What is your mastery?

[Ilya]

To celebrate my 100th post, I decided to start this thread that will make us all feel good.

Many people don't even suspect that what they are doing everyday can be amazing to other people and worth modeling.

In order to make us think about what we do well, let's start the boast fest!
Post anything you think you excel at.
Some guidelines to make it interesting:

- Don't be shy - anyone can do something special, even the most mundane skill you have can be something another person always wanted to master.
- Be positive - being master procrastinator is an exceptional skill. It means that you've achieved so much, given all the time you've spent procrastinating.
- Be creative - Let's post at least three things. You'll be amazed of the discoveries that you can make, when you start thinking about your mastery.

I expect people starting to comment and asking about how you do something. Ideally this thread will evolve into "mastery exchange", where weight control can be exchanged for early rising and a bonus poetry composition.

To set an example, I'll start

1. I can easily control my internal states. I control pain, hunger and appetite. I can fall asleep in 3 seconds and wake up as easyly. I can get myself drunk with water and sober up after alcohol intoxication.
2. I am very good at listening other people. My first experience with counseling others was me listening for people pouring out their problems.
They thanked me afterwards, even when I didn't give them any useful advice.
3. I have a perfect at Student's syndrome. I can perfectly estimate the time necessary to complete any task without compromising quality. I used to procrastinate this way, nowadays I just put many consecutive tasks in pipeline and they get done with the optimal effort to result ratio.

What about you?

[Love]

Hmm, you're right! I am interested in how you did those things... especially #1 and 3.

I can only think of two things for me:
1) I teach pretty well.
2) I listen to others pretty decently.

[Rose of Cairo]

That's a great idea, Ilya!

I'd like to know how you do 1.!

My 1. and 2. are very clear to me, but I'm still looking for a 3. ...

[finandom]

Hmmm....
1. I can follow my plan very well
2. I'm good in customer service because I can easily worry about my customer's problems and always want to help them to solve it
3. I'm a big dreamer who always dream the life after I achieve financial freedom

[rene_stpierre]

Here's what I have:

- I have been able to not only conquer my fear of public speaking but became very good at it. Now, I can speak in front of 100 people (which I did twice a few years ago) or in front of the Board of Management of the German corporation I work for (which I did 3 times already since joining 3.5 months ago) without any problem. When I joined a Toastmasters club last year, the comment made by the Club's President after my first speech (called Ice Breaker) was that it was the best Ice Breaker speech he'd ever heard.

- I am very good at leading large multi-functional teams. I am a Project Manager responsible to win large contracts ($50M and up). I lead teams in what is called a matrix organisation (i.e. the people on the team do not report directly to me). There can be anywhere between 10 to 30 people scattered in 3-4 different countries (Canada, USA, Brazil, Germany) working on my projects and the functions are ... Sales, Legal, Finance, Engineering, Purchasing, Scheduling, Quality, Site Installation.

- I deliver over and above the expectations. This has allowed me to more than triple my salary since the day I started working 12 years ago (this equals to more than 10% salary increase each year). I have worked in 2 large corporations (American and German).

René

[Rose of Cairo]

ah, now I know my 3.

1. I am a really great master at being blundering (? right word? clumsy?) When cooking, I'm likely to cut or burn myself. Every day I drop a plate with sauce on my pants or a bottle of wine on the parquet or the clean laundry on the dirty floor of the cellar... I breake a lot of crockery, resent the furniture and fall off my bike weekly. I'm really good! :-) Unfortunately I don't know how I do it, so you cannot learn such a useful tool from me

2. I am also very good at remembering numbers. I can remember the phone number, birthday, icq number, students matriculation number, bank account number or license plate number (whatever I know about them) of the people I know. I never have to check up the phone number of my gynecologist before calling him, I remember the bank account number of the flat mate I had two years ago and recognize cars only by their license plate number.

3. This one dropped into my mind while I was cycling today. I am a master at attracting people in my life who are about to change something in their life radically. Most of the people I meet make a big change in some area of their life a few days or weeks after we met. A few people suddenly realized they were actually homosexual. A few broke their studies off or began studying something else. Or moved to another city, or decided to look for a job instead of doing a PhD, or something like that. Not all, but really a lot of them! A lot of them told me I helped them understand this or make this decision. Or they just tell me I dramatically changed their life. But I don't know how I could have done this. I gave them no advice. And hadn't even noticed they were homosexual...

I had to look for many words in the dictionary, so I'm sorry if something sounds strange!

[Rippy]

Ah.. this is hard. I'm good at so much! ;D

1. Constant alinement to people. I adjust, always, to everyone. Sometimes online, but usually in person, I'm able to take on any position I choose. I'm able to pinpoint a person's total personality within the first few minutes of meeting them-- and sometimes less-- and make a personality shift that causes them to like me. However, it's more of a intuitive feel that's difficult to put to words.. I've literally had people who I don't even like proclaim me their best friend within hours of meeting me. It's quite fun, and often frustrating. And I'll often find myself stuck in a period of obvious disagreement with anyone. When debating, I'll always take the opposite side of the argument, even if I actually agree with them completely. It takes me quite a while to realize I'm doing it, and sometimes I'll be so convincing with my words that I even convince myself to change. Hahaha.

2. I'm good at being excellent at alot of small things. Unfortunately, I haven't found my "One thing" that I'm best at..

3. I'm creative. ^^

[unwiser]

successful project manager
great money managing skills
ambitious

It took me 15 minutes to think of those.

[Freelancer]

1) I am very good at staying calm and listening to other people (you'd be amazed how few people actually LISTEN) in most situations, there's only one person who actually got under my skin in the past (my little brother ) and lost my temper once.
2) If I read something that interests me than I only need to read it once and I remember pretty much everything for years, usefull skill to learn games (that used to interest me) but not so great at school (didn't really interest me lol).
3) I'm very good at poker, made about 8k in 3 months playing time with 4k in the last month. Than I quite because I thought it was unethical...

[Senin]

Ilya,

I would definitely like to know how you do number 1. I think real mastery is being able to control/manage your internal states. Please fill us in.

I have really enjoyed your posts thus far.

[kaushal1]

I can create good piece of writing as i m a writer.
I can do interesting talks and no body feels bore with me
i have great control on my desires.

[Jill]

1. I am an expert at SEO. I can look at any website and know exactly what needs to be done to fix it for the search engines and make it better for users.

2. I have a knack for explaining the complicated and making it sound easy (which is because it actually IS easy!). Especially in writing, but I've transfered the skill over so that I can also do this orally.

3. Hmmmm...not sure about a 3rd one. I'm so focused on being an expert at the above that I often don't pay attention to anything else! (Which is not a good thing.)