Success Advice

The 3 Vital Steps Of The Apprenticeship Phase In Mastering Anything

Published

13 years ago

May 10, 2013

Image Credit: Unsplash

This post is an excerpt from Mastery by Robert Greene (Viking). Mastery is the latest book from the bestselling author of The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, and The 50th Law.

In the stories of the greatest Masters, past and present, we can inevitably detect a phase in their lives in which all of their future powers were in development, like the chrysalis of a butterfly. This part of their lives—a largely self-directed apprenticeship that lasts some five to ten years—receives little attention because it does not contain stories of great achievement or discovery. Often in their Apprenticeship Phase, these types are not yet much different from anyone else. Under the surface, however, their minds are transforming in ways we cannot see but contain all of the seeds of their future success.

Much of how such Masters navigate this phase comes from an intuitive grasp of what is most important and essential for their development, but in studying what they did right we can learn some invaluable lessons for ourselves. In fact, a close examination of their lives reveals a pattern that transcends their various fields, indicating a kind of Ideal Apprenticeship for mastery. And to grasp this pattern, to follow it in our own ways, we must understand something about the very idea and necessity for passing through an apprenticeship.

In childhood we are inculcated in culture through a long period of dependency—far longer than any other animal. During this period we learn language, writing, math, and reasoning skills, along with a few others. Much of this happens under the watchful and loving guidance of parents and teachers. As we get older, greater emphasis is placed on book learning—absorbing as much information as possible about various subjects. Such knowledge of history, science, or literature is abstract, and the process of learning largely involves passive absorption. At the end of this process (usually somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five) we are then thrust into the cold, harsh work world to fend for ourselves.

When we emerge from the youthful state of dependency, we are not really ready to handle the transition to an entirely independent phase. We carry with us the habit of learning from books or teachers, which is largely unsuited for the practical, self-directed phase of life that comes next. We tend to be somewhat socially naïve and unprepared for the political games people play. Still uncertain as to our identity, we think that what matters in the work world is gaining attention and making friends. And these misconceptions and naïveté are brutally exposed in the light of the real world.

If we adjust over time, we might eventually find our way; but if we make too many mistakes, we create endless problems for ourselves. We spend too much time entangled in emotional issues, and we never quite have enough detachment to reflect and learn from our experiences. The apprenticeship, by its very nature, must be conducted by each individual in his or her own way. To follow precisely the lead of others or advice from a book is self-defeating. This is the phase in life in which we finally declare our independence and establish who we are. But for this second education in our lives, so critical to our future success, there are some powerful and essential lessons that we all can benefit from, that can guide us away from common mistakes and save us valuable time.

These lessons transcend all fields and historical periods because they are connected to something essential about human psychology and how the brain itself functions. They can be distilled into one overarching principle for the Apprenticeship Phase, and a process that loosely follows three steps.

The principle is simple and must be engraved deeply in your mind: the goal of an apprenticeship is not money, a good position, a title, or a diploma, but rather the transformation of your mind and character—the first transformation on the way to mastery. You enter a career as an outsider. You are naïve and full of misconceptions about this new world. Your head is full of dreams and fantasies about the future. Your knowledge of the world is subjective, based on emotions, insecurities, and limited experience. Slowly, you will ground yourself in reality, in the objective world represented by the knowledge and skills that make people successful in it. You will learn how to work with others and handle criticism. In the process you will transform yourself from someone who is impatient and scattered into someone who is disciplined and focused, with a mind that can handle complexity. In the end, you will master yourself and all of your weaknesses.

This has a simple consequence: you must choose places of work and positions that offer the greatest possibilities for learning. Practical knowledge is the ultimate commodity, and is what will pay you dividends for decades to come—far more than the paltry increase in pay you might receive at some seemingly lucrative position that offers fewer learning opportunities. This means that you move toward challenges that will toughen and improve you, where you will get the most objective feedback on your performance and progress. You do not choose apprenticeships that seem easy and comfortable.

In this sense you must see yourself as following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin. You are finally on your own, on a voyage in which you will craft your own future. It is the time of youth and adventure—of exploring the world with an open mind and spirit. In fact, whenever you must learn a new skill or alter your career path later in life, you reconnect with that youthful, adventurous part of yourself. Darwin could have played it safe, collecting what was necessary, and spending more time on board studying instead of actively exploring. In that case, he would not have become an illustrious scientist, but just another collector. He constantly looked for challenges, pushing himself past his comfort zone. He used danger and difficulties as a way to measure his progress. You must adopt such a spirit and see your apprenticeship as a kind of journey in which you will transform yourself, rather than as a drab indoctrination into the work world.

The Apprenticeship Phase — The Three Steps or Modes

With the principle outlined above guiding you in your choices, you must think of three essential steps in your apprenticeship, each one overlapping the other. These steps are: Deep Observation (The Passive Mode), Skills Acquisition (The Practice Mode), and Experimentation (The Active Mode). Keep in mind that an apprenticeship can come in many different forms. It can happen at one place over several years, or it can consist of several different positions in different places, a kind of compound apprenticeship involving many different skills. It can include a mix of graduate school and practical experience. In all of these cases, it will help you to think in terms of these steps, although you may need to give added weight to a particular one depending on the nature of your field.

