Last year we reviewed Max Out Mindset for our January book because we thought it would be fun to do a book to help us enter the new year with some tips about how to set intentions. We loved that book, so this year we’re doing another sort of intentions book, called The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery, by Adam Gopnik. But this book isn’t really a self-help book. As Gopnik writes: “I realized, as I worked on these pages, that what I was writing was a self-help book that won’t help.” Linny was looking for practical tips, so she was surprised! The Real Work is more of a memoir about Gopnik’s own journey as he tries to master different skills as a later-in-life adult. Some of the skills are: painting, boxing, dancing, baking, and even driving. As he works on these skills, he reflects on what he identifies as the seven mysteries of mastery. His overall question in this book is figuring out how masters learn difficult things. Nancy chose this book because she loves Adam Gopnik’s writing. Like Linny and Nancy, he was born in Philly! He’s been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1986. He’s written 10 books, including one of Nancy’s favorites, the best-selling Paris to the Moon, about his family’s move to Paris with their young son. In the past five years, Gopnik has engaged in many musical projects, working both as a lyricist and libretto writer. He has won the National Magazine Award for Essays and for Criticism three times, as well as the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting, and the Canadian National Magazine Award Gold Medal for arts writing. His work has been anthologized many times. Linda reports that Gopnik says he is surrounded by masters. For him, masters are people who are good at things, but they don’t need to be world famous. It is more commonplace, for him, than we often think. Linda observes that Nancy is like Adam Gopnik in that she loves to learn new things. Linda mentions the many classes and self-taught skills Nancy has learned over the years such as weaving and painting and dancing and tennis and making a really good pie crust. Nancy notes that throughout the book Gopnik apprentices himself to the “masters” he finds to learn various skills such as: • Painting (NY artist) • Boxing (local gym) • Dancing (local teacher) • Baking (his mom) • Social worker (local therapist with expertise) • Driving (driving school instructor) Linny loved his story of the local therapist, not surprising Nancy at all since Linny uses his approach, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), in her practice. Linny discusses why CBT is a good approach for helping anxiety. Her second favorite was learning to bake from his mother because it was cozy and it was BREAD! Nancy liked the painting and dancing skills because they are skills that a person starts out doing them poorly and then, suddenly, can do things they didn’t think was possible. Gopnik says “Everyone, I think, has a moment when we learn to do things that not only seem difficult but impossible until you begin doing them.” Nancy remembers learning to read. Linda says she also has dabbled in painting and has enjoyed it. She remembers that she and Nancy both had the experience of learning how to play in a handbell choir that seemed impossible at first. Linny remembers how to drive stick shift on Woolrich’s Cemetery Hill. That was a challenge! Linda thinks she has learned new skills, despite the challenge, to fill time while Nancy just loves the learning process. Linny says Pickleball is her newest skill she is trying to master. Nancy reminds her that, as an adult, she went back to school to get a Master’s in Counseling. She agrees she forgot about that! Nancy points out that Gopnik writes about three themes in mastery: 1. Breaking down and building up: identifying and perfecting small constituent component parts of a skill and then combining them for an overall effect greater than the sum of those parts. In other words, the importance of practice. 2. Intentional imperfection/human presence: this is revealing the humanity in what we do. His example is vibrato which he calls a way of not landing on the right note, but a technique that for listeners carries maximum expressiveness. 3. Masters teach us their skills so we can become masters but also connect with others. This is about as close to self-helpy as he comes. Nancy liked the “breaking down and building up” theme as it felt reinforcing to her as she thinks about some of the skills she has recently tried to master. Namely, tennis. In her lesson this past week, as she was trying to incorporate a new skill, all her other skills disappeared! Her coach said that is pretty typical. Linny really liked the intentional imperfection theme and recalls loving hearing mistakes in musical recordings. She also notes that perfectionism is something many people struggle with. Gopnik organizes his experience around seven mysteries of mastery and interweaves his own experience within those seven mysteries. They are: 1. The mystery of performance. Once impressed by a performance or beautiful solution to a problem, the audience will leave reasoning behind. 2. The mystery of identity and intentions. That mastery is lodged in a specific time but speaks to other times. 3. The mystery of interiority. One’s interior experience of an accomplishment and mastery are more important than any external acclaim or lack of it. He says we can be aware of our limits and still enjoy our achievements. 4. The mystery of meaning. It’s impossible to describe why art or mastery touches us when it does. 5. The mystery of late style. This is the accumulation of long mastery into producing masterpieces. 6. The mystery of the art itself. Gopnik tells us to do the art, the act, the performance. Doing it is where the mystery lies. 7. The mystery, resolved. This section is only a few sentences. He writes “We seem to dance; we have the intention of dancing; we feel inside as if we’re dancing; we are seen to dance, I have not yet aged past the point of dancing… No! We do, close enough to count as realized work. We dance.” Nancy really loved #7 The mystery, resolved. That we should learn the skills we want to learn and that is achievement enough. Nancy was talking to another of her tennis coaches (!), who said some adults drop tennis immediately because they can’t stand to be bad at something. Learning new skills as an adult can be hard and is humbling, but Nancy says she feels #3 and #7 speak to the fact that there is great satisfaction in learning. Linny feels this book is a kick in the pants for her because it makes her reflect on the skills she has wanted to learn or to explore those things she thinks she has an aptitude for. Linny discloses she wants to write music which she has never told Nancy! Linny says she has been feeling this was for a long time. Linny thinks she would also like to learn to play the piano. Linny’s been thinking a lot about poetry, too, as she mentioned in the previous episode, and would like to write some poetry and even put poetry to music as lyrics! Nancy says she has downloaded a meditation app to guide her through learning how to meditate. Otherwise, she plans to continue to sharpen her tennis skills and she has joined a beginners doubles tennis league, a step back from the USTA leagues she was in, but that will help her learn to compete. Linny reinforces it is about the experience, not about putting pressure on oneself. Linny and Nancy conclude that, even though Gopnik’s book isn’t self-helpy, it was inspirational especially as they talked through it.