Mastery

Good information and analysis of several legendary Masters and some of the turning points in their collective development. A great starting point to anyone who wishes to emulate some of histories top performers.

With great thought you can pull all you need to succeed out of this book. There are no real answers or guides on how to be successful; just real work that needs to be done. Enjoy the journey of your pursuit, stop looking for short cuts. This book would need to be read 5 times to gather all of the lesson and apply them effectively.

A little redundant on some parts (as the author forewarned) but also too much assumption on the "veracity" of Evolutionary Theory (yes it is still a theory as long as the "missing link" has yet to be found). Otherwise a great book in line with the author's other titles.

This is a tremendous read. It takes time because there is a lot of detail to review and absorb. Absolutely a must read for young adults who are in the early stages of their life pondering their purpose and direction. Just some great "meat" to chew on and absorb; lot's of strong examples from history, which makes this book a "must have".

I loved Robert Greene's books, and read 48 Laws of Power and The Art of Seduction from cover to cover.

Unfortunately, this book was very painful to read as it was written in a very wishy-washy manner. It wasn't easy discerning the points Greene had to make, and I had to wade through a lot of unnecessary elaboration just to get to his thesis.

The book was intolerable. I couldn't get past the first chapter.

This book is a masterpiece. It's about how to achieve mastery in your work and in your life. I would pay $10,000 to be able to give this book to a 16-year-old me. The lessons of this book could have saved me countless hours of wasted time spent on fruitless activities.

Greene has investigated the lives of dozens of masters, (including the likes of Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and Mozart) systematically analyzing the habits, traits, and attitudes that lead to their greatness, and he distills all of them down into principles that anyone can emulate.

He also looked at the lives of unlikely masters, whose achievements seemed impossible given their disabilities and impairments. One such master is Temple Grandin, who went from being an autistic child that struggled to learn language, to being a professor of animal science who revolutionized the field. Greene shows how Grandin overcame the crippling social ineptitude, caused by her autism, that almost destroyed her career. The message is clear: you have more potential than you think you have. If Grandin can transform her life, you can too.

The central message of Greene's book is that masters are not born they are made--and that anyone can tap into the powers that these masters have. There are universal characteristics that all these masters share that can be mimicked by anyone.

This book will inspire you to work harder than you ever thought possible. It will give you faith that prodigious achievement can be had by anyone who is willing to thoroughly give themselves to their work. It also shows you how to find your "Life Purpose," which is the critical step in achieving mastery. This is the single most transformative book I've ever read.

This book quantifies the rather ethereal elements to achieving mastery in any particular craft, and by doing so enables the reader to approach the process in an almost scientific manner. Perfect. This book has put into words so many of the thoughts that have been drifting in my mind, bordering on the verge of expression. Very grateful to have found it at such a time in my life where every sentence is applicable gold.

Apart from the smashed spider I found on page 47, this book is an amazing, informative, and eye-opening read. I highly recommend it for people between the ages of 17-24. But in the book Robert Greene does point out that you can be any age to learn about how to become a master if you're not one already. It really changed my perspective of careers, one's true calling, jobs, and important historical figures.

I've read most of Robert Greene's book and this is my favorite. Masterfully written, it is entertainingly engaging... I couldn't put the book down until it was finished. I will read this book once again soon.

This is his best work of Art thus far. Highly Recommended. Makes a fantastical gift item too, by the way.

I find that this is a hard read because it is repetitive in many ways. The author references a lot of material printed in the beginning of the book. It is a positive and inspirational book, nonetheless.

Thought-provoking. Robert gives new insight to many great innovators and masters throughout several points in history. I would especially recommend it to anyone starting their career or considering a career change.

This is a great book for those who want more from life and need a wise man's nudge to stay on the correct path. Also for those who need validation and factual backing for their pursuit of happiness.

Robert Greene invites you on a journey to mastery by putting forward subtle and well researched insights from the life of contemporary masters.

I will read it again.

First of all, I love Greene's other books. However, a bit disappointed with this one...this book is about historical "masters" and how the characteristics of the individuals led them to become masters...how you can learn from them to become a "master" yourself. I would maybe recommend this to high school, college-aged or 20-somethings, or just read it for fun with an open mind (this would be me). I did really enjoy Greene's other books. . . The Laws of Power, Seduction, War. . . The 48 Laws of Power I purchased as soon as it was released over 15 years ago and I recommended to everyone and I would recommend it now. With Mastery, once I scanned the TOC I knew I probably wouldn't like the book, "Discover Your Calling: The Life's Task" (how trite can we get?), "Submit to Reality: The Ideal Apprenticeship" (the word apprentice is so over used these days), "Absorb the Master's Power" (are we Jedis in Star Wars?), "Awaken the Dimensional Mind: The Creative Mind" (so fluffy). I actually read this chapter first because the title was more appealing to me: "See People As They Are: Social Intelligence" but this chapter is simply a twist on theories presented in his other books (I still liked it though and found it entertaining).

I enjoyed how Greene uses historical examples, providing the reader with historical facts and different insights that the reader might not have thought about on his own. For this reason alone I would recommend the book, but only to a particular segment of people (those who enjoy classics and the acquisition of cultural knowledge; people who like to think on a philosophical level). But, you aren't going to become a "master" at anything by simply reading this book-this is not an "action plan" type book (in contrast to, for example, Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People"), but a thinker person's book. A different way of looking at yourself, your life, within the universe.

I think it will appeal to only a limited type of reader audience, but after his previous books it doesn't really matter now does it?. For a $13 paperback it's a good read, but I would not have purchased it in hard cover. (Actually, I would love my teenager to read it, but she would just look at me and say, "what is this @#$%?!")

I read this book shortly after Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers' in which there was a fair bit of cross-over. The book in it's own right is quite interesting but looses a star purely because there was a fair amount I was already familiar with.

Everyone should be reading Robert Greene 's books... Each of my children will / must read his books prior to leaving their freshmen year in High School as it will help in there overall development and maturity!

Here, I will save you time and money by summarizing the author's entire point in just one sentence:

*Figure out what you want to do in life and then study the methods of those who have already succeeded at it.*

That's it. The rest of the book is just padding for this one simple point. Greene's arguments are less-than-interesting and repeated ad nauseam as follows: (1) Name a historical figure who has succeeded at something. (2) Summarize that figure's personal history as if you were a Wikipedia article. (3) Explain how that figure's history has things in common with the histories of other figures. (4) Offer no new ideas. (5) Repeat steps 1 through 4 for each subsequent chapter.

This book paid for itself within the first 5 pages. I can tell just from the table of contents and the way the book is laid out that this is going to be a great read. I am already enjoying it more than any of his previous books and that's saying alot because I own them all!!! GET THIS BOOK!

M.P.M
The New Aira
[...]

I'm not a book critic, however I've read The 50th Law and Art of Seduction. I found Greene's prose to come off as pedantic after awhile and I decided that his writing style was to be treated like a bottle of rum. In moderation, and if you don't finish the bottle, put it on the shelf and let it age, when you come back it'll still have its flavor and maybe taste a little wiser. As for Mastery, I got through the first chapter and had to turn my Kindle off. I haven't gone back to it yet but I'll hold on to it. Great writer, just really intense.