Step One: Deep Observation—The Passive Mode

When you enter a career or new environment, you move into a world with its own rules, procedures, and social dynamic. For decades or even centuries, people have compiled knowledge of how to get things done in a particular field, each generation improving on the past. In addition, every workplace has its own conventions, rules of behavior, and work standards. There are also all kinds of power relationships that exist between individuals. All of this represents a reality that transcends your individual needs and desires. And so your task upon entering this world is to observe and absorb its reality as deeply as possible.

The greatest mistake you can make in the initial months of your apprenticeship is to imagine that you have to get attention, impress people, and prove yourself. These thoughts will dominate your mind and close it off from the reality around you. Any positive attention you receive is deceptive; it is not based on your skills or anything real, and it will turn against you. Instead, you will want to acknowledge the reality and submit to it, muting your colors and keeping in the background as much as possible, remaining passive and giving yourself the space to observe. You will also want to drop any preconceptions you might have about this world you are entering. If you impress people in these first months, it should be because of the seriousness of your desire to learn, not because you are trying to rise to the top before you are ready.

You will be observing two essential realities in this new world. First, you will observe the rules and procedures that govern success in this environment—in other words, “this is how we do things here.” Some of these rules will be communicated to you directly—generally the ones that are superficial and largely a matter of common sense. You must pay attention to these and observe them, but what is of more interest are the rules that are unstated and are part of the underlying work culture. These concern style and values that are considered important. They are often a reflection of the character of the man or woman on top.

You can observe such rules by looking at those who are on their way up in the hierarchy, who have a golden touch. More tellingly, you can observe those who are more awkward, who have been chastised for particular mistakes or even been fired. Such examples serve as negative trip wires: do things this way and you will suffer.

The second reality you will observe is the power relationships that exist within the group: who has real control; through whom do all communications flow; who is on the rise and who is on the decline. These procedural and political rules may be dysfunctional or counterproductive, but your job is not to moralize about this or complain, but merely to understand them, to get a complete lay of the land. You are like an anthropologist studying an alien culture, attuned to all of its nuances and conventions. You are not there to change that culture; you will only end up being killed, or in the case of work, fired. Later, when you have attained power and mastery, you will be the one to rewrite or destroy these same rules.

Every task you are given, no matter how menial, offers opportunities to observe this world at work. No detail about the people within it is too trivial. Everything you see or hear is a sign for you to decode. Over time, you will begin to see and understand more of the reality that eluded you at first. For instance, a person whom you initially thought had great power ended up being someone with more bark than bite. Slowly, you begin to see behind the appearances. As you amass more information about the rules and power dynamics of your new environment, you can begin to analyze why they exist, and how they relate to larger trends in the field. You move from observation to analysis, honing your reasoning skills, but only after months of careful attention.

We can see how Charles Darwin followed this step quite clearly. By spending the first few months studying life on board the ship and perceiving the unwritten rules, he made his time for science much more productive. By enabling himself to fit in, he was able to avoid needless battles that would have later disrupted his scientific work, not to mention the emotional turmoil these would have presented to him. He later practiced the same technique with gauchos and other local communities he came in contact with. This allowed him to extend the regions he could explore and the specimens he could collect. On another level, he slowly transformed himself into perhaps the most astute observer of nature the world has ever known. Emptying himself of any preconceptions about life and its origins, Darwin trained himself to see things as they are. He did not theorize or generalize about what he was seeing until he had amassed enough information. Submitting to and absorbing the reality of all aspects of this voyage, he ended up piercing one of the most fundamental realities of all—the evolution of all living forms.

Understand: there are several critical reasons why you must follow this step. First, knowing your environment inside and out will help you in navigating it and avoiding costly mistakes. You are like a hunter: your knowledge of every detail of the forest and of the ecosystem as a whole will give you many more options for survival and success. Second, the ability to observe any unfamiliar environment will become a critical lifelong skill. You will develop the habit of stilling your ego and looking outward instead of inward. You will see in any encounter what most people miss because they are thinking of themselves. You will cultivate a keen eye for human psychology, and strengthen your ability to focus. Finally, you will become accustomed to observing first, basing your ideas and theories on what you have seen with your eyes, and then analyzing what you find. This will be a very important skill for the next, creative phase in life.

Step Two: Skills Acquisition—The Practice Mode

At some point, as you progress through the initial months of observation required in an apprenticeship, you will enter a critical stage: practice toward the acquisition of skills. Every human activity, endeavor, or career path involves the mastering of skills. In some fields, it is direct and obvious, like operating a tool or machine or creating something physical. In others, it is more of a mix of the physical and mental, such as the observing and collecting of specimens for Charles Darwin. In still others, the skills are more nebulous, such as handling people or researching and organizing information. As much as possible, you want to reduce these skills to something simple and essential—the core of what you need to get good at, skills that can be practiced.

In acquiring any kind of skill, there exists a natural learning process that coincides with the functioning of our brains. This learning process leads to what we shall call tacit knowledge—a feeling for what you are doing that is hard to put into words but easy to demonstrate in action. And to understand how this learning process operates, it is useful to look at the greatest system ever invented for the training of skills and the achievement of tacit knowledge—the apprenticeship system of the Middle Ages. This system arose as a solution to a problem: As business expanded in the Middle Ages, Masters of various crafts could no longer depend on family members to work in the shop. They needed more hands. But it was not worth it for them to bring in people who would come and go—they needed stability and time to build up skills in their workers. And so they developed the apprenticeship system, in which young people from approximately the ages of twelve to seventeen would enter work in a shop, signing a contract that would commit them for the term of seven years. At the end of this term, apprentices would have to pass a master test, or produce a master work, to prove their level of skill. Once passed, they were now elevated to the rank of journeymen and could travel wherever there was work, practicing the craft.

