After decades of strict schooling, almost inhuman methods, and awful pedagogical approaches, experts worldwide have turned all kinds of special-forces training into a cheerful playground. An extreme reaction against years of authoritarian oppression by the Herr Doktors of our world? A natural switch of the pendulum to the other side?
No matter. To succeed now, as small children, teenagers, young students, apprentices, or fully (?) grown adult professionals, we must presumably inhabit a world of positivity, encouragement, passion, engagement, sharing, and contribution. Indeed, some people and ecosystems are like that. It is because they are in love with what they do. But the rest of the world isn’t!
We arrived at such a process not by evaluating what a lower level worker needs to do to become a ‘great’ in his area of expertise but by going backward: analyzing the practices and living examples of enormous success stories, and dissecting the elements, attitudes, and environment that constitute their success.
Trying to fill a naturally competitive terrain with cheerleaders does not help (motivational speaking is more ‘entertainment’ nowadays than ‘training’), and telling people to feel and act like superhumans because this is what superhuman champions do, is unfair. But it is not unrealistic if we do it differently!
What if we help them fall in love with their profession? Or direct them into finding what they love and succeed in doing just that? For a certain percentage of professionals, it will work. For the rest, we must return to the old-fashioned but completely forgotten principles that (when followed to the last dot) have made and continue to make good professionals, truly great.
It is not a fun excursion or an entertaining spectacle, this one, I assure you. It never was. It is hard, painful, demanding everything of you, pushing your limits, expanding your abilities, and stretching your understanding. That is why nobody should be obliged to try it. Those who want have to train and train for hours, every day, for at least a couple of years, in several dimensions simultaneously, dedicated to their goals, committed to their personal victory, and aiming to contribute to the greater good by becoming what they always wanted.
Anyone not knowing what this extraordinary ordeal entails can only imagine how it must feel to observe previously unrealistic goals shaping the current new reality. Nobody is the same after such training and accomplishments. And nobody ever wanted to go back.