Skills are not skills unless honed to mastery. In fishing, either deep-sea or fly-fishing, your level of skill is defined by the ability to fully understand what you do and why, and be able to explain it to others. Mastery demands endless repetition. Repeat again and again. It’s not about perfection but gaining that natural muscle memory and a full grasp of everything you do.
Quality not quantity defines success. You must do your work well or don’t do it at all.
In my latest book, The Fisherman’s Path to Leadership, I explore this issue from a practical viewpoint and found that there are two key elements of successful fishing and so, leadership – mindset and mastery.
Mindset
Let’s start with mindset. Fishing is a game of mindsets, the fisherman, and the fish. Little thought, nothing caught. One must be masterful in their mindset to outsmart salmon – reading water in different conditions, effortless and precise casting, using the right fly, finding the best spot to cast from, and many other things.
When I started salmon fishing, I was driven by a desire to catch the largest fish in the river. I was banging water with my casts as a woodpecker bangs an old tree. The only difference is that a woodpecker knows what to do and how, and I was just casting. It seems that I became famous among salmon for not troubling them at all.
Trip after trip I fed my enthusiasm that one day that trophy fish would be hooked, yet only a few small fish ended up in my bag. I was losing. Badly.
My casting style was rusty, inconsistent, and demanded a lot of energy. I was soaking wet by the end of the fishing trip.
Nature doesn’t tolerate inconsistency. Fortunately, I quickly realized that my casting style must be silky-smooth, precise, and effortless. My mind had to be in command, not my muscles. If you get into the habit of casting the wrong way, you will be casting the wrong way forever.
Fishing demands a clear vision of the environment, water level, pressure, and many other ever-changing factors considered in elegant analysis turned into action. Every element of nature is complex and not linear.
Physical effort is defined not by burning calories and gaining muscles as we do in a gym. This is about being prepared to use your energy effectively, covering long distances walking along a river, being fit to withstand harsh weather and a lack of comfort, and simple endurance.
Luck is something that all fishermen believe in. All fishermen are superstitious when it comes to fishing, and I’m no exception. They all have their own habits, specific procedures, and luck-bringing things in their pockets. I always parked my car at a very specific place when coming to the river, carried a lucky old Swiss knife in my backpack, and wore the same lucky bandana for years.
Realistically, luck is a credit from nature, encouragement to learn more. You will get more fish if you are good at using this credit wisely. The more you learn, the luckier you will be.
Mastery
What works against this formula? A famous Persian polymath and philosopher of the Islamic Golden Age, Al-Ghazali once said “Desire makes slaves out of kings, while patience makes kings out of slaves.” Desire makes me active. Mastery makes me productive. Desire motivates, and mastery brings food to the table. Without mastery, desire is unproductive. Desire not supported by mastery made me impatient.
Mastery in thinking, mastery in the physical element of fishing, and mastery in attracting luck comes with repetition. Yes, like in business, sport, or formal learning, it is all about the number of repetitions, whilst exercising patience at the same time. Repetition after repetition and improvement on improvement are the basis for mastery. Repeating for improvement is key. In this sense, every taxi driver repeats the same things every day for many years, but I never saw any taxi driver who became a Formula-1 pilot.
A salmon knows everything about the underwater world and repeatedly crosses the river many times in different conditions. I must be smarter if I want to catch this well-trained fish. So, I must keep repeating and improving.
Every time I came back home with an empty bag I thought – “I saw fish, I had all my tackle to catch it, luck was in the air, I simply lost the mind.”
The same in leadership. Leadership is about mindset and mastery. There are no accidental leaders. Similar to nature, business doesn’t tolerate inconsistency and amateurship.
As an ancient Greek poet, Archilochus said in 650 BC, “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.”
Six tips:
- Blind desire makes you effective in producing sweat. Sweat doesn’t have any monetary value.
- I coach only on something I’m prepared to learn and improve. This makes me willing to repeat and improve more every day.
- Desire to have feeds ego. Desire to improve makes you better and masterful and allows you to lead better.
- True leadership is seen in kindness, humility, focus, exploring, caring, listening, and learning. If you improve on each of these elements, you will simply become a great leader.
- Mindset is the single and most powerful tool for a leader. Improve it every day and on every occasion.
- I improve every day to lead people tomorrow better than today, otherwise they don’t need me.
Written by Dr. Oleg Konovalov.
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