Mastery

The Master Delivers
There are countless self-help books–some good, some trite. Then there are self-help books that revolutionize the genre.
Robert Greene’s Mastery is such a book. It’s Greene’s fifth book broadly tackling the art of strategy, and like all his books, it’s entertaining, educational, densely packed with biographies of powerful and interesting people, and almost completely devoid of fluff.
Greene’s overarching thesis challenges the conventional notion of “genius” as a genetic gift bestowed upon a handful of individuals–Mozart and Einstein immediately come to mind. To Greene, such a conception of genius is illusory. All “genius,” Greene contends, is acquirable, and all masters, regardless of intrinsic ability, go through roughly the same process on their path towards mastery:
1) Finding your Life’s Task. Greene argues that there’s an inner force that guides you towards what you’re “destined” to accomplish. Once you discover your Life’s Task, throw everything at it.
2) Finding an ideal apprenticeship–the time when you hone the necessary skills and acquire the discipline vital to mastery.
3) Finding the right mentor. This is the key to a fruitful apprenticeship, enabling you to absorb the master’s knowledge and power. Greene cautions that you must know when it’s time to sever ties with your mentor and craft your own path in order to prevent remaining in your mentor’s shadow indefinitely. The goal, Greene advises, it to eventually surpass your mentor.
4) Acquiring social intelligence. Social intelligence is an important theme in all of Greene’s books. Quite simply, our personal and professional advancement will invariably stall if we don’t learn to read people and deftly maneuver through the labyrinth of others’ whims, passions, and ambitions.
5) “Awaken the Dimensional Mind: The Creative-Active.” This stage involves expanding your knowledge to fields related to your craft, thereby challenging you to “make new associations between different ideas.” Greene believes this is a critical step to optimizing your creative output and achieving mastery.
6) Fusing the intuitive with the rational. Greene argues that Einstein’s discoveries can be as much attributed to his intuition as to his mathematical analysis grounded in pure reason. Practice and intimate knowledge of our field foster the integration of intuition with reason.
For each stage, Greene outlines concrete steps to take to achieve these goals, including approaching difficult problems from unconventional angles or altering your perspective, embracing the holistic approach–i.e. utilizing and synchronizing the full range of resources and options your environment has to offer.
One of the features that distinguishes Mastery from Greene’s two other masterpieces, 33 Strategies of War and 48 Laws of Power, is its greater focus on the biographies of contemporary masters, most of whom are not well known to the general public. Greene delves into the lives of legendary masters like Mozart, Einstein, Goethe, Darwin, and da Vinci, but also of lesser known contemporary masters like software engineer and entrepreneur Paul Graham, animal scientist and inventor Temple Grandin, and linguistic archaeologist Daniel Everett, who cracked the previously thought to be indecipherable language of the reclusive Amazonian tribe, Piraha.
Linking the human capacity for mastery to our biology and indeed, metaphysics, Greene writes in a veritably spiritual manner, making Mastery highly compelling and exceedingly motivational.
The title Mastery is fitting, since Greene is undoubtedly a master in the art of strategy. It is amusing to hear some of his detractors bemoan the “amoral” nature of his books. Amoral virtues–be it courage, prudence, or temperament–are indispensable to achieving moral ends. A strategically inept well-meaning person will likely fail to achieve any significant good, because he is ill-prepared to deal with endless obstacles that stand in his way. Whereas a person well versed in the art of strategy and equipped with the amoral virtues necessary to overcome such obstacles, has the potential to achieve noble ends.
The one area where I could quibble with Greene has to do with the age old debate over the role of nature vs. nurture. Since genetic makeup is a fixed variable outside of our control, it is perhaps pointless to dwell on its role in our development when writing a book about the concrete things we can actually do to better ourselves. Still, I wonder if Greene’s unequivocal dismissal of the traditional interpretation of genius as inherent isn’t to some extent mistaken. Regardless of how many thousands of hours Mozart spent studying his craft, is it really conceivable that any person of sound mind and body could replicate his success?
I tend to think that there is something to be said about intrinsic genius; that there are masters who are born with an uncanny and natural ability to perceive things others do not and cannot, no matter how hard they try. Nevertheless, even if Greene errors in downplaying the role DNA plays in cultivating “genius,” it in no way diminishes his strategy for acquiring mastery. Whether all of us can become the Einstein in our field makes little difference. What matters is that we can reach our maximum potential–become men and women in full–by following Greene’s blueprint.

