Mastery

by Robert Greene

There exists a form of power and intelligence that represents the high point of human potential. It is the source of the greatest achievements and discoveries in history.

We can call this power intuition, but intuition is nothing more than a sudden and immediate seizing of what is real, without the need for words or formulas. The words and formulas may come later, but this flash of intuition is what ultimately brings us closer to reality, as our minds suddenly become illuminated by some particle of truth previously hidden to us and to others.

This intense connection and desire allows them to withstand the pain of the process—the self-doubts, the tedious hours of practice and study, the inevitable setbacks, the endless barbs from the envious. They develop a resiliency and confidence that others lack.

Our levels of desire, patience, persistence, and confidence end up playing a much larger role in success than sheer reasoning powers. Feeling motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything. Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive.

First, you must see your attempt at attaining mastery as something extremely necessary and positive.

Second, you must convince yourself of the following: people get the mind and quality of brain that they deserve through their actions in life.

functionality. It is possible that more and more will be discovered about how deeply we create the various patterns of our lives through certain mental operations—how we are truly responsible for so much of what happens to us.

Unleashing the masterful mind within, you will be at the vanguard of those who are exploring the extended limits of human willpower.

they all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole.

You possess a kind of inner force that seeks to guide you toward your Life’s Task—what you are meant to accomplish in the time that you have to live.

This can be the source of your unhappiness—your lack of connection to who you are and what makes you unique. The first move toward mastery is always inward—learning who you really are and reconnecting with that innate force. Knowing it with clarity, you will find your way to the proper career path and everything else will fall into place. It is never too late to start this process.

His mind, he decided, worked best when he had several different projects at hand, allowing him to build all kinds of connections between them.

What if he had been more like the others, finishing his works as fast as possible? He would have done well, but he would not have been Leonardo da Vinci.

Among his various possible beings each man always finds one which is his genuine and authentic being. The voice which calls him to that authentic being is what we call “vocation.” But the majority of men devote themselves to silencing that voice of the vocation and refusing to hear it. They manage to make a noise within themselves…to distract their own attention in order not to hear it; and they defraud themselves by substituting for their genuine selves a false course of life.

Many of the greatest Masters in history have confessed to experiencing some kind of force or voice or sense of destiny that has guided them forward.

With Masters it is so strong that it feels like something that has its own external reality—a force, a voice, destiny.

We feel as if the words we write or the physical movements we perform come so quickly and easily that they are coming from outside us. We are literally “inspired,” the Latin word meaning something from the outside breathing within us.

The process of following your Life’s Task all the way to mastery can essentially begin at any point in life. The hidden force within you is always there and ready to be engaged.

The process of realizing your Life’s Task comes in three stages: First, you must connect or reconnect with your inclinations, that sense of uniqueness. The first step then is always inward. You search the past for signs of that inner voice or force.

Finally, you must see your career or vocational path more as a journey with twists and turns rather than a straight line.

Eventually, you will hit upon a particular field, niche, or opportunity that suits you perfectly. You will recognize it when you find it because it will spark that childlike sense of wonder and excitement; it will feel right. Once found, everything will fall into place.

In a world in which there is so much we cannot control, this will bring you the ultimate form of power.

What we lack most in the modern world is a sense of a larger purpose to our lives.

“Become who you are by learning who you are.”

For Masters, their inclination often presents itself to them with remarkable clarity in childhood. Sometimes it comes in the form of a simple object that triggers a deep response.

If you reconnect with this core at any age, some element of that primitive attraction will spark back to life, indicating a path that can ultimately become your Life’s Task.

You are committed to your Life’s Task, to giving it full expression. It is up to you to find it and guide it correctly. It is not up to others to protect or help you. You are on your own.

“From now on you need never await temporal attestation to your thought. You think the truth. You do not have the right to eliminate yourself. You do not belong to you. You belong to Universe. Your significance will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your role if you apply yourself to converting your experiences to the highest advantage of others.”

Whenever he thought of money first, disaster followed.

The road to mastery requires patience.

To make matters worse, she had an extremely active mind, and without something to concentrate on, she would give in to feelings of intense anxiety.

When you are faced with deficiencies instead of strengths and inclinations, this is the strategy you must assume: ignore your weaknesses and resist the temptation to be more like others.

Your Life’s Task does not always appear to you through some grand or promising inclination. It can appear in the guise of your deficiencies, making you focus on the one or two things that you are inevitably good at.

In the stories of the greatest Masters, past and present, we can inevitably detect a phase in their lives in which all of their future powers were in development, like the chrysalis of a butterfly. This part of their lives—a largely self-directed apprenticeship that lasts some five to ten years—receives little attention because it does not contain stories of great achievement or discovery. Often in their Apprenticeship Phase, these types are not yet much different from anyone else. Under the surface, however, their minds are transforming in ways we cannot see but contain all of the seeds of their future success.

In the process you will transform yourself from someone who is impatient and scattered into someone who is disciplined and focused, with a mind that can handle complexity. In the end, you will master yourself and all of your weaknesses.

First, it is essential that you 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 trying to multitask will be the death of the process.

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

Learning any kind of skill deeply prepares you for mastery.

You will know when your apprenticeship is over by the feeling that you have nothing left to learn in this environment.

The era we have entered is not one in which technology will make everything easier, but rather a time of increased complexity that affects every field.

The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.

In the future, the great division will be between those who have trained themselves to handle these complexities and those who are overwhelmed by them—those who can acquire skills and discipline their minds and those who are irrevocably distracted by all the media around them and can never focus enough to learn.

Albert Einstein was an avid violinist. He believed that working with his hands in this way and playing music helped his thinking process as well.

Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; and if it is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.

Instead, you must value learning above everything else. This will lead you to all of the right choices.

no one is really going to help you or give you direction.

If you desire an apprenticeship, if you want to learn and set yourself up for mastery, you have to do it yourself, and with great energy.

Whenever you feel like you are settling into some circle, force yourself to shake things up and look for new challenges, as Hurston did when she left Howard for Harlem. With your mind expanding, you will redefine the limits of your apparent world. Soon, ideas and opportunities will come to you and your apprenticeship will naturally complete itself.

We have the remarkable capability of returning to a childlike spirit, especially in moments in which we must learn something.