I have relentlessly pursued mastery of my craft my entire life. My home library has over a thousand books, I have three degrees from the finest university in my home state, and I’ve attended enough Executive Education at Harvard to have earned alumni status from not one but two programs. I hone and sharpen my hard skills consistently, always aware that complacency is a champion’s greatest enemy and entropy stands ready in the shadows to conquer the unwary: the momentum of yesterday’s success is more a guarantee of overconfidence than aught else.
And yet… the acquisition of hard skills is but a mere foundation if one wishes success beyond the ordinary. It is mastery of soft skills that is determinative, first and foremost Emotional Intelligence, the ability to understand, influence, and motivate others (external EQ) and oneself (internal EQ). Between external and internal, I’ve found it the search for self-knowledge, self-awareness, self-mastery to be the greater, harder journey.
To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift; none of us were put on this earth to be anything less than the best we can be. I wish you godspeed on your life journey, may you be your greatest self more often.
Closing Quotes:
“One cannot manage other people unless one manages oneself first.” – Peter Drucker
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.” – Aristotle
“Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.” – Elbert Hubbard
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
“At the higher levels of human endeavor, the mastery of hard skills is a given, merely table stakes, and it is the ability to leverage hard skills with soft skills that becomes the final differentiator.” – NSC, University of Florida Law School Commencement, Fall 2025
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832
