate with Mastery, I lost every negotiation I attempted with the publisher Wiley, except one. Some of their editors wanted me to call my book Communicating Masterfully. I refused. First, we don’t improve our writing by including more adverbs. My co-author Kara Levy and I made that point several times in the book, so we could not have an adverb in my title. Second, there is a crucial distinction about the term mastery that I wanted to emphasize on the front cover and throughout the book. Once I made that clear, they were persuaded and let my original title stand. Today, I want to share that distinction with you.

Mastery, particularly in communication, is not about getting it perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect presentation, pitch, or panel. No matter how hard we try or what level of effort we exert, everything we speak or write could always be “just a bit better.” We could be more concise, or less complex, or more engaging, or less formal. There’s always room for improvement, as found by journalists and editors who conduct a postmortem after the paper or magazine is published. We can always find room to improve.

Dan Pink, in his best-selling book Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us, defines mastery as “getting better and better at something that matters.” For me, that’s ideally how we should communicate with others.

To approach mastery in your communication, take three actions:

1. Pause – As my friends Jennifer and Tim remind me, there is a power in the pause. Before you hit send or publish, stop and think, “How would this land for me if I were the receiver?”

2. Verify – When you’ve delivered news to somebody—particularly if it’s a crucial conversation—before you conclude, ask the other person what they heard. Check to see that the message you intended was received.

3. Iterate – When you have a routine communication (Like a newsletter for 2,000 of your friends and clients!), once it’s delivered, go back and ask, “How could this be improved next time?”

Just taking time to pause, verify, and iterate will not ensure our communication is perfect but will help us approach mastery in all that we write and speak. As Derek Sivers wrote:

“Mastery is the best goal because the rich can't buy it, the impatient can't rush it, the privileged can't inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work.”

So, in these last few weeks of the year, when you may be tempted to rush, I invite you to do the opposite: pause, verify, and iterate. See how these actions help you end 2024 with a greater sense of mastery in how you communicate.

This time of year, I treasure the chance to see Frank Capra’s classic film, It’s a Wonderful Life. If you are in the Bay Area, join me on Friday night, December 13, for this free showing of it on the amazing new 25-foot screens installed this year at Unity San Francisco. This is such a great film, made greater on the big screen as intended. If you live elsewhere, try to find a cinema showing this great film starring the incomparable Jimmy Stewart.

Finally, we are so close to the 2,000 subscriber mark that I can taste it. If you’re reading but have not yet subscribed, please do so now. If you’re already a subscriber, invite a friend, colleague, spouse, or stranger to join you. It’s free and I will never sell to my list, nor sell my list.

As always here are JD’s Recommendations: what I’m reading, hearing, and seeing:

• Reading: If you’re considering your 2025 goals (I don’t do resolutions), this read by Angela Haupt at Time is great: How to Break Toxic Communication Habits.

• Hearing: I treasure a capella music, but rarely have found such a rich example as we get from Jared Halley's one-man chorus of This is Me from Greatest Showman.

• Seeing: Don’t skip past this link of Dick Van Dyke and Coldplay’s Chris Martin performing All My Love. It’s priceless.

I hope to get one more Communication Matters into your hands before 2024 ends, so I will hold off on my New Year’s wishes until then. Writing these for you is a labor of love. I invite you to share the love and share this with others. That would mean the world to me.