Micro Mastery is the Gateway to Universal Mastery

For this 6th edition of the Joyful Sovereignty Weekly, my intention is to help you eliminate procrastination and hesitation on your journey to Self-Mastery.
Read The Previous Edition Here

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When you look up to a mountain, it often looks powerful, majestic and beautiful.

Then when someone says “lets climb it”, the energy shifts. Ideas of not being ready or being capable may fly in your mind.

Maybe it’s not the right time. Whatever your mind can conceive to delay, procrastinate or outright say it’s a bad idea, it will do.

This is because your mind has been programed to react in that way.

Good thing there is an antidote. It is Self-Mastery.

By moving forward on your journey, you can let go of the old story. You can make significant headway on your emerging wonderful chapter.

The mountain I am referring to isn’t physical. It’s your big dreams. It’s your life goals. It’s your ideal day.

Think of your ideal day or a big dream. What does it look like?

[pause]

[think]

[observe]

When you think of getting there, what ideas come up?

If you really sit with how your mind reacted, you’ll notice something.

Ok, let’s talk about what we’re gonna talk about today.

Climbing a “mountain”, one step at a time. You may find that you already know how to climb a mountain, you just forgot.

In Self-Mastery, you learn how to learn, which can be directly applied to anything you seek to master. Whether be it a skill or project.

The rate at which you progress will significantly increase as time unfolds. Momentum builds and the compounding effect works in your favor.

Your approach to Self-Mastery is the gateway to learning other skills. But there is a much deeper level on WHY you are mastering these other skills.

It’s not for the sake of learning. It’s something much more holistic and all-encompassing.

The micro mastery is the gateway to the macro mastery. Self-Mastery is the gateway to universal mastery. You are the key that unlocks the doors to your desires.

The secret that will alleviate heart-ache is you enjoying the ride. Play with the process rather than working so hard to “get there”.

Trying to “Get there” now will continue to repeat you “trying to get there” in the next present moment. This eternally occurs until the moment you decide to approach life differently.

Ever notice someone that's always striving for something, yet never quite satisfied with what they already have?

This concept sounds great, but let’s dive into some examples to drive home the analogy.

Many moons ago, I was a sniper in Special Operations.

Shooting long distance, building out hides for cover and concealment and recon photography. Much more for sure, but we won’t get into that in this moment.

I had to learn a lot of different complementary skill sets to do my job.

Some skills went down the rabbit hole. But that is a good thing. It’s more “material” for mastery.

Things I had to learn were:

• Positioning of holding the gun, trigger squeeze
• Being able to operate the scope
• Understanding environmental factors such as:
  • Wind
  • Temperature
  • Barometric Pressure
  • And even the rotation (and direction) of the Earth

  It’s a lot.

  
  Those who could learn as much as they could each day, got better. They focused on what they didn’t know and improved every single day.

  
  That is your journey to Self-Mastery.

  
  All these tiny little skill sets took months and years to master. There is much nuance and subtlety.

  
  These micro skills gave me the texture and context to then apply to something else in life. 

  Over time, I used analogy to apply these micro skill sets to other areas in my life. Over time, they became universal in my Being.

  
  What we’re referring to here is depth.

  
  The depth of the micro skill is what allows the essence of that skill, strength or activity to be internalized. Later to be harnessed universally.

  
  A few years ago, I looked back at my time as a sniper and drew some interesting parallels with the precision of intentions.

  
  I’ve been fascinated by the concept of the keystone. It’s the single brick, idea or concept that is critical for the balance or integration of something.

  
  Keystone bricks are often the example given to describe it. It is the center brick over a circular window frame often times. If you remove the keystone, all the other bricks will fall.

  
  When you place the keystone in its place, all the other bricks remain sturdy and secure.

  
  A keystone intention is precise, strategic and can allow other intentions to fall into place as a byproduct.

  
  This reminded me of the strategic nature of long-range precision sniper operations.

