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Jiro – Commentary Lesson

Hi, this is Kristin. Welcome back to the commentary for the conversation Jiro. In the conversation we were talking about Jiro, the man…the Japanese man in this documentary, how he was a master of…or he was a…I should say he was a sushi chef who had become a master at that skill or that craft. He had spent years perfecting and didn’t even consider himself a master because he still felt like there was more he could do to perfect his skill in making sushi.

So I was thinking about this and I was realizing, wow, you know there’s people who like…who want to take one thing and really perfect it like Jiro. They really want to master something, y’know, one thing.

And there are people who choose a different way. I’ll talk about those people in just a minute.

If somebody’s wanting to become a master of something, if they’re wanting to master a skill, that takes a lot of practice, a lot of practice, a lot of really good concentration, focus, y’know, the ability to be…the ability to sacrifice things in order to make time to focus and practice on this skill. And it also takes discipline. Discipline, y’know, the…you really, being able to make yourself do this even if you get tired of it or bored or whatever. You…you, y’know, people are able to keep in mind, no, I want to perfect this. I want to master it. That’s the long-term goal that they see.

That’s not me. I fit in the category of the people I’ll talk about in just a minute. But I have an example of someone. His name is Jose. He works at a restaurant that Joe and I like to go to. It’s one of…it’s probably our favorite restaurant. We usually go in about once a month so we see Jose quite often. Every time we go in to the restaurant he loves talking to us about playing guitar.

And he came to my mind to talk about somebody mastering a skill because he’s told us many, many times that there have been times in his life where he’s practiced 8 hours a day. Now he’s worked at this restaurant for many, many years so that’s how he makes money. But in his free time then he’s playing guitar. And to hear him talk about it, there’s so much enthusiasm, so much joy that comes from learning this over many years. He absolutely loves it.

And he’s actually even started recently to teach guitar. So I’m sure eventually he would like to stop working at the restaurant and maybe be making money from teaching guitar and maybe even playing out for people. When I say playing out I mean playing in clubs or, y’know, venues. So he’s…he reminds me of a little kid. He gets so excited talking about the guitar. And if…I’m sure…I don’t know how many years he’s been playing but he is…he’s getting such deep learning, y’know, mastering a skill…that’s very deep learning. Kind of like we talk about with learning English.

Now, there are the ‘jack of all trades’ and I’m one of those. Jack of all trades, this means someone who has their…it’s the complete opposite of a master. Jack of all trades, actually we have a saying, jack of all trades, master of none. So it means you have a lot of interests. You learn about a lot of different things but you don’t become a master of any of them. And so it’s not as deep of learning as, say, mastering a skill but it is…you’re still getting…it is still deep but it’s more…it’s broader because you’re learning many different things.

So, y’know, for someone like me, I can tend to get bored with the same thing so I like to have a variety. A variety keeps my interest. Keeps me interested and it, it…I, so then I…I start learning about one thing and then I get kind of bored with that so I’ll start learning about a different thing and I’ll…and then, y’know, many other things and then I’ll bring all of these interests together into it’s own form, which in itself can be interesting.

And it’s…I’ll give you an example. I was, y’know, I’ve…I’ve always, since, oh no, I would say in my adult years after getting out of…after finishing school, I’ve wanted to, to take various art classes, artistic classes. So I’ve wanted to build artistic skills. So instead of, y’know, taking one thing, for example, drawing and focusing on that and getting better and better, I’ve taken very different classes.

So many years ago I took a pottery class. I was taking clay and making pots with it. And here more recently I’ve been taking a painting class. It started out as drawing and then it turned into painting. And I was working on this for three years. Now, you might say, wow, that’s a long time. Maybe you’ve mastered that, but actually it took me so long because I wasn’t working on it at home.

I would only work on it in class and we’d only have class one day a week. And there were many times when I’d be traveling or my teacher would be away visiting his family in Nepal. Y’know, there’d be large periods of time where I wasn’t working on it. So that’s why it was taking a long time. But now that that painting is getting near to being finished, I’ve been thinking actually of other artistic classes, skills that interest me, for example, drawing, or singing.

So I was…I’ve been getting a little bored and overwhelmed at times with the painting so I’m ready for something different now. So that’s more of a jack of all trades because I never really master any skill. I never perfect any skill. But that’s okay. Some people, they’re more like…their personalities are more that they want to master one thing and some people like a variety of things. Maybe they aren’t mastering or perfecting those things. Both are, y’know, they have their weaknesses and their strengths, to both.

So what kind of a person are you? Do you like…have you mastered one thing or have you thought about mastering one thing in particular or do you…would you get bored after a while and want more of a variety.

Or maybe you’ve already mastered something and now you want a variety. What kind of person are you?

Get on the Ning site and share what you have mastered or would like to master or what your varied interests are, whether you’re a jack of all trades or a master of a skill.

Alright, this concludes the commentary for the conversation Jiro and I hope you have a great month. I’ll see you next time.