Because few books or drawings existed at the time, apprentices would learn the trade by watching Masters and imitating them as closely as possible. They learned through endless repetition and hands-on work, with very little verbal instruction (the word “apprentice” itself comes from the Latin prehendere, meaning to grasp with the hand). Because resources such as textiles, wood, and metals were expensive and could not be wasted on practice runs, apprentices would spend most of their time working directly on materials that would be used for the final product. They had to learn how to focus deeply on their work and not make mistakes.

If one added up the time that apprentices ended up working directly on materials in those years, it would amount to more than 10,000 hours, enough to establish exceptional skill level at a craft. The power of this form of tacit knowledge is embodied in the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe—masterpieces of beauty, craftsmanship, and stability, all erected without blueprints or books. These cathedrals represented the accumulated skills of numerous craftsmen and engineers.

What this means is simple: language, oral and written, is a relatively recent invention. Well before that time, our ancestors had to learn various skills—toolmaking, hunting, and so forth. The natural model for learning, largely based on the power of mirror neurons, came from watching and imitating others, then repeating the action over and over. Our brains are suited for this form of learning. In an activity such as riding a bicycle, we all know that it is easier to watch someone and follow their lead than to listen to or read instructions. The more we do it, the easier it becomes. Even with skills that are primarily mental, such as computer programming or speaking a foreign language, it remains the case that we learn best through practice and repetition—the natural learning process. We learn a foreign language by actually speaking it as much as possible, not by reading books and absorbing theories. The more we speak and practice, the more fluent we become.

Once you take this far enough, you enter a cycle of accelerated returns in which the practice becomes easier and more interesting, leading to the ability to practice for longer hours, which increases your skill level, which in turn makes practice even more interesting. Reaching this cycle is the goal you must set for yourself, and to get there you must understand some basic principles about skills themselves.

First, it is essential that you begin with one skill that you can master, and that serves as a foundation for acquiring others. You must avoid at all cost the idea that you can manage learning several skills at a time. You need to develop your powers of concentration, and understand that trying to multi task will be the death of the process.

Second, the initial stages of learning a skill invariably involve tedium. Yet rather than avoiding this inevitable tedium, you must accept and embrace it. The pain and boredom we experience in the initial stage of learning a skill toughens our minds, much like physical exercise. Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life, which makes them constantly search for distractions and short-circuits the learning process. The pain is a kind of challenge your mind presents—will you learn how to focus and move past the boredom, or like a child will you succumb to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction? Much as with physical exercise, you can even get a kind of perverse pleasure out of this pain, knowing the benefits it will bring you. In any event, you must meet any boredom head-on and not try to avoid or repress it. Throughout your life you will encounter tedious situations, and you must cultivate the ability to handle them with discipline.

In practicing a skill in the initial stages, something happens neurologically to the brain that is important for you to understand. When you start something new, a large number of neurons in the frontal cortex (the higher, more conscious command area of the brain) are recruited and become active, helping you in the learning process. The brain has to deal with a large amount of new information, and this would be stressful and overwhelming if only a limited part of the brain were used to handle it. The frontal cortex even expands in size in this initial phase, as we focus hard on the task. But once something is repeated often enough, it becomes hardwired and automatic, and the neural pathways for this skill are delegated to other parts of the brain, farther down the cortex. Those neurons in the frontal cortex that we needed in the initial stages are now freed up to help in learning something else, and the area goes back to its normal size.

In the end, an entire network of neurons is developed to remember this single task, which accounts for the fact that we can still ride a bicycle years after we first learned how to do so. If we were to take a look at the frontal cortex of those who have mastered something through repetition, it would be remarkably still and inactive as they performed the skill. All of their brain activity is occurring in areas that are lower down and require much less conscious control.

This process of hardwiring cannot occur if you are constantly distracted, moving from one task to another. In such a case, the neural pathways dedicated to this skill never get established; what you learn is too tenuous to remain rooted in the brain. It is better to dedicate two or three hours of intense focus to a skill than to spend eight hours of diffused concentration on it. You want to be as immediately present to what you are doing as possible.

Once an action becomes automatic, you now have the mental space to observe yourself as you practice. You must use this distance to take note of your weaknesses or flaws that need correction—to analyze yourself. It helps also to gain as much feedback as possible from others, to have standards against which you can measure your progress so that you are aware of how far you have to go. People who do not practice and learn new skills never gain a proper sense of proportion or self-criticism. They think they can achieve anything without effort and have little contact with reality. Trying something over and over again grounds you in reality, making you deeply aware of your inadequacies and of what you can accomplish with more work and effort.

