Mastery

by Robert Greene

If you lose contact with this inner calling, you can have some success in life, but eventually your lack of true desire catches up with you.

Too often we make a separation in our lives—there is work and there is life outside work, where we find real pleasure and fulfillment.

If we experience this time as something to get through on the way to real pleasure, then our hours at work represent a tragic waste of the short time we have to live.

the goal of an apprenticeship is not money, a good position, a title, or a diploma, but rather the transformation of your mind and character—the first transformation on the way to mastery.

The greatest mistake you can make in the initial months of your apprenticeship is to imagine that you have to get attention, impress people, and prove yourself.

Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life, which makes them constantly search for distractions and short-circuits the learning process.

Real pleasure comes from overcoming challenges, feeling confidence in your abilities, gaining fluency in skills, and experiencing the power this brings. You develop patience. Boredom no longer signals the need for distraction, but rather the need for new challenges to conquer.