Blog - Nick Velasquez

The Path to Mastery Starts with Commitment

by Nick Velasquez
Reading Time: 5 minutes

We never hear someone say, “I sort of fell into the Olympics,” or “I dabbled in tennis and managed to win the US Open.”

Those words aren’t uttered because those types of wins never happen. Mastery shines only upon those willing to make sacrifices—it’s not for the half-committed or impatient. At the same time, there’s nothing mystical about it. All masters start from the same point: commitment.

Like us, even the most legendary masters were once beginners. And like them, we too can commit to the path of mastery by adopting their attitude, efficiency, and relentless work ethic.

If you want to commit to the path of mastery, here’s what it looks like to take your first step.

Read

How to Overcome Setbacks, Impatience, and Plateaus When Mastering a New Skill

by Nick Velasquez
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Ask any of the most accomplished athletes, musicians, and artists in the world, and they’ll almost certainly say that they hit bumps in the road on the way to greatness.

Maybe it was an injury, bad review, or lost championship, but whatever the challenge, everyone who has pursued a craft has had to deal with difficulties and discouragement at some point. Encountering challenges—and overcoming them—is part of the journey toward mastery.

We can’t avoid challenges entirely, including setbacks, impatience, and plateaus. We can, however, prepare for when they come. Here’s how.

Read

6 Feedback Tools That Will Help You Process Criticism and Grow Your Skills

by Nick Velasquez
Reading Time: 6 minutes

Criticism is hard to accept—a truth Leonardo da Vinci understood well when he wrote, “Often, while finding fault with the minor errors of others, you will ignore your own great ones.”

But if we all share this common blind spot when it comes to our own performance, how can we identify the faults in our skills and improve on them?

Read

Feedback Is the Ultimate Improvement Tool—Here’s What Makes It Most Effective

by Nick Velasquez
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Whether you’re playing the guitar, giving a speech, or skiing down a mountain, it’s through feedback that you find out what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong, and what needs fine-tuning.

To continually improve your skills, you need to gather feedback at every step of the learning process, from study to practice to performance. However, while feedback is the ultimate improvement tool, not all feedback is created equally.

What makes good feedback?

Read

How a Strong Memory Helps Elite Performers Achieve Greatness

by Nick Velasquez
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Not long ago, basketball star LeBron James made the news for a skill that seemed unrelated to basketball: memory.

During a post-game news conference in 2018, James broke down several plays in incredible detail: “The first possession we ran them down all the way to two on the shot clock. Marcus Morris missed the jumpshot, fouled it up, they got a dunk. We came back down, we ran a set for Jordan Clarkson, and he came off and missed it.”

He continued to describe the entire sequence of events, from who did what and when they did it. His memory was so accurate it amazed reporters and made some speculate he had a “photographic” memory.

Yet, as impressive as it seems, LeBron’s memory for the game, though difficult to develop, is not uncommon for elite performers across fields. Top dancers remember complex sequences after seeing them once, skilled musicians can play chord progressions after one listen, and chess masters can play multiple games at a time in their mind.

To understand how this elite memory works, let’s take a look at what’s happening in these performers’ minds that allows them to remember so much about their craft.

Read

Subscribe