First of all, I love Greene's other books. However, a bit disappointed with this one...this book is about historical "masters" and how the characteristics of the individuals led them to become masters...how you can learn from them to become a "master" yourself. I would maybe recommend this to high school, college-aged or 20-somethings, or just read it for fun with an open mind (this would be me). I did really enjoy Greene's other books. . . The Laws of Power, Seduction, War. . . The 48 Laws of Power I purchased as soon as it was released over 15 years ago and I recommended to everyone and I would recommend it now. With Mastery, once I scanned the TOC I knew I probably wouldn't like the book, "Discover Your Calling: The Life's Task" (how trite can we get?), "Submit to Reality: The Ideal Apprenticeship" (the word apprentice is so over used these days), "Absorb the Master's Power" (are we Jedis in Star Wars?), "Awaken the Dimensional Mind: The Creative Mind" (so fluffy). I actually read this chapter first because the title was more appealing to me: "See People As They Are: Social Intelligence" but this chapter is simply a twist on theories presented in his other books (I still liked it though and found it entertaining).

I enjoyed how Greene uses historical examples, providing the reader with historical facts and different insights that the reader might not have thought about on his own. For this reason alone I would recommend the book, but only to a particular segment of people (those who enjoy classics and the acquisition of cultural knowledge; people who like to think on a philosophical level). But, you aren't going to become a "master" at anything by simply reading this book-this is not an "action plan" type book (in contrast to, for example, Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People"), but a thinker person's book. A different way of looking at yourself, your life, within the universe.

I think it will appeal to only a limited type of reader audience, but after his previous books it doesn't really matter now does it?. For a $13 paperback it's a good read, but I would not have purchased it in hard cover. (Actually, I would love my teenager to read it, but she would just look at me and say, "what is this @#$%?!")

I read this book shortly after Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers' in which there was a fair bit of cross-over. The book in it's own right is quite interesting but looses a star purely because there was a fair amount I was already familiar with.

Everyone should be reading Robert Greene 's books... Each of my children will / must read his books prior to leaving their freshmen year in High School as it will help in there overall development and maturity!

Here, I will save you time and money by summarizing the author's entire point in just one sentence:

*Figure out what you want to do in life and then study the methods of those who have already succeeded at it.*

That's it. The rest of the book is just padding for this one simple point. Greene's arguments are less-than-interesting and repeated ad nauseam as follows: (1) Name a historical figure who has succeeded at something. (2) Summarize that figure's personal history as if you were a Wikipedia article. (3) Explain how that figure's history has things in common with the histories of other figures. (4) Offer no new ideas. (5) Repeat steps 1 through 4 for each subsequent chapter.

This book paid for itself within the first 5 pages. I can tell just from the table of contents and the way the book is laid out that this is going to be a great read. I am already enjoying it more than any of his previous books and that's saying alot because I own them all!!! GET THIS BOOK!

M.P.M
The New Aira
[...]

I'm not a book critic, however I've read The 50th Law and Art of Seduction. I found Greene's prose to come off as pedantic after awhile and I decided that his writing style was to be treated like a bottle of rum. In moderation, and if you don't finish the bottle, put it on the shelf and let it age, when you come back it'll still have its flavor and maybe taste a little wiser. As for Mastery, I got through the first chapter and had to turn my Kindle off. I haven't gone back to it yet but I'll hold on to it. Great writer, just really intense.

Greene is a devoted researcher and a master of the historical anecdote. In this book, he tells some very interesting stories about some very interesting people (Einstein, Mozart etc.) If you like the author and his style, you may enjoy this book.

However, I wouldn't recommend this as a serious advice book. It's extremely long and Greene's list of things you 'must do' numbers in the hundreds. This is not a practical guide to mastery; it is just a very long book with some interesting ideas and inspiring stories.

If you want a more practical, clearer guide to mastery, I highly recommend George Leonard's Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment.

Just got my book today!! I'm about to turn off my phone and dive into this book until I drown in motivation...again! Love Robert's books! And I am so amazed many people dont even know of his book....guess there's a reason why thou. I'll be back for a deeper review shortly! Enjoy everyone!

I couldn't finish it. I couldn't even get past the second chapter. What little insight there is to be gleaned can be found in the (overly detailed) table of contents. This book seems to be a few paragraphs-worth of information that is filled out with padding.

So much padding...

He used many people who became successful that where given advantages and priviledges in their lives. This contradicts his statement that mastery doesn't come from birth and priviledges. Although they worked hard for it, the author doesn't acknowledges that they were handed critical pieces to their succes.

I just finished this book yesterday. I started it months ago, let myself get distracted by — I don’t know, life — and got back to it and read the last half in the last 5 days.

Read it.

I want to read this book again, immediately. I’m going to take a little break though. I have about 5 other books waiting that will be great follow-up reads to this one. Then I’ll circle back around and read it again.

Greene talks about finding your main thing in life and then being focused and intense and committed enough to it to become not just okay at it, but to excel and be the master in that field you’ve chosen.

He shares stories and challenges of Masters and pithy little observations about, oh, psychology and evolutionary tendencies and human behavior and failure and success and creativity and tiny subjects like that.

I love that Greene is adamant that you have distinct, unique work to do, but he doesn’t pad it up with all the “follow your passion” language.

The pure passion approach weakens the dedication and desire you need to pursue something specific and become excellent at it. Greene is clear about the amount of work you have to put in. He’s also clear about what happens if you’re not willing to put in the work and you settle for some mundane course of life:

"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. Your work becomes mechanical."

Get the book. Read the book.

Thanks to other reviewers and commenters on this book. I am impressed with the dialog recorded here. Robert Greene's first three books changed my entire outlook on life. Studying his writing gave me greater ability to get what I want, in romance, in art and in business. "Mastery," Greene's fifth book, is a mixed bag. On the positive side, it is informative and inspiring. Greene puts a great deal of research and stylistic refinement into his books, and the quality of his presentation here meets his high standard. The stories he tells and the lessons he takes away are worth reading.

Two flaws marred this experience for me. Greene introduces a master, cites an important lesson from that master's life, then returns to the same person much later in the book. When he returns, he re-introduces us to the person, nearly verbatim. This is confusing and unnecessary. Greene distills this book from a great wealth of research, and he does not need to cite his sources in this jarring manner. The book could be structured in a more pleasing, less repetitive way.

The second flaw is more serious. Greene follows the unfortunate lead of other self-help authors in asserting that everyone can be great. He implies this belief throughout the book, then makes it explicit toward the end: "Mastery is not a question of genetics or luck, but of following your natural inclinations and the deep desire that stirs you from within. Everyone has such inclinations."

This is misleading at best and simply false at worst. Among Greene's examples of mastery are Mozart, Leonardo and Goethe. These men did not merely descend to earth and shine their lights on humanity; each worked very hard to become a master. However, their work alone did not make them the giants they became. One psychologist estimated that Goethe possessed an IQ of 210. I plan to improve my mind until my dying day, but I will not test out at 210 IQ, ever. Thousands of young musicians have worked themselves to insanity at the Julliard School and the Curtis Institute, and never became a modern Mozart.

Intelligence is highly heritable. If you don't think so, just look inside any recent book on human biology. Our efforts to improve ourselves are governed by physical limits. We can be better than we are, and we should improve all we can. In doing so, we must work with what we have. It is not helpful to go crazy and tell ourselves we have no limits. In my experience, that is a recipe for disaster, depression and paralysis.

Why do some people have a problem accepting this? Both our heritage and our hard work matter. We don't have to give up dreaming of greater achievements when we acknowledge our limits.

I would like to see Robert Greene accept this reality, as he's urging us on. Something like, "You may not be able to equal Leonardo, even if you diligently apply yourself. If you are a person of more average gifts, you could still reasonably expect to achieve a higher level of control in your work, and more recognition from your peers than you now enjoy. New possibilities--limited possibilities--can open up for you, and you'll have the satisfaction that your work was the best your talents could produce."