If you take this far enough, you will naturally enter the cycle of accelerated returns: As you learn and gain skills you can begin to vary what you do, finding nuances that you can develop in the work, so that it becomes more interesting. As elements become more automatic your mind is not exhausted by the effort and you can practice harder, which in turn brings greater skill and more pleasure. You can look for challenges, new areas to conquer, keeping your interest at a high level. As the cycle accelerates, you can reach a point where your mind is totally absorbed in the practice, entering a kind of flow in which everything else is blocked out. You become one with the tool or instrument or thing you are studying. Your skill is not something that can be put into words; it is embedded in your body and nervous system—it becomes tacit knowledge. Learning any kind of skill deeply prepares you for mastery. The sensation of flow and of being a part of the instrument is a precursor to the great pleasures that mastery can bring.

In essence, when you practice and develop any skill you transform yourself in the process. You reveal to yourself new capabilities that were previously latent, that are exposed as you progress. You develop emotionally. Your sense of pleasure becomes redefined. What offers immediate pleasure comes to seem like a distraction, an empty entertainment to help pass the time. Real pleasure comes from overcoming challenges, feeling confidence in your abilities, gaining fluency in skills, and experiencing the power this brings. You develop patience. Boredom no longer signals the need for distraction, but rather the need for new challenges to conquer.

Although it might seem that the time necessary to master the requisite skills and attain a level of expertise would depend on the field and your own talent level, those who have researched the subject repeatedly come up with the number of 10,000 hours. This seems to be the amount of quality practice time that is needed for someone to reach a high level of skill and it applies to composers, chess players, writers, and athletes, among others. This number has an almost magical or mystical resonance to it. It means that so much practice time—no matter the person or the field—leads to a qualitative change in the human brain. The mind has learned to organize and structure large amounts of information. With all of this tacit knowledge, it can now become creative and playful with it. Although the number of hours might seem high, it generally adds up to seven to ten years of sustained, solid practice—roughly the period of a traditional apprenticeship. In other words, concentrated practice over time cannot fail but produce results.

Step Three: Experimentation—The Active Mode

This is the shortest part of the process, but a critical component nonetheless. As you gain in skill and confidence, you must make the move to a more active mode of experimentation. This could mean taking on more responsibility, initiating a project of some sort, doing work that exposes you to the criticisms of peers or even the public. The point of this is to gauge your progress and whether there are still gaps in your knowledge. You are observing yourself in action and seeing how you respond to the judgments of others. Can you take criticism and use it constructively?

With Charles Darwin, as the voyage progressed and he began to entertain the notions that would lead to his theory of evolution, he decided to expose his ideas to others. First, on the Beagle, he discussed them with the captain and patiently absorbed his vehement criticisms of the idea. This, Darwin told himself, would be more or less the reaction of the public, and he would have to prepare himself for that. He also began to write letters to various scientists and scientific societies back in England. The responses he received indicated he was on to something, but that he would need some more research. For Leonardo da Vinci, as he progressed in his studio work for Verrocchio, he began to experiment and to assert his own style. He found to his surprise that the Master was impressed with his inventiveness. For Leonardo, this indicated that he was near the end of his apprenticeship.

Most people wait too long to take this step, generally out of fear. It is always easier to learn the rules and stay within your comfort zone. Often you must force yourself to initiate such actions or experiments before you think you are ready. You are testing your character, moving past your fears, and developing a sense of detachment to your work—looking at it through the eyes of others. You are getting a taste for the next phase in which what you produce will be under constant scrutiny.

You will know when your apprenticeship is over by the feeling that you have nothing left to learn in this environment. It is time to declare your independence or move to another place to continue your apprenticeship and expand your skill base. Later in life, when you are confronted with a career change or the need to learn new skills, having gone through this process before, it will become second nature. You have learned how to learn.

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Robert Greene

Robert Greene is an American author and speaker known for his books on strategy, power and seduction. He has written four international bestsellers: The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, and The 50th Law.

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Success Advice

Most People Want the Photo of Entrepreneurship. Not the Job.

Published

3 days ago

Sep 11, 2026

Joel Brown (Founder of Addicted2Success.com)

Image Credit: Addicted2success

I used to raise my hand when someone asked who in the room was an entrepreneur.

Then I started watching what people meant by the word.

They meant the photo. Own your time. Work for yourself. Build a life you do not need a holiday from. Those are the perception questions. Everybody says yes.

The reality questions are less popular. Are you willing to work when nobody is watching? Are you willing to put money you cannot easily replace on the line? Are you willing to look average in public while the thing is still ugly?

If you only want the first list, you do not want entrepreneurship. You want a costume.

I got confused because the word got cool

When I started Addicted2Success, entrepreneurship was not a personality. It was a slightly embarrassing choice. Now it sits next to being an athlete or a rapper. Cool. Visible. Easy to claim in a bio.

That timing helped a lot of us. The internet made it cheaper to start. It also made it easier to perform the job without doing the job.

I still believe you can get better at the craft. Sales. Copy. Funnels. Ops. You can sit in rooms with people who have done it. You can be mentored. What I do not believe is that a workshop can install the part that gets out of bed with no manager and no applause.

That part is closer to a talent you either feed or you do not. I could practice basketball every day and get better. I was never going to the league. Plenty of people can run a useful business. Fewer people should bet the house on becoming a founder.

That is not an insult. It is self-awareness. The operators who last double down on what they are actually good at and hire around the rest. The ones who stall spend years trying to become someone they admire.

I wasted years treating titles like a personality

Corporate was not evil. It was the wrong container for how I am wired.

I would start a role excited. A few months in I was a worse version of myself. Sunday already felt like Monday. Wednesday I was writing the resignation in my head. Friday I was just making an appearance.

