I completely disagree with many points in this article.<p>There are a great many people out there who are very good at building stuff but utterly fail at "being successful". And conversely, there are people out there who suck at doing the stuff they're supposed to do but are very good at being successful. The two are orthogonal.<p>If you focus entirely on "your craft", whatever it may be, and ignore the skills that will enable you to deliver the resulting mastery to actual people (in particular sales and marketing, which most "I just want to be really good at X" people seem to think is beneath them), then you won't be successful. You'll just be one of those people who spends their life wondering why they were always penniless and couldn't get the things they wanted or have the impact they deserved to have even though they were really good.<p>The world is full of smart, competent people who don't know how to build their success, don't know how to market and sell themselves. Don't be one of those. Be a master - sure - but also learn how to translate that mastery into real success.<p>Re: mastery being more satisfying than success - that's only true if you're not broke. An empty belly, or the inability to afford even the most basic things you really want, makes mastery a hell of a lot less satisfying.
I can't remember who said it but there's a saying "There are no great things to be done, just small things with great love." It seems that nothing great can emerge unless you do what you love to do. And when you do what you love to do, nothing is great: you just do what you love and keep wondering why all these people think it's great and think you're successful.<p>What's success anyway? It's not money; probably all successful people didn't do it for the money and consequently they also kept doing it after they got money. Is success about not having to worry about mundane things? In that case anyone can be successful, just stop worrying. Is success about doing what you love? In many cases doing what you love invites success but that alone doesn't necessarily equal success.<p>I think success is close to arriving at a point in life where you stop "needing" things merely to complement who you are.<p>By this rule when you become the advertisers' nightmare you've succeeded because you don't "need" anything you don't need. Anything you think you "need" will give a warm feeling of security that always vanishes too soon, and there's always more. Success is not having to chase shadows to always get something better: success is to accept yourself as who you are so that you can be in silence from all the worlds noises and listen to yourself on how to play your life and out into the world.<p>If you agree with that then mastery is a device to reach success.
Yes. Mastery is satisfying in itself. In a way that money (and facilitated experiences) can never be. Notice how extremely wealthy people often keep working? I tried retirement. It sucks.<p>for PedantNews: mastery remains valuable only if that skill remains in demand (e.g. slide-rule proficiency); at $600 a head, how is he not rich?; the capitalization (and themes) echo <i>Think and Grow Rich</i> (Napoleon Hill); I love sashimi, but, being raw fish, how can it can be improved beyond the quality of the fish (displaying my ignorance)? BTW: the film looks great. <a href="http://www.magpictures.com/jirodreamsofsushi/" rel="nofollow">http://www.magpictures.com/jirodreamsofsushi/</a><p>I rephrase it: create value - according to what <i>you</i> feel is valuable. This differs from YC's entrepreneurial "make something people want", which emphasizes other's values. It is closer to creating intrinsic beauty/transcendence. And, IMHO, that is what this guy Jiro is doing: creating something great. Not <i>being</i> great. He and his mastery are in service to what he values.
"9. A tiny little sushi bar in some random subway station. Yet people wait in line, people book a stool at his sushi bar as much as a year in advance, a prices starting around $600 a head. People have been known to fly all the way from America or Europe, just to experience a 30-minute meal. In a subway station!"<p>Can authenticity be scaled up?<p>This particular establishment isn't really a humble 10 seat Tokyo sushi bar in my (perhaps odd) way of thinking, it is a very good <i>simulation</i> of one but wrenched from the ecology of such street food places.<p>So by acknowledging the mastery, we have changed the practice.
The real question is how do we define "success"? Is success making a lot of money? How much is enough to qualify as "successful"?<p>We tend to narrowly define success based solely on extrinsic values like money and status, rather than intrinsic values like mastery, purpose, and happiness.<p>I think the author is saying that focusing on mastery is more likely to lead to "success" in the form of happiness and a greater sense of purpose, regardless of whether or not it also leads to material wealth. Personally, I agree with this more holistic view of success.
"The tailors have a similar shtick as Jiro."<p>It's interesting to me that the author unintentionally insults the very people he intends to put on a pedestal. I guess this is a nitpick, but a shtick is a gimmick. Jiro, the sushi chef, and Saville Row tailors are certainly not using gimmicks to drum up business.
"Mastery" is like a buzz-word, but it's had its power in our culture for a long time. Buzz-words are useless unless a meaning is assigned to them.<p>To me, mastery means mastery of the basics.<p>A master chef is a master at slicing, chopping, mixing ingredients correctly, and applying heat to food in a variety of ways (frying, baking, grilling, etc). A master carpenter is a master of measuring, sawing, hammering, and fastening wood together.<p>My professor for introductory accounting tells his classes that advanced accounting textbooks have the same chapters as the beginning books, just with more advanced subject matter. Mastery of accounting would then be just mastering those basics.
Based on this article, mastery sounds like a total grind - these are classic 'success trap' descriptions that anyone with an entrepreneurial twinkle in their eye might recoil from. Doesn't transforming your mastery into something that works <i>for</i> you sound massively better? To each their own...
(kind of agree with swombat, but I'd think 'master' corresponds to at least a boutique level of success)<p>Re: "to me, mastery means mastery of the basics" - People aren't called masters of something because they master the basics. To me, mastery means mastery of the finest nuances, which are not basic at all.
OT but his Jiro story reminded me of the movie Tampopo, a hilarious Japanese movie from the 80s about a woman and her struggling noodle shop.<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048/" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092048/</a>