Omission or denial of this obvious truth leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Over-promising reduced my enjoyment of this otherwise-excellent book. I still recommend reading it, because its positive messages are valuable. Robert Greene is an excellent author, and I will continue to read his books. Another helpful book on the creative process is Twyla Tharp's "The Creative Habit."

Great on storytelling, eventually misses the point (almost entirely). I agree with several other reviewers here that the essence of mastery as shared by Robert Greene could have been condensed into something like a pamphlet. Having said that, I admire Greene for his wealth of background information and the obvious effort he puts into his work. The obvious qualities of his other books notwithstanding, I get the distinct feeling that Greene let bias influence Mastery. Granted, I am a bit biased myself after having read several books on trauma and the brain, notably Norman Doidge's "The Brain That Changes Itself." Greene and Doidge each share a story with us how one individual managed to achieve a breakthrough in a field of science that the so called experts (meaning, with a bunch of degrees from the most prestigious schools, professional awards, and such) couldn't. Where Doidge distinguishes himself from Greene (even though Doidge's book has nothing to do with Mastery per se), is that Doidge doesn't claim to know how one should go about to achieve success. What Greene, therefore, seems to miss are two very important aspects of Mastery, or rather the inability to achieve it: context and neuropsychological influences such a trauma.

Many characters in Greene's examples, specifically the historical ones, appear to have two things in common: (i) they had no real choice but to go the path they took (to some this might look like it seems they were guided in a way by circumstance and/or by the force of their inspiration) and (ii) they didn't appear to have suffered the ill effects of bad parenting, or from emotional or other trauma. In hindsight, the accomplishments mentioned in Greene's Mastery are certainly laudable and should serve as a beacon of inspiration and hope for anyone. They certainly do for me - with duly noted reservations. I consider myself fortunate to know a little bit more about how upbringing, parental programming through emotional/psychological manipulation by caregivers or lack thereof, can influence or even dictate the course of an individual's life, to be able to admit that achieving mastery at least for some might require a few additional hurdles to overcome.

If you don't live a life in which for every step you take out of nowhere an obstacle appears that doesn't just serve as a challenge to be overcome, but rather as a literally insurmountable confluence of circumstances that only appears to confirm the accepted wisdom that there is no such thing as free will, you might not entirely understand what I mean - that's perfectly fine. Nevertheless, or in my case, therefore, I would have loved to have seen at least a footnote of acknowledgment. If only because despite the challenges the individuals in Greene's book faced, they seemed able to overcome them because they had at least one person in their life who believed in them unconditionally, or because of divine intervention, sheer luck and/or the psychological context in which they were raised, and finally perhaps also as a result of differences in social circumstances between now and then. In the 1800s, for instance, there were far fewer people on the planet. One's social status and the establishing and maintaining of connections with the elite arguably must have had a very different character than they do today.

If that sounds too much to ask, you might as well skip this book because there are plenty of others that aren't as tedious a read (such as freely available blogs on the topic) before you get to the essence. Besides that, I am, as a final note, more than puzzled by one major apparent admission by Greene: his bias in favor of Charles Darwin's work. Curiously, in the introduction, Greene writes with great enthusiasm about Darwin's accomplishments - conveniently skipping over the facts that (a) the core of evolutionary theory had already been established by someone else (i.e., Von Goethe) by the time Darwin made his observations, and (b) the theory of evolution (still) doesn't hold up against the missing evidence in the fossil record. Greene goes as far as to contrast Darwin to his younger cousin, Sir Francis Galton, holding Darwin in the highest regard. One Google search on Galton reveals that he too has many distinguished accomplishments to his name if not more (diverse). To me it seems peculiar that Greene would offer such a contrast (or is it because he's biased?) because as you probably know as well, not everybody is expected to come up with a "Theory of Evolution" in the course of one's life - especially if it's only that at the time you're alive, a theory. This alone makes me wonder if Greene actually has any core understanding of the real nature of mastery and where it comes from, or if this book was just a way to make a quick buck using some discarded research originally gathered for other works.

For me, a five star book blows my mind; a four star book opens up new avenues of thought; and a three star book is fine. I liked the concept -- it is cool to know how great people became great. And I liked the general point, that you become great through finding your life work in a niche and going after it, balls out. I did not like the structure of the book; each section has an introduction, case studies, and then the final point. That structure repeats in each chapter. I found that made the tone rather monotonous, and there was overlap in the case studies. Because of the heavy use of case studies, I only recommend this book to people who enjoy history for its own sake. I could have read the cliff notes and made better use of my time.

He used many people who became successful that where given advantages and priviledges in their lives. This contradicts his statement that mastery doesn't come from birth and priviledges. Although they worked hard for it, the author doesn't acknowledges that they were handed critical pieces to their succes.

I just finished this book yesterday. I started it months ago, let myself get distracted by — I don’t know, life — and got back to it and read the last half in the last 5 days.

Read it.

I want to read this book again, immediately. I’m going to take a little break though. I have about 5 other books waiting that will be great follow-up reads to this one. Then I’ll circle back around and read it again.

Greene talks about finding your main thing in life and then being focused and intense and committed enough to it to become not just okay at it, but to excel and be the master in that field you’ve chosen.

He shares stories and challenges of Masters and pithy little observations about, oh, psychology and evolutionary tendencies and human behavior and failure and success and creativity and tiny subjects like that.

I love that Greene is adamant that you have distinct, unique work to do, but he doesn’t pad it up with all the “follow your passion” language.

The pure passion approach weakens the dedication and desire you need to pursue something specific and become excellent at it. Greene is clear about the amount of work you have to put in. He’s also clear about what happens if you’re not willing to put in the work and you settle for some mundane course of life:

"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. Your work becomes mechanical."

Get the book. Read the book.

Thanks to other reviewers and commenters on this book. I am impressed with the dialog recorded here. Robert Greene's first three books changed my entire outlook on life. Studying his writing gave me greater ability to get what I want, in romance, in art and in business. "Mastery," Greene's fifth book, is a mixed bag. On the positive side, it is informative and inspiring. Greene puts a great deal of research and stylistic refinement into his books, and the quality of his presentation here meets his high standard. The stories he tells and the lessons he takes away are worth reading.

Two flaws marred this experience for me. Greene introduces a master, cites an important lesson from that master's life, then returns to the same person much later in the book. When he returns, he re-introduces us to the person, nearly verbatim. This is confusing and unnecessary. Greene distills this book from a great wealth of research, and he does not need to cite his sources in this jarring manner. The book could be structured in a more pleasing, less repetitive way.

The second flaw is more serious. Greene follows the unfortunate lead of other self-help authors in asserting that everyone can be great. He implies this belief throughout the book, then makes it explicit toward the end: "Mastery is not a question of genetics or luck, but of following your natural inclinations and the deep desire that stirs you from within. Everyone has such inclinations."

This is misleading at best and simply false at worst. Among Greene's examples of mastery are Mozart, Leonardo and Goethe. These men did not merely descend to earth and shine their lights on humanity; each worked very hard to become a master. However, their work alone did not make them the giants they became. One psychologist estimated that Goethe possessed an IQ of 210. I plan to improve my mind until my dying day, but I will not test out at 210 IQ, ever. Thousands of young musicians have worked themselves to insanity at the Julliard School and the Curtis Institute, and never became a modern Mozart.

Intelligence is highly heritable. If you don't think so, just look inside any recent book on human biology. Our efforts to improve ourselves are governed by physical limits. We can be better than we are, and we should improve all we can. In doing so, we must work with what we have. It is not helpful to go crazy and tell ourselves we have no limits. In my experience, that is a recipe for disaster, depression and paralysis.