I thought I needed a better job. I needed a different scoreboard.

A pastor said something that stuck, and it was not complicated. When the life you can see in your head and the life you are living stay too far apart, you get heavy. Not because you are ungrateful. Because you keep saying yes to a room that cannot hold what you are trying to build.

I ignored that sign and looked for another job that would make me happy. Same pattern. Different logo.

Leaving was not cinematic. It was a decision to stop renting my week to people who did not need the version of me that wanted to build.

Success got defined by people who were selling a jet

This is the part I care about more than another “hustle” speech.

A business that pays you well enough to live under your means, doing work you can stand, is a win. We do not talk about it that way. We talk about islands and exits.

If you make a living you can keep, on something you actually like, that is not a participation trophy. That is rare. The bottom of the top one percent in a rich country is still not the picture most people start with. They start at a million and a plane.

I do not want kids growing up thinking they failed because they built a good company instead of a fundraising machine.

A lot of what gets called a startup now is a finance game on the back end. CAC. LTV. The next round. The consumer is a metric. That can work as a sport. It is a terrible way to build a life. When the money gets tighter, the costume comes off. Some people will not have a self left under it.

Freedom is not what you make. It is what you do not have to spend to look free.

How I know it was not just a phase

Every real operator I know was selling something early. Candy. Labor. A service nobody asked them to start. They liked the feeling of money they made themselves.

They also do not stay satisfied. Finish one thing and the room gets quiet until the next problem shows up. That can look ungrateful from the outside. Inside it is just how the engine runs.

They would rather work a long day on their own hook than a clean eight hours on someone else’s calendar. That is not always healthy. It is honest.

I did not get a lightning bolt. I got enough signs that staying put cost more than leaving. Then I had to try it without a guarantee. Fear is usually the thing dressed up as research.

Trying is still the cleanest test. Not a personality quiz. Not a course. You put something in front of a real person and ask if they will pay.

What I watch for now

Attitude and effort. You control both. There is no law against working the problem except the clock.

Put the next step on the calendar. Call someone and ask if they want the thing. Ask if they will pay. A year from now you do not want the same conversation about being stuck.

Do not fall in love with the idea. Collide it with a customer before you write the ten-page plan. A piece of paper on a door beats a pitch deck if nobody knocks.

Protect the hours that actually move the number. Signal over noise. Three things that matter today. Everything else is interruption with a story.

Hire people better than you when you can. If someone cannot keep the standard and you keep them anyway, you just lowered it.

Know what you do not know. That is a strength. Pretending you have every hat is how founders drown.

And if you have a job that still pays the bills, you do not have to light it on fire for a caption. Build the new thing to a point where it is real. Then jump. Discipline is what makes that jump less theatrical.

The voices

People who have never carried the risk will have a lot to say. Some of them love you. That does not make them right about this.

If the people closest to you only feel safe when you stay small, you have to limit how much of their fear you swallow. Misery likes company. So does courage. Pick the room.

Authenticity is not a brand setting. It is not posting what you do not believe because it gets the like. MySpace Top 8 used to feel like life or death. It was not. Neither is this week’s vanity metric.

Work with family only if you love them more than the money. In a family business, respect the dirt that got the thing this far. Hit singles until you have earned the room to swing harder.

What I would tell myself earlier

You do not have to be the next platform.

You do have to be honest about whether you want the job or the photo.

Stay narrow long enough to get good. Attach a real offer to a name people can trust. Move faster than the version of you that wants another month to think. A rough version in the market beats a perfect version in your notes.

If it works, you get a life you do not have to perform.

If it does not, at least you lost on your own sword. Losing twice is worse. Once on the business, and once on the life somebody else talked you into.

Success Advice

What Makes Online Learning Engaging for Adults: Lessons That Earn Attention

Published

3 days ago

Sep 11, 2026

Addicted2Success Editor

Image Credit: Addicted2success

An online lesson opened after dinner competes with unfinished work, household chores, and the temptation to close the laptop. Adult students may arrive motivated, but motivation does not create extra hours. A course needs to make those available minutes worthwhile. Engagement begins when the purpose is clear, the workload feels manageable, and progress involves more than watching another video.

Practical context gives unfamiliar material a reason to matter. In a data course, a web scraping API could become part of an exercise about gathering information from permitted sources. The lesson becomes more meaningful when the assignment answers a concrete question, such as comparing product descriptions, instead of introducing a tool without explaining its place in the work.

Give Each Lesson a Clear Destination

A title such as “Introduction to Communication” leaves plenty of room for uncertainty. “Writing a Clear Project Update” establishes a recognisable outcome. Adult students can judge the relevance immediately and connect the lesson with an existing responsibility. That connection gives the exercises a purpose beyond completing a module.

Clear outcomes also help course designers remove distractions. An interesting example may still be unnecessary if it adds complexity before the central idea makes sense. A focused lesson introduces enough background to support practice, then gives the student something to attempt. Extra reading can remain available without interrupting the main route.

Technical obstacles deserve similar attention. If an exercise introduces a web unblocker, the explanation should establish its intended role, access boundaries, and any required setup. A prepared alternative should allow learning to continue when the tool is unavailable. Troubleshooting can support a technical objective, but an unrelated access problem should not consume the entire study session.

