You may know Kurt Vonnegut as a famous writer. What you may not know is that...
After graduating college, he worked at GE.
He sold short stories on the side.
He committed to writing full-time when he was 29.
He published his first book one year later when he was 30.
To make ends meet, he started a car dealership when he was 35.
It went bankrupt a year later.
Vonnegut hit his stride when he was 41 and published Cat's Cradle.
I love this video clip for a reason you might not suspect...
It shows the extent to which he has mastered his craft of storytelling. He understands the core frameworks that repeat over and over and how they relate to each other.
To me, this is the defining hallmark of mastery. Beginners often see the world as random. Masters see it as deeply patterned.
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