Why do some people have a problem accepting this? Both our heritage and our hard work matter. We don't have to give up dreaming of greater achievements when we acknowledge our limits.

I would like to see Robert Greene accept this reality, as he's urging us on. Something like, "You may not be able to equal Leonardo, even if you diligently apply yourself. If you are a person of more average gifts, you could still reasonably expect to achieve a higher level of control in your work, and more recognition from your peers than you now enjoy. New possibilities--limited possibilities--can open up for you, and you'll have the satisfaction that your work was the best your talents could produce."

Omission or denial of this obvious truth leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Over-promising reduced my enjoyment of this otherwise-excellent book. I still recommend reading it, because its positive messages are valuable. Robert Greene is an excellent author, and I will continue to read his books. Another helpful book on the creative process is Twyla Tharp's "The Creative Habit."

Great on storytelling, eventually misses the point (almost entirely). I agree with several other reviewers here that the essence of mastery as shared by Robert Greene could have been condensed into something like a pamphlet. Having said that, I admire Greene for his wealth of background information and the obvious effort he puts into his work. The obvious qualities of his other books notwithstanding, I get the distinct feeling that Greene let bias influence Mastery. Granted, I am a bit biased myself after having read several books on trauma and the brain, notably Norman Doidge's "The Brain That Changes Itself." Greene and Doidge each share a story with us how one individual managed to achieve a breakthrough in a field of science that the so called experts (meaning, with a bunch of degrees from the most prestigious schools, professional awards, and such) couldn't. Where Doidge distinguishes himself from Greene (even though Doidge's book has nothing to do with Mastery per se), is that Doidge doesn't claim to know how one should go about to achieve success. What Greene, therefore, seems to miss are two very important aspects of Mastery, or rather the inability to achieve it: context and neuropsychological influences such a trauma.

Many characters in Greene's examples, specifically the historical ones, appear to have two things in common: (i) they had no real choice but to go the path they took (to some this might look like it seems they were guided in a way by circumstance and/or by the force of their inspiration) and (ii) they didn't appear to have suffered the ill effects of bad parenting, or from emotional or other trauma. In hindsight, the accomplishments mentioned in Greene's Mastery are certainly laudable and should serve as a beacon of inspiration and hope for anyone. They certainly do for me - with duly noted reservations. I consider myself fortunate to know a little bit more about how upbringing, parental programming through emotional/psychological manipulation by caregivers or lack thereof, can influence or even dictate the course of an individual's life, to be able to admit that achieving mastery at least for some might require a few additional hurdles to overcome.

If you don't live a life in which for every step you take out of nowhere an obstacle appears that doesn't just serve as a challenge to be overcome, but rather as a literally insurmountable confluence of circumstances that only appears to confirm the accepted wisdom that there is no such thing as free will, you might not entirely understand what I mean - that's perfectly fine. Nevertheless, or in my case, therefore, I would have loved to have seen at least a footnote of acknowledgment. If only because despite the challenges the individuals in Greene's book faced, they seemed able to overcome them because they had at least one person in their life who believed in them unconditionally, or because of divine intervention, sheer luck and/or the psychological context in which they were raised, and finally perhaps also as a result of differences in social circumstances between now and then. In the 1800s, for instance, there were far fewer people on the planet. One's social status and the establishing and maintaining of connections with the elite arguably must have had a very different character than they do today.

If that sounds too much to ask, you might as well skip this book because there are plenty of others that aren't as tedious a read (such as freely available blogs on the topic) before you get to the essence. Besides that, I am, as a final note, more than puzzled by one major apparent admission by Greene: his bias in favor of Charles Darwin's work. Curiously, in the introduction, Greene writes with great enthusiasm about Darwin's accomplishments - conveniently skipping over the facts that (a) the core of evolutionary theory had already been established by someone else (i.e., Von Goethe) by the time Darwin made his observations, and (b) the theory of evolution (still) doesn't hold up against the missing evidence in the fossil record. Greene goes as far as to contrast Darwin to his younger cousin, Sir Francis Galton, holding Darwin in the highest regard. One Google search on Galton reveals that he too has many distinguished accomplishments to his name if not more (diverse). To me it seems peculiar that Greene would offer such a contrast (or is it because he's biased?) because as you probably know as well, not everybody is expected to come up with a "Theory of Evolution" in the course of one's life - especially if it's only that at the time you're alive, a theory. This alone makes me wonder if Greene actually has any core understanding of the real nature of mastery and where it comes from, or if this book was just a way to make a quick buck using some discarded research originally gathered for other works.

For me, a five star book blows my mind; a four star book opens up new avenues of thought; and a three star book is fine. I liked the concept -- it is cool to know how great people became great. And I liked the general point, that you become great through finding your life work in a niche and going after it, balls out. I did not like the structure of the book; each section has an introduction, case studies, and then the final point. That structure repeats in each chapter. I found that made the tone rather monotonous, and there was overlap in the case studies. Because of the heavy use of case studies, I only recommend this book to people who enjoy history for its own sake. I could have read the cliff notes and made better use of my time.

I found the stories very entertaining and informative. The author obviously spent a lot of work collecting the information. However his anti-Christian philosophies and morals managed subtly seep through and that really soured me on the book.

I also find his style a bit arrogant and repetitive for my tastes.

I was asked to read this book for a class in Mastery. There are no new concepts here that aren't in a million other books. I painfully read through monotonous and dry stories while trying to retain where the book was trying to go. It's like a teacher trying to tell you what could be an interesting topics, so so sidetracked with dry tangents you forget about what was being talked about in the first place. There are plenty of you tube videos that say a whole lot more, and in less time. Save your money and time and leave this turd in the toilet where it belongs.

The topic of mastery, the place of skill in our working lives and our emotional lives fascinates me. But this book added absolutely nothing to my understanding. It seems like the author compiled a lot of possible themes to explore and investigate, but then didn't bother, and instead just droned on about how certain people's lives played out, or may have - statements that, for instance, Ben Franklin "couldn't believe his good luck" in one boringly written anecdote, tell you the level of interest the writer had while jotting this down. I mean, this description is not only trite but obviously not anything the author could be privy to. The whole book plays out this way, as if the author is just blathering on and on, often making it up as he goes along. Don't waste your money on this one.

"Mastery" continues in the tradition of Greene's other work, especially The 48 Laws of Power,The Art of Seduction, and The 33 Strategies of War (Joost Elffers Books). Consider this book, if you will, as a synthesis and application of the principles in those three books: in the "48 Laws," Greene introduced a set of concepts loosely based on Gracian's "The Art of Worldly Wisdom" that assisted readers in determining how to gain and maintain control. In "Seduction," Greene taught readers the principles of gaining and maintaining status as a desire of others; and in the "33 Strategies," Greene shifted the ground beneath our feet from the boardroom and living room to the battlefield, describing how militaristic techniques and approaches could be used to achieve our goals and outcomes.

"Mastery" synthesizes much of this previous work into a larger framework, a longer-term project--a "bigger picture," so to speak. Greene defines "mastery" as the ultimate power: "[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. It is an intelligence that is not taught in our schools nor analyzed by professors, but almost all of us,a t some point, have had glimpses of it in our own experience."