Build Flexibility Around Real Schedules

Flexible learning requires more than recordings available at any hour. A student needs to know whether an activity requires ten quiet minutes, a longer concentration period, or attendance at a particular time. Without that information, even a short assignment becomes difficult to fit around other commitments.

Course Details That Make Planning Easier

Time estimates: Indicate the likely commitment for reading, practice, and revision.
Clear stopping points: Divide material into sections that end meaningfully.
Written alternatives: Provide transcripts or instructions alongside spoken explanations.
Visible deadlines: Keep submission dates and attendance requirements easy to locate.

Short sections are useful when each section completes a thought. Splitting a complex explanation into tiny fragments can create more navigation without improving understanding. The appropriate length depends on the task: a quick demonstration may need minutes, while a thoughtful case study deserves uninterrupted space.

Make Practice Worth the Effort

Clicking through slides gives little opportunity to discover a misunderstanding. A useful activity asks for a decision, an explanation, or a result. In a management course, that might involve responding to a difficult scheduling request. In language learning, a short message can put recently introduced vocabulary to work.

Experience should have a place in those assignments. Adult students bring established habits, professional knowledge, and examples of situations that did not follow the textbook. Allowing a choice of scenarios makes room for that background while keeping the learning objective consistent.

Feedback then needs to address the actual attempt. “Good work” offers encouragement but little direction. Identifying an unclear argument or explaining why a calculation failed gives the next revision somewhere to begin. An opportunity to try again makes the feedback usable.

Create Contact Without Constant Demands

An online course can feel surprisingly empty when questions disappear into an inactive forum. A dependable response process matters more than an abundance of communication channels. Students need a clear place to ask for help and a realistic expectation of when an answer will arrive.

Support That Keeps Learning Moving

Offer focused discussion prompts connected to current assignments.
Explain when tutor replies can normally be expected.
Allow questions without requiring public personal disclosure.
Provide a clear route back after a missed week.

Progress should become visible through growing capability. Comparing an early attempt with a later revision can reveal improvement more clearly than a completion badge alone.

Engaging adult education respects limited time while leaving room for difficulty. Meaningful tasks, accessible materials, and specific feedback make persistence worthwhile. The reward is the ability to do something useful with greater confidence after the lesson ends.

Success Advice

You Bought Braze. Now What? The 7 Gaps That Keep Brands From Realizing Its Full ROI

Published

6 days ago

Sep 8, 2026

Addicted2Success Editor

Image Credit: Addicted2success

Buying Braze is a significant investment. The harder part is making sure the investment compounds. For companies that have already implemented Braze, the conversation has moved well beyond platform selection. The questions are more operational and commercial:

Are we using the data we have effectively? Are our journeys actually influencing customer behavior? Are we measuring revenue and retention, or just engagement? Can the team scale personalization without creating more operational complexity?

These questions matter because the potential upside is substantial. A 2026 Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study commissioned by Braze found a 457% three-year ROI and less than a six-month payback for a composite organization using Braze and BrazeAI Decisioning Studio. The study also identified gains from improved conversion and retention, operational efficiency, and personalization.

But those numbers should not be interpreted as an automatic return from installing the platform. The real lesson is that technology creates potential; operating discipline turns that potential into value. For organizations already using Braze, there are seven common gaps worth examining.

1. Your Data Is Connected, but Is It Actionable?

Most mature marketing teams have no shortage of customer data. The problem is turning that data into reliable signals that can influence a customer experience in real time.

A customer may have a purchase history, product activity, browsing behavior, engagement history, preferences, and demographic information spread across multiple systems. Braze can use many of these signals, but only if the underlying data architecture is designed properly.

That means asking questions beyond whether a CRM or CDP is connected:

Are the right customer events being captured?
Is the event taxonomy consistent?
Are attributes updated at the right frequency?
Can customer identity be resolved reliably?
Which system owns the source of truth?
Are teams using behavioral signals to trigger action?

This is increasingly important as customer engagement moves from scheduled campaigns toward real-time, signal-based experiences. Braze’s 2026 research identifies real-time data activation as one of the characteristics separating higher-performing engagement programs.

2. You’re Optimizing Campaigns Instead of Customer Outcomes

Open rates, clicks, conversions, and engagement rates are useful diagnostic metrics. They are not necessarily business outcomes. A campaign can produce an impressive click-through rate and still have little impact on retention, revenue, product adoption, or customer lifetime value. This is where organizations need to change the way they evaluate Braze.

Instead of asking: “How did the campaign perform?” Ask: “What changed in customer behavior because we ran it?”

For a subscription business, that might mean retention or renewal. For ecommerce, it could be repeat purchase or customer lifetime value. For an app, it might be activation, feature adoption, or frequency of use.

This shift also changes how journeys are designed. The KPI should influence the journey architecture, audience strategy, experimentation plan, and ultimately the decision about whether the journey deserves more investment. The 2026 Forrester study illustrates the distinction. Its composite organization attributed substantial financial impact to improved conversion and retention.

3. Your Journeys Are Multiplying Faster Than Your Operating Model

One of the easiest ways to create problems in Braze is to keep adding journeys. Individually, each journey may make sense. Collectively, they can create a confusing customer experience. Customers don’t experience your campaigns as separate projects. They experience one brand.

