Table of Contents
Mastery by Robert Greene is a book that outlines the path to greatness. Greene tells the stories of many different geniuses of the past (Goethe, Da Vinci, Einstein) and distills the most important lessons we ought to remember. After each story, Greene explains the laws the masters were following in the story consciously or not – and how we could use them to help ourselves in the struggle towards mastery of our own passions.
Before Greene describes what the common characteristics of masters are – he makes the case for why mastery is necessary in today’s world. Young people are in a hurry to make money and are willing to jump from one field to the next and try out many different ideas in the hope of hitting gold, but this is short-sighted. If you are too impatient to hone a specific craft by investing the required time and effort – then you will never gain the insight and ability to be in control of your creations.
Focus
Instead, you will need to settle for a superficial understanding of your chosen subjects, and this will prevent you from being truly creative. To be creative, you need to be able to delegate the basic tasks to your subconscious – and use the remaining head space to contemplate new strategies. You have to internalize vast amounts of knowledge about your subject – and only then can you begin to innovate. Our ancestors gained a survival edge over other animals because of their abilities to focus on a single target for an extended amount of time. Because we spent more time watching our prey, we were able to better predict their actions, and thus were better hunters for it.
As you practice becoming better at your craft for a long time – you internalize important concepts, and your powers of intuition will come to your aide. If you’re only focused on making money quickly, you will be unable to reach that level.
According to Greene, there is nothing magical about geniuses. They are just people who spent extraordinary amounts of time focusing on a narrow set of things. Of course, people like Einstein were more gifted than the average person, but a lot of credit for his success goes to the arduous path he decided to follow, and the questions they refused to take for granted.
Masters exist in every domain, and you don’t need to be Einstein, Da Vinci, or Goethe to become a master, but you do need to change the way you think about the world. When you are a child, you are curious about everything, and do not take anything for granted. You must return to such a state to achieve true mastery. The alternative is to accept the status quo, and never ask the right questions that will lead you to uncover the mysteries that allude everyone else. You have to be transparent about your interests, and you need to be willing to openly admit that you will require a lot of time to reach the level of mastery you are aiming for.
Listen to your Daemon
You have to listen to your daemon, or inner spirit – and like Goethe – abandon projects that no longer capture your interest or call for your attention. You must trust that your subconscious will solve the problems that have stumped you and deviate your attention to other projects and ideas temporarily. It is important to think very carefully about which subject you choose to study, because the wrong choice can derail you for years and prevent you from reaching your potential.
What geniuses such as Mozart have in common is that they started very young – allowing themselves enough time to gain enough hours of practice. Today, it may be necessary to become a master of several different skills – but not too many – and synthesize different forms of knowledge into a more complete whole. Greene cites many fields that have emerged from exactly this type of thinking such as neuro robotics – the combined study of neurology and robotics.
Social Intelligence
But Greene thinks that none of this will matter unless you are socially intelligent. He cites the story of Benjamin Franklin – who misread people’s incentives at the start of his career and got himself in bad terms with them. These setbacks derailed his progress until he eventually figured out that he needed to change his ways. Instead of being emotionally transparent in every circumstance – he began to take a more detached but empathetic approach towards dealing with others. He learned that by not investing too much emotionally, and seeing the other person’s perspective, he learned what people were motivated by – and this allowed him to become extremely popular.
The Three Stages to Mastery
Greene describes three stages to achieving mastery.
The first is the Apprenticeship or learning phase – where you spent years under the tutelage of an experienced mentor and learn about your chosen subject. It is preferable that this takes place physically and not virtually, for the continuous feedback and personally tailored advice can you save you countless hours of wasted effort. But if you cannot find a mentor – it is possible to try to integrate thought patterns of tutors you may find in books or emulate figures who are in the spotlight. Greene advices you to research widely. It’s not only important to have depth, but a certain amount of breadth is necessary to make connections that would have otherwise been impossible.
The second stage is the Practice phase. This is when you apply the knowledge you have accumulated and collect feedback. Greene advises you to be both rapid in this process, by setting deadlines so as not to lose focus, and collecting feedback from the public so that you may reiterate and re-adjust as quickly as possible. But at the same time, it is important to give yourself a reasonable amount of time to work in, as the more time you dedicate towards our project – the more likely it will be a success.
The final stage is Mastery – and this is when you everything comes together. It is when the complexity of the accumulated knowledge in your mind starts to resemble the complexity of the external world, and you can intuit connections that others find remarkable. This stage is when you produce your best work.
Who This is For
Mastery is a book I would recommend to anyone interested in pushing the boundaries of their passions: athletes, writers, musicians, etc… What makes being human magical – is that through sacrifice and many hours of practice – we can transform ourselves into more complex, powerful creatures that can change the world. And instead of being intimidated by the pursuit, Greene shows us why we should be excited by it, because there is no greater reward or more noble pursuit than gaining mastery over the subjects we choose to pursue– without thoughts of greed and selfishness.
Greene reminds us that before industrial society, humans derived a survivalist advantage in observing and in thinking to themselves
Chapter 1: Discover your Life Task
There is an idea, that since every person is unique, has never existed before, and will never exist again, that they are made up on a unique configuration of atoms, that they will have a life calling that is unique to them.
Darwin had a domineering father who pressured him into professions he didn’t have an interest in, such as the clergy.
Chapter 3: Absorb the Master’s Power
A mentor is a shortcut to mastery. Of course, you can teach yourself anything you want on your own, and many have done this, but there are two main disadvantages with this.
Chapter 4: See People as They Are
Benjamin Franklin loved reading and writing. In newspapers, he found the perfect outlet to improve his skills, and he did.
Chapter 5: Awaken the Dimensional Mind
Mozart was a gifted child, who surprised everyone around him with his musical genius. But for his entire youth, and up until his mid-twenties, he was imitating other people’s styles of music rather than developing something uniquely his.
Chapter 6: Fuse the Intuitive with the Rational
One way of understanding how something works is to divide it into its component parts, and then to study the parts individually.