As with his previous works, Greene relies heavily on historical anecdotes to explain his six-step plan to the achievement of mastery:
1. Discover your calling: the life's task
2. Submit to reality: the ideal apprenticeship
3. Absorb the master's power: the mentor dynamic
4. See people as they are: social intelligence
5. Awaken the dimensional mind: the creative-active
6. Fuse the intuitive with the rational: mastery

For each of these steps, Greene includes a detailed explanation of what the step's goal is, relevant historical examples of the step in action, and the strategies for achieving the goal and moving to the next step. For example, in the first step (the life's task), Greene somewhat metaphysically argues that "You possess an 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." Determining what this task is is the goal of the first step. Greene then offers up Leonardo Da Vinci as an example of this search, and provides five strategies for "finding your life's task": returning to your origins, occupying the perfect niche, avoiding the false path, letting go of the past, and finding your way back. Each of these strategies is further accompanied by more historical anecdotes.

Whereas the "48 Laws," "33 Strategies," and "Seduction" had focused on somewhat tighter, more confined situations--and were presented in a rather fragmented, isolated manner that did not necessarily relate each rule or precept to the others--"Mastery" is a conscious attempt to bring together all this information and these principles into a single, directed course of action. This book, more than all the others, is Robert Greene's answer to the question of how to "win friends and influence people" (with emphasis on the latter).

A worthy addition to any library--especially those with well-thumbed copies of Greene's earlier books.

Prior to reading this book, I was not familiar with Robert Greene. Many other reviewers have compared Mastery to Greene's previous works. I'm not in a position to do so. In general, Mastery explores a fascinating topic and provides some valuable insights. However, it is also tainted by a good bit of wishful thinking, some revisionist history, and the fact that it is much longer than necessary.

I will start with the good. Greene correctly observes that we live in an entitled culture where hard work is not pursued. On the most basic level, this is the premise of the book. In order to master a discipline, one must work hard. Yes, there is much more to it than that, but if the reader leaves the book with no other insight, they will still not be far from the truth. I found Greene's discussion of the apprenticeship phase particularly compelling. The ability to submit one's self to the tutelage of another for an extended period of time is a discipline which is desperately absent from the workplace today. Young men beginning their careers should listen well. So, there is a good bit of wisdom in this book.

However, there is also a good bit of fantasy and wishful thinking. Greene's premise includes the idea that every human being has the capacity to become a master if they only apply themselves to the process. Relatively early on (p. 28), he makes the claim that a master will eventually leave the confines of their disciplinary community and strike out on their own. He also frequently treats mentors and guides and persons to be used for a time, and then discarded when they are no longer useful. This is nonsense. Certainly, as we develop in skill and efficacy, we may move from situation to situation. We will experience changing relationships along the way, but humans are not disposable means to our personal ends. The "master" who behaves in this way might be surprised to find themselves alone and friendless down the road. As for the idea that we can all someday throw off the community in which we have learned our discipline and strike out on our own, I counter with Melville's query "Who ain't a slave?" Very few of us will have the chance in life to throw off the authority structures over us and operate on our own. Personally, the individuals I've met who have done so seem to be the least emotionally mature. In other words, they've left their professional communities not because they've achieved mastery, but because they aren't able to work with others. Finally, I think it is apparent that this form of mastery just isn't practical. A society where everyone attempts to strike out on their own is a society which fails.

Greene spends an excessive amount of time illustrating his point. He's identified a number of historical "masters" who he uses to support his premise. As interesting as some of these characters are, half as many would have been sufficient. The result is a book that is twice as long as it effectively could have been. Greene also tends to revise his historical masters' biographies to fit his premise. A good example is his treatment of Darwin, who Greene repeatedly claims invented evolution. According to Greene, Darwin threw off all of the constraints of the prevailing views of his time, resisted an overbearing and dogmatically religious sea captained, and pioneered an entirely new way of viewing the world. This sounds wonderful, but a passing familiarity with Darwin's autobiography reveals it as untrue. In the first few paragraphs of his life story, Darwin explains that evolution as a theory has existed for thousands of years, dating to Aristotle and beyond. Darwin himself learned it from his grandfather. What Darwin developed was natural selection, the explanation of biological processes which makes evolution much more plausible. As for his struggles with an overly religious captain, Darwin relates that he was himself mocked by shipmates for his overly authoritative use of scripture. So, the picture which emerges from Darwin's autobiography is not of a man who shed himself of all the preconceptions of his age in a relentless pursuit of truth, but of a man who was very much influenced by the ideas of his age and explored scientific observation within that framework. Some may see the difference as subtle, but Darwin does not fit the idyllic mastery Greene presents. Greene does something similar with Coltrane, who's drug use gets one passing reference in Greene's biographical treatment. I must admit that I am not as familiar with the biographies of all of Greene's historical examples, but the issues with the characters with whom I am familiar leave me skeptical.

In the end, I give Greene 3 stars. There is some excellent material in this book, but it is sprinkled amid excessive wordiness, some wishful thinking, and a good bit of plain old fairy dust.

All he's doing really is to look at a phenomenon, and describes it. He doesn't give you the actual formula. That is, the day to day routine required to achieve high levels of functionality.

Also, very repetitive. And he completely neglects the opportunities and emotional environment in which one is exposed as a child. For example, he says that Leonard Da Vinci's natural inclination was to go in the wild and draw things. Well the reality is that, since he was a child born out of wedlock, he couldn't attend school. What can you do as a kid if you can't go to school at that time? Just hang out in the wild. Also, his father had paper to draw on, which was something rare to have. So no, Leonard did not have an inclination for anything, it's just the opportunities that presented themselves to him and his father's connections to find a good mentor.

This is my second Robert Greene book, and like his other works, he presents “keys to mastery” in an anecdotal fashion. Throughout the text, Greene portrays the lives of several “masters” in their fields and dissects the methods that they used to achieve mastery. The book is split into sections on how to find your calling, the dynamic of an apprenticeship, social dynamics, and a deep dive into the intuitive mind.

The highlight of the book for me was the underlying theme carried throughout the book called PATIENCE. In today’s fast-paced digital society, it is easy to become impatient with our work, and the timelines to success have become artificially shorter thanks to many internet tools. Despite this, the road to mastery is a long and painful process that doesn’t happen in two weeks, two months, or even two years. The road to mastery takes decades to achieve, and this book does a great job of painting the picture of what a single human faces in their quest to achieve something noteworthy.

Even further, I think this book is a refreshing perspective on the dynamic between the master and the student. It is quite easy today to overlook the value of mentorship as we have so much available information at our fingertips. Why seek a mentor when you can learn it on the internet? This book provides a compelling argument for the mentorship phase of one’s career and reminds us that “self empowerment” isn’t always the way forward. The billion dollar self help industry encourages us to speak our voice and promote ourselves in many ways, while Robert Greene argues that in many cases, this is the worst thing to do. Greene argues that when you enter a new career, job, or culture in general, it is your utmost responsibility to stay quiet and observe your environment before voicing your opinions and cautions one from trying to change a pre-existing culture when not in a position of power.

This book is not a sugar coated self help book but rather a reminder that you’re not quite as special as you may think nor are the people we consider “geniuses” or “artists”. Instead, the book argues that anyone who intelligently and persistently approaches a field of study can come out on the other side as a “genius”.

I have two main criticisms of the book, hence my four star rating.

