April 8, 2025

An Inuit has 53 names for different kinds of snow and variations of it.  

A Bedouin knows 20 names of a camel, which describe different qualities.  

A professional dancer has hundreds of distinctions for movement patterns and shapes.

When you compare a high-level dancer to an amateur, you’ll notice that the high-level dancer can distinguish their movements, sensations, and body awareness in far more detail.

Mastering a field requires mastering its distinctions and language.

For example, a doctor knows many terms that you don’t in order to navigate the field of medicine effectively. They’ve studied terminology, the distinctions between body parts, their functions, and differences to effectively diagnose and treat medical conditions.

In leadership and entrepreneurship

‍There are also many distinctions and specialized terms used to understand these domains.  

We know what profit margin, CAC, LTV, HR, CEO, CFO, IP, ICP, and many other terms mean. These are the distinctions we use in business and leadership.

Most of what we learn in these fields focuses on the outside appearance of the domain.  

We learn the language, best practices, and different ways of doing things…  

You can go on the internet, ask AI how to do something, and you’ll get an answer.  

Information is widely available.  

But in my experience, this is not where the gold is found.

I work with intelligent and courageous people, some of whom are highly educated in the common sense of education. They know their stuff and have achieved a certain level of success.  

Yet, they still struggle.

They feel stuck, under pressure, exhausted, or like they're not enough. They may have lost their spark or feel like they can’t fully translate their great ideas into the world.

So, they think they need to learn more, do more, and have more.  

They start looking for more "how to" advice: How to lead, how to build a team, how to make more money… How to, how to, how to...

But they haven’t mastered the one domain that would make a real difference.

They haven’t mastered themselves.

Most people don’t realize how little they understand their own functioning, trying to solve problems that wouldn’t even exist if they had some basic distinctions about their own experience of living.

- The leader who knows all the ways to lead but never seems effective when trying to apply it.  

- The business owner who grows their revenue but not their profit, investing in yet another software that will "finally" change everything.  

- The manager who can’t get their team to do what’s needed, trying again by giving more information on how to do it.

Unaware that the issue isn’t a lack of information,  

but about knowing themselves and what’s truly in the way of their performance.

I’ve worked with clients who are exceptional at what they do but undercharge heavily because deep down, they still operate on the belief they made when they were 7: "I’m unworthy."

When we don’t distinguish, we store files in our operating system that get used to make decisions in the present, never evaluating if they’re still needed. These patterns stay under the surface of our awareness, just like the subtle changes in snow that we can’t see because we lack the distinctions.

To master yourself is to master the one domain that impacts all others.

Why?

You take yourself everywhere.  

Knowing yourself is more important than ever, especially in a time when information is flooding our gates. But the one receiving that information might still be stuck in the 80s with their own self-knowledge.

Mastering yourself and everything that comes with it is the mission of our Institute. We offer in-depth training for leaders and entrepreneurs who are ready to work on the one thing that changes everything: mastering the art of being human.

If you’d like to be the first to know when we launch, reply with "Institute" to this message, and we’ll add you to the list.