Wedding Business Solutions

Are you doing purposeful practice?

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Are you doing purposeful practice?

Are you just going through the motions or truly engaging in purposeful practice? In this episode, I explore how intentional practice differs from mere repetition. Are you setting achievable yet challenging goals just outside your current abilities? Tune in as I delve into how you can apply purposeful practice to improve your skills and grow beyond where you are today.

Listen to this new 9-minute episode for insights on setting goals just beyond your reach to ensure continuous improvement and mastery in your endeavors.

Episode Summary:

In this episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast, I delve into the concept of "purposeful practice," inspired by Matthew Syed's book, Bounce. While we often hear that 10,000 hours lead to mastery, I emphasize that it's the intentional practice within those hours that truly matters. Drawing parallels from sports, language learning, and my own golf lessons, I highlight the importance of setting specific, attainable goals that push our current abilities. I share my personal experiences with Duolingo and golf, illustrating how purposeful practice leads to genuine growth and mastery. I encourage you to stretch beyond mere completion, advocating for incremental improvements in your chosen endeavors.

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

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View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

Are you doing purposeful practice? Listen to this episode. See what I'm talking about. Hi, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I've been listening to a book called Bounce by Matthew Syed. Syed. And he is a former table tennis champion, Olympian, world champion, and many other titles like that. And he's talking about people that excel at a particular skill and not necessarily just sports, but it could be math or memory or all kinds of different things.

And kind of like Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, where they talk about 10,000 hours. You need 10,000 hours of doing something to kind of reach that level of mastery. He's talking about it similarly, but then also a little bit different in terms of it's not just that you spent that amount of time, but how did you spend that time? And he calls it purposeful practice or intentional practice. And it's what is the goal of doing that? And the example he used is he said he's probably been driving for at least 10,000 hours in his life, but that doesn't mean he's achieved mastery from that, he said, because I'm listening to the radio and I'm thinking about what I need to do, and I'm talking to somebody else that's in the car with me and, you know, trying to remember the route that I have to go on. So he's not getting better at driving just because you've driven for 10,000 hours. So that is not the magic thing. It's what do you do with that time? And certainly if you think about Tiger woods and you think about the Williams sisters and stuff like that, certainly they had skills. But if you go back and look at the history of how they started with that, and Tiger woods was.

Was given a golf club when he was, I think, 18 months old was the first time he held the golf club. Right. And then what. What was done throughout his life? And if somebody else had that same training and that same support, might they ever achieve the similar amount of mastery? And the answer is quite possibly Right. So when you think about what you're doing in terms of practice, let's say you're exercising. What is your goal? What's your purpose of that exercise that day? Is it just to get through it, or is it to improve upon a certain part of that that you do? I do many of you know, I do my duolingo lessons. I do French lessons every morning, and if I have time in the evening, I'm doing something else. Currently, I'm doing Dutch Because I'm going to be in Amsterdam twice this year.

So I'm doing Dutch, even though I know everybody speaks English. They're doing it anyway out of respect and to challenge myself. And I thought when I started doing the language lessons, that my favorite days are when I'm getting perfect lesson, perfect lesson, perfect lesson. And it turns out that my favorite days is when it's kicking my butt. Because I. When I realize I don't know something, and then I get to the point where I get it right, and then the next time, get the perfect lesson. Now I've learned something, and there was a purpose to that. As opposed to just checking the box.

Yep, did it today. Yep, did it today. And I'll admit there are some days that just to keep my streak, I'll do a lesson or two in the morning, especially when I'm on the road and don't have a lot of time, I'll do a lesson. I might even pick an easy one, just getting some of the words right or something to move on, right, Checking the box. But the most of the time, that's not what it's about. Most of the time, it's about being better than I was before, learning something I didn't know, mastering some part of that so that there's purposeful. So what are you trying to get better at? And what are you just going through the motions on? And maybe it's okay, it's quite all right to just throw through the motions on things. Like he said, you know, if I.

If I go play golf, my goal is to get through the 18 holes and lose as few balls as possible. That's my goal, which is a whole different goal than trying to hit a certain score, because I'm just not that good. If I wanted to get better, I would go with a different purpose. And I'm reminded of, for my 40th birthday, my wife asked me what I wanted, and I wanted private golf lessons because I said, I've been playing since I'm 16. I should be better by now, and I'm not. And the first thing that the pro did was took me to the putting green. And he said, you're surprised? I said, yeah. He said, well, you probably thought I was going to take you to the driving range.

I said, yeah, because you start by hitting a drive. He said, well, I could teach you to hit 20, 30 yards longer, but then you have to hit the next shot and the next shot and the next shot. He said, so is your goal of these lessons to cut strokes off your Game. I said, yeah. He said, well, this is where we're going to do it on the putting green. And the first thing he did was line up 5 balls 1 foot apart from the hole in a line. So at 1 foot, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and had me putt those. And then he put the five balls down, going to the hole from a different angle and a different angle and a different angle until we went all the way around the hole, and he was watching to see how I putted from 1 foot, 2 foot, 3 foot, 4 foot, 5 foot.

We spent a lot of time there, and then we went out to 10ft, and then we went to the fringe and started chipping on. And then we went out a little further and started chipping on. And there was a purpose to that practice. So when I go to play golf, if there is time ahead of time, and most people go into the driving range to see if, you know, hit some balls, I'm going to go to the putting green, and I'm going to line up those five balls, and I'm going to line them up, and I'm going to hit them in, and I'm going to line them up and hit them in. I'm going to keep doing that because that's where I'm going to get the most impact on my game. So there's a purpose to that. So the purposeful practice. So it's not just doing something and saying, I've done it, I've done it, I've done it.

It's what is. What are you trying to achieve here? Right. There are days I sit down and play the piano, and I'm just playing. And there are days I sit down and say, okay, what. What can I do that I haven't done before? What can I do to maybe challenge myself? Can I play this song in a different key from the one that. I'm familiar with it? Right. What can I do that? Or if I pull out my electric piano, I might put on a beat, a different rhythm, and try to play a song in a rhythm that it wasn't written in. Right.

That's challenging. There's a purpose to that kind of stuff there. So if there's something you want to be better at, think about not just practicing, but think about the intentional practice or the purposeful practice so that what am I trying to achieve today that I can be better at today? And it can be incremental. He says that you should be setting a goal that's just outside your current ability. Right. Attainable goal, but it's just outside your current ability so that you reach that little bit higher, right? Not just do what you know you can do, but reach a little bit higher. Kind of like me with the. The language, right? When it's kicking my butt.

I don't know this. I don't know this. Oh, now I do. Good. And now the next time, if it's kicking my butt, it's learn. Teaching me something else, right? What do I not know? Can I get a little better? Not can I learn the whole language today? Because that's impossible. But can I learn something? Can I get that now? I've mastered that part of it, the future tense, the past tense, or whatever. Where now.

Oh, okay, I got that now. And then move forward. Purposeful. So set yourself that goal. If that's what your goal is, to get better at something, not just to get through it, but to get better at it, then can you set yourself a goal that's just outside your current competency so that you can stretch that little bit more? Stretch that little bit more. You don't want to set yourself up for failure, but you do want to stretch yourself to do something that you weren't able to do before because that means you have growth. So again, the book is called Bounce by Matthew Syed S Y E D. And it can purposeful practice, intentional practice.

Not just doing through the motions, but intentional practice. If it's something that you're not just doing for enjoyment, you're doing it because you actually want to improve on whatever that that skill is or whatever it is you're trying to master with that. So I just thought that was interesting. And maybe it's another book for you to listen to. Thanks.


I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com


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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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