Wynton Marsalis on Humility, Self-Mastery, and Learning

I see a number of parallels between playing jazz and creating a new business. Both involve a need to understand "the rules" that historical success imply, the need to collaborate in an improvisational way with co-workers in real time to please customers, and the need to master a complex set of skills to compete with others who are watching and learning from your performance as you start to succeed.

Here is a key graf from Wynton Marsalis "The Humble Self"

   The first level of mastery occurs over self. And the first test of 
   mastery over one's self is humility. True humility. [...] Do you 
   know how you can tell when someone is truly humble? I believe there's 
   one simple test: because they consistently observe and listen, the 
   humble improve. They don't assume "I know the way."

Glad to find Marsalis on HN :)