Hold Your Breath

How do you learn a language?
I'm pretty sure if you think about the answer that question it won't
be long before somebody says... "You have to go and live in that
country"

I've never agreed with that but what you're referring to there is Immersion.

But immersion isn't a location. It is a process.
If you go to university to study a subject, you are effectively immersed.
It is just a question of dedicating enough hours, months or years to
the task in hand.

You can immerse in anything you choose.
Why not perfect a perfect magic trick? How long will you give it? An
hour. A month. Six months? Ten years?
Or immerse in music to perfect an instrument.
Or your chosen specialised subject to perfect your chosen specialised subject.

And I don't mean 'perfect' as in 'being perfect' but rather to achieve
a level of artistry and craftsmanship.

In entertainment that might be of skill and showmanship, or talent
plus energy. The energy is the drive that makes the opportunities that
may if the stars align showcase the talent to the nation. For talent I
would always prefer the term skill. Speaking as somebody who has no
talent, it makes possibilities so much easier to embrace.
But in order to get there you are going to need immersion.
We might just call it dedication instead. But dedication XL.

But entertainment is an easy subject to think of in this way.
A subject such as medicine isn't.

You certainly need immersion, or rather you don't nowadays. You can
get replaced by someone who's just been on a course, protected by a
new company designed to make profit, with no interest whatsoever
in mastery of the medic/patient interface. But I digress.

In fact mastery is a good way to think about what you're aiming for.
It's a suite of skills - knowledge base, personal communication, and a
whole number of other things I am not going to go into.

The point is that whatever you want to do will take some degree of immersion.
And you can't run too many parallel tracks. You can't live in Spain at
the same time as you are living in France.
You probably can immerse in more than one thing at the same time. But
you are limited. You have to choose and it's up to you what to go for.

For most people it's nothing at all. Which is fine.
Immersion takes a long time. And there's football to watch.
It's up to you.

It's up to you to flick the immersion on.