1. Greene powerfully tells the stories of many “masters” throughout the book, but at many points, it feels as if he is molding their personal stories to what he wants the reader to hear. It feels to the reader that the stories portrayed in the book may not align perfectly with the stories as told by their original subjects. It is as if Greene assumes that these people had a specific sequence of thoughts that linearly led to a breakthrough moment that changed their lives forever. Although Greene is well researched on the subjects and probably didn’t intend to evoke such a feeling in the reader, it was a downside to the book for me and made some of the success stories seem more like fantasies than real life.
2. The subjects chosen for anecdotes throughout the book were diverse, but it felt like Greene had an affinity for those in the sciences and academia. I would have liked to hear more examples of mastery from the lives of athletes and social leaders. To me, it became a bit repetitive to hear the stories of people who thought long and hard about something and eventually discovered a new scientific breakthrough. It would have been refreshing to hear about the life of sociopolitical leaders like Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela and the greatest athletes of our time. What kind of apprenticeships did experts in these fields partake in? Is their path to mastery the same?

Overall, this book is required reading even for self proclaimed “masters” because it provides a plethora of ideas and strategies for improving one’s life and work. It doesn’t aim to “empower” the reader as many self help texts do and it certainly doesn’t claim to have the formula for mastery.

Awe inspiring. Moving. Paradigm shifting. Empowering.

These are just a selection of words that can be used to describe Robert Greene's Mastery. I'm 23 years old and this book couldn't have come at a better time. I rarely write the store reviews but I had to do it. I'm a fan of his works. I first read 48 Laws of Power and now I'm reading Art of Seduction. I then plan on getting 33 Strategies of War. I was going to follow his works in a sequential order due to Mastery being a sum of all his previous works but something inside of me compelled me to listen to the audiobook. I listened on YouTube and from the introduction, I was mesmerized. The audiobook was beautifully narrated by Fred Sanders with a passionate and instructive delivery.

I often found myself holding back tears at many points in the audiobook. Greene so eloquently illuminates and describes how people with the odds stacked against them achieved the highest forms of human intelligence, being hailed as godlike figures in our culture. Leonardo da Vinci was illegitimate, which means he couldn't attend university. Marcel Proust was constantly sick and thought of as a momma's boy. Cesar Rodriguez was of a lower skill level than all of his other classmates, yet he is known as one of the best fighter pilots that ever lived. Temple Grandin has autism, yet is known as being one of the most influential figures in livestock research. All of these people overcame tremendous odds to achieve mastery.

Mastery was always a dream of mine, to reach another plane of existence. I would always go towards experiences which I could feel myself ascending. Unfortunately, this lead me down the wrong path. I got discouraged with the pursuit of mastery and excellence and thought I would never obtain it. I was reading countless articles on how to grasp this mastery but it continuously eluded me. It was a hopeless fight. In college, my inner voice died out. Deep down inside, I was depressed that I felt there was no hope to achieve my true calling. I lost faith in the process. The part where he said we are always looking for ways to get to mastery by incantions and drugs and trying to find the philosopher's stone/El Dorado that doesn't exist made me break down. How did he know I was trying to find El Dorado? How did he know I got distracted and discouraged along the way? How could he so highlight the feelings I felt in my college years but I could not put to words? I was emotionally touched to the core by this book. His chapter on social intelligence is particularly illuminating. I found myself saying many "aha" moments, especially moments when I had messed up with girls (that's more Art of Seduction but social intelligence applies here too).

I graduated from college two years ago and now have new found hope and inspiration. Mastery is not a pipe dream. It is not inaccessible. It is not only for the gifted and talented. It is for all of us. It just requires intense determination, sacrifice, and obsession. A small price to pay for a slice of euphoria that no drug can match.

After this book, I have now dedicated my life's task to following my inner voice and pursuing it to the end. Nothing can deter me. This book came at the right time. Thank you Robert Greene. I now know it is not too late or not hopeless.

This is an EXCELLENT book to give to recent graduates. I wish I had gotten something like this when I graduated. It would have probably saved me many dark nights of the soul and doubt these past two years.

The book 'Mastery' by Robert Greene, first published in 2012, is for me one of the best books about success and mastery. It describes in great detail what it takes to become master in any chosen field. The author describes the path of many famous figures in sciences, arts, sports, and many other fields, and illustrates, how and why they became masters in their field. Talent, borne a genius, luck? Mastery has much more to do with putting in the hours of work, going the extra mile, taking the path less traveled, which means, being brave to step outside the ordinary world to enter an often solitary world, following a passion that often touches many different genres until all the knowledge burns into something new and extraordinary.

Hi Guys,

I listen to this in audiobook format after recommendation from a friend.

** Good points **
Personally I found it very useful because I often have creative ideas/instincts/behaviours. I previously thought I was a bit 'off the wall' and sometimes different from others in some ways, this book talks about processes of creativity deeply. Some of which are simple and I do automatically, E.g. when you go for a walk you often get your great ideas, answers to a problem. Others were more deep, e.g. following your intuition/instinct is very often the path you should be following and he gave nice examples to illustrate.

** Bad points **
A minor annoyance, was the author often used the same examples up repeatedly throughout the book again and reintroduced the person.
eg Sally was a metal work artist, nobody believed she could make heavy metal statues because she was a girl.. Author will explain a point, then a few chapters later reintroduce Sally and half repeat exactly the same thing in different words, but then add another new idea.
I get what he was trying to do, but found it slightly annoying and got confused initially thinking 'hadn't he already talked about this person?'

Also, some of his ideas I didn't totally agree with, e.g. talking about how Google beat Yahoo and dominated search engines, and explained why, because e.g. they were doing x,y and z differently. But I felt that this 'backtracking is easy to do in hindsight. Actually , sometimes a few different twists of fate and it could have been Yahoo or someone else on top, sometimes the thing that made one company more successful over another was not the things the author emphasised but could easily have been a completely different set of circumstance.

** Overall **
Overall I enjoyed this book (I listened to on audio) and found it inspiring because it shed a light on my own creative processes that I did automatically without thinking. It also made me realise the importance of working really hard on one area to master it.

Hope that helps guys, let me know if it did and I can write more.

"Mastery" is written by classical studies specialist Robert Greene and is his fifth major work. The book is generally divided into six major sections.

In parts 1 and 2, Greene tackles the subject of what is usually termed by us as "Life's calling" or "Life's Task" and theory behind "Skills Acquisition". He treats the Medieval idea of the 7 year apprenticeship period which is probably the basis for the "10,000" hours of Observe-Practice-Experiment in a modern apprenticeship.

In part 3, he narrows focus onto the mentor-mentee relation and subtle maneuvering strategies to extract and internalize the mentor's brilliance while preserving a certain sense of diplomacy.

In part 4, Greene expands quite neatly on the topic of developing social intelligence, a key and much ignored element when compared to the act of gaining tacit knowledge alone. The novice career professional will have plenty of lessons to extract from here

The final two chapters boil down the essence of what we call "creative" work and distinguishing features of a master's ultimate intuition from what is commonly defined as "rational thought".

The book's overall theme is painfully obvious from repetitive statements, if not anything else - there are no shortcuts to mastery, there is no proverbial philosopher's stone; being a master takes long years of persistent hard work, apprenticeship and a sufficiently suitable mentee-mentor relationship. The book evokes a primal, neurological basis to mastery. For example, Greene writes on mirror neurons and highly evolved "plastic" brain structures capable of emulating, learning and forming new associations life long. This implies anyone has the "potential" to be a master in their fields if they can only find their fields and learn to harness their brainpower.

Which is kind of obvious. But Greene treats each topic with a wide array of examples taken from the lives of contemporary "masters" while highlighting words of caution - things that these people did and avoided doing. The individuals he has selected for case studies come from a wide range of fields - piloting, medical science, art, engineering, music, sports, and scientific thought. For a start this should satisfy the spectrum of occupational areas readers hail from. Apparently, even Mozart and Einstein fumbled in their journeys to mastery so perhaps we are in luck.