Ostinato Rigore — “stubborn rigor”
In Mastery, Robert Greene attacks the premise that geniuses are born and illustrates how masters such as Einstein, Da Vinci, and Proust, as well as non-household names such as Daniel Everett and Cesar Rodriguez are created. He portrays the hardships experienced by some of the greatest minds and explains that their work ethic, patience, and trust and faith ultimately caused them to become masters.
Greene believes in apprenticeship in three phrases: Deep Observation, Skill Acquisition, and Experimentation or independent action. During deep observation Greene advocates to “see the vision and keep working at the skills we want to gain restlessly.” He writes, “You must choose places of work and positions that offer the greatest possibilities for learning. Practical knowledge is the ultimate commodity, and is what will pay you dividends for decades to come…This means that you move toward challenges that will toughen and improve you, where you will get the most objective feedback on your performance and progress. You do not choose apprenticeships that seem easy and comfortable” (55)
In acquiring skills, one will have “tacit knowledge” or “a feeling for what you are doing that is hard to put into words but easy to demonstrate in action.” (59) followed by a “Cycle of accelerated returns” similar to a positive feedback loop “…the practice becomes easier and more interesting, leading to the ability to practice for longer hours, which increases your skill level, which in turn makes practice even more interestings.” (60) Though, Greene cautions
“begin with one skill that you can master, and that serves as a foundation for acquiring others. You must avoid at all cost the idea that you can manage learning several skills at a time. You need to develop your powers of concentration, and understand that to multitask will be the death of the process.” (60)
To the student, Greene stresses developing social intelligence and avoiding political games with colleagues. He writes, “we think that what matters in the work world is gaining attention and making friends. And these misconceptions and naivete are brutally exposed in the light of the real world.” (54) Upon starting to work he explains, “If you impress people in these first months, it should be because of the seriousness of your desire to learn, not because you are trying to rise to the top before you are ready.” (57) He continues, “Understand: your work is the single greatest means at your disposal for expressing your social intelligence. By being efficient and detail oriented in what you do, you demonstrate that you are thinking of the group at large and advancing its cause. By making what you write or present clear and easy to follow, you show you care for the audience of public at a large.”
He predicts, “The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.” (64) “There are two kinds of failure. The first comes from never trying out your ideas because you are afraid, or because you are waiting for the perfect time. This kind of failure you can never learn from, and such timidity will destroy you. The second kind comes from a bold and venturesome spirit. If you fail in this way, the hit that you take to your reputation is greatly outweighed by what you learn.” (83)
Put simply: Design a personal vision, Observe masters and choose mentors, build your skills, experiment, fail and repeat. Ostinato Rigore — “stubborn rigor” or “tenacious application” the phrase Da Vinci would mutter to get past all impatience. (54) Or in Hebrew Hatmadah.
I recommend this book to Students, Adults, Teens, Entrepreneurs and tag the following:Self-Help, History, Inspiring, Business, Developing Skills, Genius, Work Ethic. Hope you enjoy!

O Livro vem muito bem embalado, em perfeito estado. Robert Greene não decepciona e este livro orienta para principios simples para o aprendizado, inspiração e determinação do seu propósito, recomendo demais!

This book is the best insight and a look inside the lives of masters. How they came about from nowhere, how they found what they like, how they became the best. This book is it. It was recommended by Dr. Andrew Humberman and I checked it out. Green’s best work in my opinion. While his other books are interesting, this one is the most practical and useful.