  
  You need to account for all the factors that could have an effect on the trajectory (path) of the bullet.

  
  Especially for really long range shooting. The path of the bullet is definitely not a straight line from the rifle to the target.

  
  It is often a very curved trajectory.

  
  Snipers know this.

  
  This is like your intentions. The more aware you are of the factors that can take pull it away from the course, the easier it is to hit the target.

  
  Now here’s the deal.

  
  Just like when you pull the trigger when shooting, you set your intention: you release it and let it go.

  
  You observe what happens. You see if your bullet impacts the target or not.

  
  If you miss, you see what happened and adjust.

  
  If you don’t realize your intention, what happened?

  
  You ask yourself questions to see how you can improve.

  
  Just like with any analogy, it’s also wise to discern where the parallels stop.

  
  Not everything about sniper operations and intentions are the same.

  
  This deep experience in sniper operations has taught me so much about intentions. How I can set powerful, strategic, keystone intentions that will help me experience what I intend.

  
  I’ve also learned that as the power and “effectiveness” of my intentions expand, the more intentional (and aware) I need to be in setting them.

  
  

“With great power, comes great responsibility.” - Uncle Ben

Shortly after I became a sniper, I expanded my recon skill set into surveillance. First into physical surveillance, then into technical surveillance.

Here I learned a lot of the nature of humans.

I learned about:

• Societal behavior
• How to observe something
• Radio frequencies
• Advance photography skills
• Not being seen
• Blending in
• Electrical circuitry
• And so much more.

I also learned a lot of the shadow side of human behavior.

A lot of what we were surveilling were bad dudes generally doing bad stuff.

This was my world for years, it was “normal” for me. Only when I look back did I draw the parallel.

I was so deep into mastery of the craft, that I didn’t realize what wisdom could be extracted from this experience.

I bet you have many skills or chapters of your life where you dove deep into something.

You explored that depth and nuance. All the textures and micro skills that go with it. You were so focused on the thing, that you just “left it” and didn’t look back.

You can now look back and see how that experience (mastery) can be applied to something you want to do now.

Years later, I dove into yet another skill set.

This time it would be cold stuff lol:

• Nordic skiing
• Snow machine operations
• Weapons function in arctic conditions
• Igloos
• Snow shoe maneuvers
• And much more

One of the micro skills we learned was body temperature regulation.

When you're in the arctic, it’s pretty cold outside (of course lol). When you're skiing, you generate heat in your body (of course lol).

When you stop moving, the heat produced in the body is less. And when it’s really cold outside, that change in temperature is drastic.

When you’re skiing around, one thing we’d do when we got a little warmer, we’d unzip our jacket open 2-3 inches. You wouldn’t think that would change a lot, but it did.

It allowed a tiny bit of heat to "escape" from our body.

That small change ensured that our bodies would not overheat. This hyper-efficient awareness of our body temperature also helped us regulate our water and food intake.

The more efficient we were with our movement, body temperature, how much water and food we needed to carry all added up.

Years later, I would translate this body regulation mastery into universal body awareness.

I am still working on this (and will for the rest of my life). I have a lot to learn. But I am able to listen to my body on a deeper level than I had before my experience in the cold weather.

The cool thing (see what I did there) is I continue to build off of an old skill.

We’re always improving and growing. We often build off skills we forgot we had, because they are so innate to who we are.

I forget this often.

I bet if you look back at your life, you can find a trail of skill growth through different chapters in your life.

I bet it would only take a few minutes of thought to draw connections that would be meaningful for something you are working on now.

By now, we’ve discussed a few examples. Let’s break down the concept a bit further.

The secret behind all of this is Presence. Your focus on the skill in the moment is what reveals all the depth, richness, texture and context.

Lots of tiny trial and errors occur in the process.

Remember back when you first learned how to drive a car.

All those little tiny moments of:

• Adjusting the mirrors
• How much pressure to put on the pedals
• The spacing between the curb and the paint as you’re moving down the road
• Where to put your hands
• How much to slow down on a turn
• And of course parallel parking lol

All those micro moments of information and feedback allowed you to master driving.