After putting down this book, I'm armed with a bunch of great stories and some food for thought. As engineers, you must learn to handle the technical aspects, the social and political gamesmanship, the public reactions to our work and the daunting challenge of staying at pace with rapid developments in our fields. How do we do all this when we are immersed in an ocean of information? Books such as this give food for thought and an inspired platform for further discussion. So "Mastery" is poised to be something to be revisited time to time when I'm in need of inspiration.

I give it 4 stars because Greene needs to find a way to shorten his words and avoid needless repetition while staying on theme. Perhaps he hasn't attained mastery in writing?

One of the hardest parts of reviewing books (both privately, and in a public forum such as this) is in justifying one rating against another. In my own rating system, a colour-coded spreadsheet which my wife rightly points out is somewhat over the top, I have given Mastery 4.5 stars. As the store only allows whole-number ratings, I’ve opted for four stars here in deference to Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power and The 33 Strategies of War, both of which I believe to be superior works.

And that is, of course, the problem we’re faced when reviewing books. I recently gave Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking a five star review on here, despite it also receiving 4.5 in my spreadsheet. Do I personally believe Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking to be a better book than Greene’s Mastery? No. If I were to go by my spreadsheet ratings alone, do I believe both books to be equal in status? Again, no. For me, Mastery is the superior book (no offence Joan), but when I rate books I’m rating them against similar books in their field, as well as against other titles by the same author. This means that Mastery was held to a higher standard than The Year of Magical Thinking. I’m sure this is a wholly unfair strategy, but it works for me.

Back to the review. If you’ve read the majority of Greene’s previous works, you will love Mastery. You probably won’t love it as much as The 48 Laws of Power and The 33 Strategies of War. But maybe you’ll love it more. Who knows? You’ll certainly love it more than almost any other book you read this year.

Drawing lessons from the lives of accomplished people, this book offers practical, organized advice for how to realize your own Life’s Task.

If a friend had not recommended this book to me, I doubt I would ever have given it a look. I bought Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power a few years ago but quickly found it to be repugnant. It struck me as being a manual for psychopaths: handsome, well laid out, well thought out—and chilling. I wondered what sort of a person Robert Greene must be.

I probably still don’t know the answer to that, but I have now finished reading one of his books, and it is written from what feels like a different point of view. For while the earlier book was about how to gain and hold control of other people, this one is about how to find, develop, and fully realize one’s own Life’s Task. There is still one section of the book devoted to the politics of “mastery”—how to deal with the envious, the lazy, and the clueless—but most of the advice concerns how to apply one’s own effort.

The author’s method was to study the biographies of those who have achieved mastery—command of a particular discipline or skill. The masters he looks at range from the historical, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Michael Faraday, to the contemporary, such as the architect Santiago Calatrava, the boxer and coach Freddie Roach, and the autistic animal psychologist Temple Grandin. To get material on the contemporary masters, of whom there are nine in the book, Greene conducted in-depth interviews with each. The book is laid out as a step-by-step sequence of explicit rules, each illustrated with case studies from the lives of the masters. The structure is clear, effective, and engaging. Indeed, I was impressed when I first opened the book to its table of contents, which is laid out as a miniature outline of the whole, with text summarizing the flow of the argument. Nice.

So what exactly is mastery, and how do you achieve it? Greene defines mastery as a heightened form of power and intelligence which any of us can attain, and which almost all of us experience from time to time under suitable conditions, such as the urgent need to solve a problem or to meet a deadline. A master is someone who, through long training and discipline, has acquired the ability to enter this state of mind at will, and whose work therefore has a characteristic stamp of authority and innovativeness. According to Greene, such mastery represents the fullest realization of our human potential in the world, and all of us, whether we know it or not, aspire to it and are capable of it.

But not without a great deal of effort, of different kinds, over a long period. My first awareness of this book came a couple of years ago when I heard the soundbite that it takes 10,000 hours of practice at something to achieve mastery of it. Greene does mention this figure (it’s not original with him), but notes further that those 10,000 hours must be of a certain quality in order to count toward mastery. The effort must be focused, disciplined, and goal-oriented. In general this can’t be achieved on one’s own; one needs the guidance of a mentor.

Greene breaks the whole process down into 6 steps:

1. Discover your calling
2. Undergo your apprenticeship
3. Accept training from a mentor
4. Develop “social intelligence” to cope with people
5. Expand your knowledge beyond your own field
6. Fuse the intuitive with the rational to perform at peak

He breaks these into specific subtasks or “strategies,” each illustrated with case studies from the lives of real masters. Curious about how to find your life’s task? Greene gives 5 separate strategies. The emphasis though at this stage is self-knowledge. You can’t become who you truly are unless you know—or in some way intuit—who you truly are. The good news is that there are abundant clues in our lives as to who we truly are. If we don’t know who we are, it is because we have not cast off the brainwashing that each of us undergoes in the process of growing up.

Such casting off is easier said than done. I think back to a conversation I had in my mid-20s with a former schoolmate. I had dropped out of university to pursue a career (I cringe now to type that word) as a writer. He said that that was what he had wanted to do, but instead, under pressure from his parents, he had gone through law school. He did become a lawyer—a prominent and successful one—but I think back to our conversation in 1986 and wonder whether he has second thoughts (God knows I do).

Greene implies that the path of mastery is only for the few. This is not due to the rarity of innate talent, the importance of which Greene downplays. For what we call prodigious ability or genius is most often the product of long, diligent effort—Edison’s “one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration” (and Thomas Edison is one of the masters profiled in the book). The child Mozart by age 10 had probably already amassed his 10,000 hours of focused practice due to his early monomania with music. The bigger obstacles are fear and conformism, and we all have fear, and we all have some desire to conform. It is these obstacles that lead the great majority of us through our lives of quiet desperation.

Here too, though, there is good news, for Greene says more than once that it is never too late to start on the path to mastery. At a couple of points I felt that he might be contradicting himself when he stresses how long it takes to get through the steps to mastery. But that might just mean that while you can always start, you might not be able to finish the path to mastery before the clock runs out.

The idea of a Life’s Task brought to mind a comparison with Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential by Caroline Myss, which is also concerned with helping one find one’s life mission. The contrast between these writers is great. Myss’s point of departure is the spirit: she sees human life as fundamentally a spiritual journey, and whatever careers or tasks we might undertake must be part of that spiritual journey, if we are to find them fulfilling. Greene’s outlook, in contrast, is worldly. He does speak of world problems and acknowledges the importance of solving them, but he sees the human enterprise as a result of evolution, and mastery as the most enjoyable state for a human brain to be in.

There is no real conflict between these points of view, but they are distinct. Greene’s chapter on social intelligence might just as well have been called “dealing with bozos in the workplace.” Here there is a taste of the Machiavellian tone of The 48 Laws of Power. But if human beings really are just naked apes, then Machiavelli is exactly whom you need to get to the top of the pile.

Greene writes in an authoritative, even apodictic style, as though he really does see himself as a latter-day Machiavelli or Sun Tzu. Time will tell, I suppose. For my part I enjoyed this book and I respect it. Furthermore, it has inspired me to take courage in my own Life’s Task, and I expect to turn to it again and again on that lonely but rewarding journey.

"Mastery - the feeling that we have a greater command of reality, other people, and ourselves."

"Mastery is not a function of genius or talent. It is a function of time and intense focus applied to a particular field of knowledge."