That creates the risk of:

Overlapping journeys
Conflicting messages
Duplicate audiences
Poor suppression logic
Excessive frequency
Unclear ownership
Difficult-to-maintain Canvas logic

As a Braze environment grows, governance becomes less of an administrative exercise and more of a customer experience requirement. Teams should periodically review their journey ecosystem and ask:

Which journeys still have a clear business purpose?

Where are customers entering multiple experiences simultaneously?

Which journeys can be consolidated?

Where are we creating operational complexity without creating incremental customer value?

Scaling the number of journeys is easy. Scaling the quality and coherence of those journeys is harder.

4. Personalization Is Still Mostly Segmentation

Many organizations describe their marketing as personalized when what they are really doing is advanced segmentation. There is an important difference.

“Customers who purchased running shoes in the last 90 days” is a segment. Understanding that a particular customer has recently browsed running products, has high engagement, is approaching their typical repurchase window, and is currently interacting through mobile creates a much richer decision context.

The future of personalization lies in moving from static audience definitions toward contextual decisioning. That does not mean every interaction needs AI. It means the organization needs to use the signals available to determine what is most relevant for that customer at that moment. Braze’s recent research reflects this shift, highlighting embedded decisioning and continuous optimization as characteristics of more advanced customer engagement programs.

5. You Have Multiple Channels, but Not Orchestration

Having email, push, SMS, in-app messaging, and other channels available does not automatically create an omnichannel experience. In fact, adding channels without orchestration can make the experience worse. A customer could receive a promotional email, a push notification, and an SMS about essentially the same offer because three different teams or journeys are operating independently.

True orchestration requires the channels to operate around a shared understanding of the customer. That means considering:

Which channel should be used?
When should it be used?
What has the customer already received?
What action has the customer taken?
Should another message be suppressed?
Has the customer already converted?

6. You’re Adding AI Before Fixing the Fundamentals

AI is becoming increasingly prominent in customer engagement. But there is a temptation to treat AI as the next layer to add to an existing marketing stack. That can be backwards.

AI decisioning cannot compensate for poor event architecture. It cannot fix fragmented customer identities. It cannot make an unclear business objective clearer. And it cannot turn poorly designed journeys into a coherent customer experience.

The foundation still matters. Braze’s 2026 research points to the combination of real-time data activation, embedded decisioning, operational simplicity, and continuous optimization as the more important pattern.

In other words, AI works best when it sits inside a well-designed operating model rather than alongside a fragmented one. The question shouldn’t be: “Where can we add AI?”

It should be: “Which customer decisions could be improved with better intelligence, and do we have the data and operating model to support those decisions?”

7. You Don’t Have a Continuous Optimization Model

Perhaps the biggest gap is organizational. Many teams treat Braze implementation as a project with a defined start and finish, but customer engagement is an ongoing process. Once the platform is live, teams need to continuously evaluate which journeys are working, how audience behavior is changing, where customers are dropping off, whether messages are losing effectiveness, which channels are driving incremental value, and which experiments or journeys should be scaled or retired. That requires more than campaign production; it requires an ongoing operating rhythm across strategy, data, CRM, creative, analytics, technology, and experimentation.

Mavlers’ POV: The Opportunity Is More Value From the Braze You Already Have.

At Mavlers, our experience across 100+ Braze clients and more than 2,000 Braze campaigns managed has reinforced a simple observation: the biggest opportunity for many brands isn’t launching more campaigns. It’s getting more value from the infrastructure they have already invested in. That starts with understanding where the friction actually exists.

Our approach begins with an audit of data architecture, journeys, integrations, and performance gaps. From there, the focus moves into lifecycle strategy, technical implementation, testing, launch, optimization, and continuous experimentation.

The sequence matters. You can’t optimize what you haven’t structured correctly. And you can’t create meaningful personalization if the underlying customer signals are incomplete, inconsistent, or difficult to activate.

We also see Braze as part of a broader customer engagement ecosystem, not an isolated platform. CRM, CDP, product data, analytics, content, and other technologies all influence how effectively Braze can respond to customer behavior.

A Practical Braze ROI Audit

For marketing leaders evaluating their current Braze program, five questions are a good place to start.

1. Can we trace customer behavior to business outcomes?

If you cannot connect a journey to activation, retention, revenue, or another meaningful outcome, it may be time to revisit its purpose.

2. Are our customer signals reliable enough for real-time engagement?

Review your event taxonomy, customer attributes, integrations, identity resolution, and data freshness.

3. How much journey complexity have we accumulated?

Look for overlapping journeys, redundant segments, conflicting messages, and unnecessary operational dependencies.

4. Is personalization actually contextual?

Move beyond demographic and behavioral segments toward decisioning based on current customer context.

5. How quickly can we learn and act?

Measure more than campaign performance. Look at how quickly teams can identify an insight, build an experiment, launch it, evaluate it, and apply the learning elsewhere.

That last metric is often overlooked.

But in a fast-changing customer environment, the speed of learning can become a competitive advantage.

The Bottom Line

The biggest Braze opportunity may not be another journey, another channel, or another AI capability. It may be getting more out of the capabilities already sitting inside the platform.

Braze’s potential is substantial. The 2026 Forrester study provides one indication of that, reporting a 457% ROI for its composite organization and significant benefits from conversion, retention, efficiency, and AI-powered decisioning. But the lesson for existing Braze customers isn’t to chase a benchmark. It’s to examine the gap between what the platform can do and what the organization is actually getting from it.

