Guy Kawasaki says ‘move fast and break things’ is a myth. True! But since he can’t quite escape its toxic allure, I’ll say it for him, loudly and proudly:
Move slow and fix things. [guykawasaki.substack.com]
Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters is available now.
What's the true path of excellence?
Brad Stuhlberg’s book The Path of Excellence is a great read and it offers what the subtitle promises:
💬 A guide to true greatness and deep satisfaction in a chaotic world.
By now I’ve read many similar works and I’ve found there’s often something strangely missing. There’s usually heaps of good advice about acquiring expertise and wisdom, about learning and improving, and about following through; plenty too about commitment, discernment, patience and resilience. And these are all important factors if you want to attain excellence and some sort of mastery.
Well, OK. But there’s almost no mention of the need to find a teacher, coach or mentor — and to work constructively with them. And in this particular case I find it slightly weird. After all, the author is himself a performance coach, so why not at least mention the great benefits of working with a coach?
I see this as the most crucial aspect of learning, of trying to get better at something.
Learning is social: we learn best from other people, directly. That’s a key reason I was driven to write my own book, Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning.
Reading all these American books on learning and improvement, I can’t help wondering if there isn’t a bias towards individualism at work here. Not that there’s anything wrong with individualism, but surely it isn’t the whole picture. Learning involves teachers. Is this claim so radical that it can’t be mentioned?
We don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. There’s a well-tested path and it’s clearly expressed in these three phases of the learning-teaching journey.
So sure, read another book about excellence. There are plenty to choose from.
But also, find the right teacher.
Now read:
What Billy Strings learned from his father
What Herbie Hancock learned from Miles Davis
The greatest experts are serial beginners
There’s a flaw in how we learn about expertise
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now.
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Beginners and intermediate learners fear ‘making mistakes’; experts seldom do. Not because experts don’t make mistakes: they do. It’s just that experts know what to do next.
Here’s Herbie Hancock telling what he learned from his mentor Miles Davis: Every mistake is an opportunity [openculture.com].
💬 I want to be just like him.
Imitation is one of the most powerful and underrated stages of learning. Billy Strings’ story of learning guitar by watching his dad is the clearest example I’ve ever seen.
#Learning #Education #Music #ShuHaRi
"I want to be just like him"
“I want to be just like him.”
It’s difficult to overstate the importance of imitation as a crucial aspect of the learning journey. But it’s also hard to describe it in mere words.
In this deeply engaging YouTube interview with Rick Beato, virtuoso bluegrass guitarist Billy Strings recounts the way he learned his guitar skills early, at his father’s knee, by watching, by joining in. and by continually asking: “how does dad do it?”.
I’ve never seen a clearer example of the role of the imitation stage of learning, and exactly how it works.
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri. The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now.
Now read: Find the right teacher.
💬 “If it takes three years, find the right teacher.”
Sometimes the best way to find the right teacher is to start doing the work. Begin your learning journey visibly, and mentors may find you - like the barn builder who attracted an expert just by working in his driveway. Read more: writingslowly.com/2026/02/0…
How did you find your mentor?
#Learning #Mentorship #Writing #Creativity #Action #shuhari
Find the right teacher
There’s a Japanese saying that I included in my book:
If it takes three years, find the right teacher.
But sometimes, you just need to get started. Simon Sarris has a great story about this. He decided to build a barn by trial and error, with little previous barn-building experience. But because he was doing this near the road in front of his house, it attracted the attention of a regular passer-by who just happened to know, in detail, how to build barns.
“Mike would have never stopped by if I was not working conspicuously in my driveway, every day, under a pop-up tent. But I was, and he became interested in my progress, and it happens that he has been timber framing since the 90’s. Had I waited for such a teacher—for he has now taught me a good deal—I would have never found him. But I chose to start, and he was drawn to my adventure. Only by virtue of starting the work was the intersection of our lives possible.” - Start With Creation - by Simon Sarris
The moral? If it takes three years, find the right teacher. But if you start your learning journey with action, the right teacher might just find you.
So now here’s a question: Who was the right teacher for you, and how did you find them, or alternatively how did they find you?
(And yes, I have a story about a teacher who found me, but that’s a story for another time.)
Photo by Kazuhiro Yoshimura on Unsplash
Meanwhile, my book, Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, is out now. Please check it out.
Discovery, aesthetics, and the art of self-publishing: my latest post explores Leonard Koren’s influence on my new book, Shu Ha Ri.
#WabiSabi #ShuHaRi #Japan #Aesthetics #WritingCommunity
Leonard Koren on Life as an Aesthetic Experience
I’ve never been much of a bathing person. Perhaps that’s due to unpleasantly lingering memories of luke warm water in freezing cold bathrooms in the UK when I was a child. The bath was fine enough, but getting out would be a real test. Even bathing, as an adult, in natural hot springs on Orcas Island in the US Pacific Northwest didn’t really do it for me. That was a little ‘rustic’, and not in a good way.
True, swimming here in Sydney where I live is fabulous, especially in the Summer, when the cool refreshment of the ocean waves is totally restorative. But bathing? Not so much. Until a few months ago, that is, when I visited Japan.
Every interface is an argument about how you should feel. - Phantom Obligation | Terry Godier
This is my view of writing and note-making apps, but we can change them, to feel how we want, not how someone else wants us to.