keepingher:

Mastery is a state of mind, and one that must be consciously and consistently developed. I’ll try to keep this out of the airy fairy newagey bullshit, but it’s hard not to sound that way since these things have been said before so often as to be cliches in many respects.

Discipline

Discipline is about staying focused no matter what the distractions. The distractions range from something simple, bodily, like hunger, to higher order discipline, like patience, all the way up Maslow’s pyramid to the existential and self actualization issues. The higher up the pyramid you go, the harder it gets to stay focused and disciplined; especially in the distraction filled world of today.

East Asia was right to start with physical discipline as a way to build a platform from which to reach for the higher level disciplines (higher up the pyramid). The physical is something that simply cannot be ignored, and so your focus is continually tested during the entire process. This is the whole point of things such as waterfall training.

Please don’t think I’m getting all mystical ninja on you; there are plenty of things they got wrong. Their martial arts are stilted, regimented, choreographed, and really only glorified dance. It’s very pretty, but it neither teaches you how to do battle, nor does it develop the creativity and keen wits you need to actually win one. I know. I got a black belt while I lived in Japan, and one altercation with a boxer half my size was enough to school me in how little I knew.

Bruce Lee understood the limitations of Eastern arts, which is why he sounded like a broken record, repeating over and over that his “style” is neither a style nor a form. “Be like water” is a very practical bit of advice.

But we’re getting a bit off subject. The point is that in the mortal human mind, discipline stems from the physical, so always maintain your own physical discipline as a platform to higher things.

Psychology

You cannot be master of anything if you don’t know how it works. You’ll be forever blindsided by strange results you didn’t expect. The key to mastery is understanding WHY things happen, and HOW the mechanism works. People tried for millennia to fly and failed miserably, jumping out of towers covered in bird feathers, flapping uselessly with canvas boxes tied to their arms, trying to mimic what they saw with their eyes. Leonardo Da Vinci was the first to realize that human powered flight in that style couldn’t work, but it wasn’t until Sir George Cayley made a detailed scientific study of the principles of flight in the early 19th century that anyone had even the remotest of chances to succeed at sustained flight.

So what is my point? My point is that people work a certain way as well. We’re “predictably irrational” to coin a phrase. When our inner motivations are understood, our actions can be predicted. It also means that our impulses can be directed by the right outer stimuli to a different path, for better or worse. Marketers understand this all too well, and you must understand it if you’re going to have a hope in hell of managing another person effectively.

The psychological field is one fraught with fraud and sorcery. To this day our medical system still subjects people to shock therapy, a brutal practice barely elevated from leeches. Personality cults and magical thinking ala Freud still hold major sway, but there are people conducting real science in the field, as well as its close cousin anthropology. James Surowiecki (The Wisdom of Crowds), Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational), Marvin Harris (Cannibals and Kings), Christopher Ryan (Sex at Dawn), Joyce Benenson (Warriors and Worriers) are a few notable examples.

Politics

No, I’m not talking about Trump vs Hillary. That’s all bullshit pulp for the masses. I’m talking about what happens when there are more than two people involved. We behave very differently in groups than we do alone. At work, in your hiking club, your strata council, even in your circle of friends, it’s the same principle. A tribal mentality takes over, champions emerge, people follow and support their champions, and the champions battle for supremacy. This ALWAYS happens. Their platforms and ideology don’t actually matter per se; they’re just flags to rally under, and ways to detect outsiders.

Understand that politics is about one thing only: Power.

And so if you want the power to do the things you want to do, you need to understand how group politics work, and how to maneuver in them. You don’t need to become a champion (in fact, I recommend against it). All you need to do is decide what kind of power you want, and how much. The answers to these questions emerge from what your goals are, as you formulate strategies to achieve them.

Just remember: Politics isn’t an end unto itself; it is a means to an end.

Personal Skills

These are SUPREMELY important. Learn how to talk to people. Learn how to be comfortable with them, and them comfortable with you. Yes, I’m talking Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Buy it. Read it. Do it.

Honor

Your girl must know that she can trust you in everything. A big part of this is being able to take you at your word, and this means that your word doesn’t change. A man of honor sticks to his word, but there is a limit to this. Being hard nosed in any way is a weakness, and honor is no exception. You must know when and how to break your word when someone tries to take advantage of you. But the “honor first” strategy will rarely, if ever, steer you wrong. Give the other guy one fair shake, then plan your further strategies based on how he acts.

When it comes to your girl, she needs to feel secure, which means that the boundaries don’t move. Berating her suddenly for something she’s been doing for ages is a quick way to lose her trust, as is inconsistently enforcing a boundary. State the rules up front, and enforce them consistently. If you make her a promise, keep it. If you can’t keep it, apologize and explain why. It’ll hurt her, but it’ll hurt a lot less than if you take the cowardly route and try to hide behind “I’m the boss and what I say goes”.

Humility

You’re not perfect, and never will be. That means you’ll make mistakes, sometimes catastrophic ones. Be a man who can own up to your mistakes, no matter how ridiculous they make you look, and no matter how humiliating they are.

Now that being said, politics plays a part in this, and it may not be expedient to admit to certain people, depending on the political climate. But your girl is part of your innermost circle, and should know, unless it’s something that will worry her unnecessarily.

Lead

As an alpha, you’re a born leader, which means you’d better damn well learn HOW to lead, because that part doesn’t come naturally. You must harness all of the above skills together in order to keep the people under you productive and happy. Learn what kinds of complaints are just bullshit and what kinds of complaints hint at a real problem that you must deal with. An organizational failure is always your fault. A task failure MAY be your fault. You must learn as you go, discovering how to direct people such that they don’t make mistakes. That’s further complicated by the fact that different people will react differently to the same instructions. Your leadership must be personal, tailored to each person you talk to.

Build up your leadership skills so that when you’re leading the most important person (your girl), it all just comes “naturally”.