Some people are better drivers than others lol. We all know that.

You get the point.

These days, it can be easy to NOT be present with what you’re learning. Notifications pulling our attention is literally dispersing our awareness.

Our conscious awareness is limited while were in human form.

We have the capacity to grow, yes. But if we remain distracted and not present with what we’re doing, then we can lose out on the texture and context of information.

When we disperse our awareness, we’re often occupying ourselves with information that doesn’t really support our goals and ideal life.

[think social media]

It’s when we focus our awareness strategically on activities, projects, people and environments that will holistically support the ideal life.

Through the process of mastering micro or compartmentalized skills, we can begin to apply that wisdom (mastery) to other things.

This is the process of distilling and synthesizing.

The magic happens when you aim to synthesize with something that is meaningful to you. If you have a deep “why”, you’ll find connections faster and with greater ease.

Look back to a chapter in your life when you learned a lot of something. Not traditional school where you only mentally learned something.

I’m talking about real life experience and applied knowledge.

Now think of a goal or activity that you want to be doing in the next year or two.

How could your previous experience support your journey to reach your goal?

What skill have you left dormant that has untapped wisdom?

What skill can you build off of that you can level-up in?

What analogies can you draw upon towards your next level of mastery?

All these questions are helping you extract the essence of something.

They are distilling a skill to it’s core. When you arrive at the core, it can be applied universally.

Eventually, you’ll have several handfuls of universal skills as part of your tool kit.

You’ll be able to navigate nearly all uncertainty in your life, because you trust yourself (your toolkit within).

Taking it one step further.

When you master “essence extraction”, you’ll be able to observe essence all over the place. It won’t take months or years to identify.

You’ll just observe it.

This is definitely different than experience, but this can also be a wonderful tool in your tool kit.

Before we jump into this weeks action, I want to share how this applies to goals. Because it is very similar.

In mastering a skill or craft, it can often take years. That can seem daunting.

Same thing with big life goals.

The “cure” is to focus on the micro. (ensuring alignment with the macro)

Focusing on the step you need to take today. That is manageable. That is the opposite of daunting.

You can do that. And you can do that every day.

The cool thing with this approach, is that when things are "great" in your life, you can still do that.

You don’t have to change your approach.

The approach to get there, is the same as when “you have arrived” to your goal.

What you’re doing is baking in the essence of that big goal, into small chunks every day.

So if you have a big goal you are aiming towards and it seems a bit daunting, then you just take it one day at a time.

Focus on the micro.

If you’re making a big change in your life right now, take it one day at a time.

Be Present with the micro. Gain the experience. Feel the texture. Obtain the context. Absorb the essence of the moment / skill / experience.

Eventually, you’ll arrive exactly where you meant to, “Here”.

This weeks action steps are to look back at a chapter of deep experiential learning (mastery). Several months or even years where you dove deep into a skill and mastered it to a high degree.

Then think of something you are looking to achieve within the next 1-2 years. You (in this moment) are right in the middle. You will connect these two and reveal something that can support you in your journey.

1. Look back at deep mastery of a skill in a chapter of your life
2. Look to the future 1-2 years of something that is meaningful to you that you want to experience
3. Connect the dots and find something that will support you this upcoming week to take action on

If you’d like to share what is revealed, reply to this email after you’ve gone through the action steps! I’d love to hear it. And I will respond to you.

That’s it for this edition of the Joyful Sovereignty Weekly!

Wish you a great rest of your day!

Best,

Lane

P.S. If you enjoyed this edition, share this link on your social media or with a friend who you think would enjoy reading this.

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We will continue our journey of Self-Mastery and discuss how to synthesize.

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If you’re looking to create an ecosystem for your life towards Joyful Sovereignty and seeking guidance and accountability, join the waitlist for my upcoming Self-Mastery Operating System by clicking here. More info coming soon.