That gap is where the next wave of Braze value will be created. Through better data, better decisions, better orchestration, stronger operating discipline, and continuous optimization.

Success Advice

Stop Waiting to Become the Person Your Purpose Needs

Published

1 week ago

Sep 4, 2026

Joel Brown (Founder of Addicted2Success.com)

Image Credit: Addicted2success

I ran a workshop in Bali on living out your purpose, and the same thing kept coming up.

People could talk about impact all day. They could talk about who they wanted to become. Then you asked them what they were actually doing this week, and the room got quiet.

That is usually the whole problem.

We act like the next season of our life is going to arrive once we feel ready. It does not work like that. You become the person first. Then the life has somewhere to go.

I do not mean that in a mystical way. I mean it the way Scripture talks about it. Put off the old self. Put on the new. Renew your mind. Then live like it.

Most of us already know why we are stuck

It is not because the market is full.

It is because last year’s version of you is still making this year’s decisions.

That guy was useful. He got you here. He also has a habit of hiding, delaying, and calling it strategy. You say you want the company, the marriage, the platform, the stronger body. Then you wait for a better week. You wait for confidence. You wait for someone to tap you on the shoulder and tell you it is time.

If you keep that up for another decade, you do not get a new life. You get a longer version of this one.

So the first honest move is pretty simple. That old way of operating does not get to keep running the show. Thank God for what it taught you. Then stop letting it set the standard.

Purpose is more practical than people make it

In that workshop I gave four questions. They sound basic. They are not, if you answer them without performing.

What do you love? Not what sounds impressive. What would you suffer for.

What are you good at right now? You can learn more later. If you aim so high that you never feel any progress, you will quit.

What problem can you actually help with? Teaching counts. Building counts. Leading counts. It does not have to save the whole planet. It does have to serve someone.

How does this make money? People at purpose events hate that question. I still ask it. If nothing is coming in, the thing dies. Sales is not unspiritual. It is how the work stays alive. If you cannot sell, hire someone who can.

Where those four answers overlap, you are getting close to purpose. Not a brand statement. A direction you can walk.

And you probably will not have one purpose for life. You will have seasons. You work with what you know now. That is enough to start.

Write it down like a real week, not a quote

“More freedom” is not a plan.

Write what the next season actually looks like. What you are building. What a normal month feels like. What you will not do anymore. Who you are responsible for. What Tuesday looks like when nobody is watching.

If you want a team, say team. If you want dinner at home, say dinner. If you want to publish, say publish.

Vague goals let the old self hide. Specific ones make it obvious where you are lying to yourself.

This is stewardship. You aim. Then you take the next clear step. Your current bank account does not get to veto the assignment.

You do not need the finished version. You need the one who will start.

This is where years disappear.

People stand outside the thing and try to become impressive enough to deserve it. They watch videos. They design the logo. They wait until they feel like the person who should be doing this.

You need the person who will record the first video. Make the offer. Have the conversation. Lead one person. Send the thing before it is pretty.

Faith without works is dead. A lot of us use that verse on other people and then sit on our own calling until we feel anointed.

Clarity usually shows up after you move. You will not see step four while you are still arguing with step one.

Look at the gap and do not dress it up

There is you today.

Then there is the person for whom this next season is normal. Not famous. Faithful.

What does that person finish? What will they not put up with? How fast do they decide? How do they talk when they are tired? What do they do after a win? What do they do after they blow it?

Now write what you actually do.

That part is uncomfortable. It should be. If you will not tell the truth there, you will keep buying courses so you do not have to.

The issue is usually not talent. It is the lowest standard you still allow when nobody is looking.

Practice the new standard in the life you already have

You do not get a new life and then start acting different.

You act different while the room still looks the same. Same bills. Same calendar. Same unfinished text. Different follow-through.

That stretch is the work. Most people cannot handle being faithful in an unfinished situation, so they go back to matching the old life. Then they say the vision was unrealistic.

Keep one promise. Decide faster. Tell the truth sooner. Publish the imperfect thing. Stop writing essays about why you cannot begin.

If you want to know whether something works, do not spend three months decorating the plan. Ask how you could find out in a week. An offer. Three conversations. One ugly version shipped.

The person polishing the first draft for half a year loses to the person who shipped ten rough ones and learned.

If it takes five minutes, do it now. Sometimes what we call discernment is just stalling with better language.

And if it starts working, do not get soft. Comfort is how good men drift. When it feels easy, raise the standard.

Doubt is not automatically God closing the door

You decide, and then the old habits show up. You want to research instead of send it. You get foggy. You pick a fight. You feel behind.

That does not always mean you missed it. Sometimes it just means the old way is losing its job.

Take the fear to God. Then do the next right thing anyway. You do not have to feel like that man to obey like him.

There will also be seasons where you outgrow something that used to fit. The offer. The role. The way you have been showing up. It still gets applause, and it still feels tight. Staying there because it once worked is how you get successful and restless at the same time.

What to do with this

Answer the four questions on paper.

Write the season in real-life detail.

Write who you would have to be for that season to be normal.

Tell the truth about the gap.

Then do the smallest thing that puts you in the work, even if the evidence still looks like last year.

Six months from now those days are gone either way. I would rather you spend them becoming the person your purpose actually requires than waiting for a feeling that never comes.