Mastery is a book that will stand the test of time. Robert Greene writes to instruct others how to achieve mastery in any field, told through a series of mini-biographies, life lessons, timeless quotes, and a modern understanding of psychology and human nature. Mastery combines these different varieties of anecdotes and instructions simply and beautifully. It is a great read, and one that would have been relevant 500 years ago and will still be relevant 500 years from now. Few non-fiction books that are published today can claim such an accomplishment.

Greene identifies three levels of learning a subject. First there is apprenticeship, marked by intense learning. Secondly, the creative-active level, set apart by practice. The third and final phase is mastery. The first four chapters of the book focus on apprenticeship, followed by one chapter each for the final two phases.

The entire books is an excellent read, but here are some of the bright spots that stood out to me:

* The biographies are really, really good. The four that stood out to me tell the life story of Benjamin Franklin, Freddie Roach, Marcel Proust, and Temple Grandin. Good mix of contemporary and ancient biographies. Its worth reading Mastery just for the mini-biographies.

* Chapter four on social intelligence is excellent. Social intelligence is often overlooked as a step to mastering anything, but Greene highlights here and provides some great tips on dealing navigating the social landscape.

* The first chapter deals with finding your life's task. The last part focuses on strategies to identify your life's task, and there are some very helpful tips here.

* The layout of the book is great. You can open to any chapter and find useful information right away. It is a great read the first time through, and will remain a useful reference once you are finished.

A few things I didn't love:

* It reads like a timeless book. The principles it contains and the methods that Greene prescribes will always be useful. That said, at times it feels too dense - almost like you are reading an ancient Zen manuscript.

* Many of the biographies are continued and built on in subsequent chapters. The first few paragraphs of each are usually very similar, and I found myself skipping through them quickly. Will actually make it more useful when using as a reference in the future, but you will want to skip a few paragraphs if you are reading it straight through.

Mastery is an excellent book, and one that I can highly recommend to anyone. The focus on the apprenticeship model and how you can apply it in the modern world is unique and will only become more relevant in the future. Though Greene never denounces formal higher education, many of the examples he gives highlight alternative routes you can take. I will recommend this book to many, but will buy a few copies to give to high school juniors and seniors considering which education/career path to take.

Thank goodness! A book that advocates hard work. Granted, Outliers: The Story of Success does too but he mostly refers to it as hours. "People get the mind and quality of brain that they deserve through their actions in life." P 14. What seems to organize the book is something similar to Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey (The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) - which is a boring book I think but fascinating in how the template is built.) In Mastery the template is the journey towards Mastery - of course. But the stages are laid out in much the same way. Instead of heroic narratives the focus is on biographical narratives of those who accomplished great things. What stages in development did they each go through? How can the route to success be mapped out? And all of this is punctuated by quotations from those greats. "Mentors do not give you a shortcut but they streamline the process." P 103 This book takes advantage of the great new biographies available. I have noticed the quality of those myself and often even recommend to my students that they read biographies. Not reading many when younger strikes me as a great weakness in my own experience. But part of that is the increase in quality in modern biographies. Has anyone else noticed this? But the value in these is evident in the ability Greene has to dive in to them and pull out patterns. He even quotes Schopenhauer (gasp!) He is not one of my favorites for personal reasons. But what can I say? It was a good quote. As a nice touch, there are examples of the biographies listed for main characters in this survey of mastery. Clearly, Greene is demonstrating he practices what he teaches.

I would guess a majority of people have read one or more self help books as everyone seems to have something severely lacking in our lives. I myself have read a handful of them and none of them have been of any consequence. If the steps to helping yourself are so simple, according to most books, why is everyone so angry and negative?
I truly believe this may be the only effective self help book available. What Robert Greene says basically is that you need to figure out what your passion is in life, and you need to bust your butt to make that your career. If you find your passion in life, the joy of pursuing it will allow you to dedicate 10,000 hours of sweat and tears to it, and then you will master it. He explains that all the geniuses and prodigies in history did not in fact have innate gifts, but instead dedicated 10,000 hours of their life honing, refining, and practicing their skill.I believe he mentioned Beethoven(might have been Mozart), who was considered a child prodigy in music, but whose father actually forced him to play piano endlessly for years so by the time he was a pre-teen he had actually been playing piano for 10,000 hours.
I highly recommend this book as the only self help book of merit. While I haven't found my true passion in life, I know now there is a very long road to a successful fulfilling career and self fulfillment, where as before I just assumed like many others that prodigies were born with their gifts.

As a Master Trainer for UN, I had over ten thousand hours of exposure to a methodology called andragogy -- teaching of adults. I was so excited to see examples of this methodology being applied in natural setting by people who never studied the methodology. For instance, Robert Greene tell us a story about the efforts that Marcel Proust undertook when he decided to translate John Ruskin's books into French. Proust traveled to locations Ruskin had described in the book - who in the world would think of doing that? Going the "extra mile" is the flavor that andragogy brings to an undertaking. To me the book is great because Greene managed to distill wisdom with a different worldview and reveal this wisdom with poignant examples.

By analyzing "Masters" or Homo Magisters modern or ancient and by debunking the thought process of most decorated thinkers in the history the book gives idea that the wall people placed around such mastery by calling it genius, inborn talent or star alignment is self-demoting.
Author speculates that at your birth the seed is planted. That seed is your uniqueness. It wants to flower to its full potential. It has natural, assertive energy to it. Your life's task is to bring the seed to flower, to express your uniqueness through work.... you will recognize when you find particular field, niche or opportunity that suits you perfectly, because of will spark childlike sense of wonder and excitement, it will feel right - you will learn more quickly and more deeply. One can dig for signs of such inclinations in your earliest years. Look for its traces in visceral reactions to something simple a desire to repeat an activity that is stimulates an unusual degree of curiosity.
All over below I will stipulate main ideas and values the book stands for.
We need Mastery for determining our fate; the passive ironic attitude is not cool or romantic but pathetic or destructive. Just as well-filled day brings blessed sleep so a well employed life brings a blessed death.
But the road to it is no roses it requires high volume of tenacity from person. It says you should not envy those who seem to be naturally gifted it is often a curse as such types rarely value diligence and focus and they pay for this later in life.-Case of Darwin and his cousin Sir Francis Galton. For Masters what offers immediate pleasure comes to seen like a distraction, an empty entertainment to help pass the time. Real pleasure comes from overcoming challenges, feeling confidence in your abilities, gaining fluency in skills and experiencing the power this brings. The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.
Of course on this road confidence is important, but if it is not based on realistic appraisal of who you are it is more grandiosity and smugness. Although one should not be intimidate by lack of academia in subject of interest, as many masters like T.A. Edison developed the habit of overcoming his lack of an organized education by sheer determination and persistence… he as a consummate outsider turned his lack of forma education into advantage.
One have to know also that without social intelligence success is not true mastery and will not last… see what motivates people, discern any possible manipulative tendency. E.g. how Franklin sabotaged himself by refusing to engage in pint of beer party several times a day. Later gaining position inside people’s mind wherever went he assumed the look, the outward morals and the behavior of the culture at hand, so that he could make his way. This required a detached, emotionless approach to people. Remain focused and speak socially through your work. The power to see ourselves through the eyes of others would be of immense benefit to our social intelligence.
To think more flexibly and take a risk we could fail and be ridiculed. Preferring to live with familiar ideas and habits of thinking we pay a steep price for this, our minds goes dead from the lack of challenge and novelty; we become replaceable. You must be like Captain Ahab, obsessed with hunting down the Great White Whale. Think of yourself as an explorer. You cannot find anything new if you are unwilling to leave the shore-the need for certainty is the greatest disease the mind faces.
The feeling that we have endless time to complete our work has insidious and debilitating effect on our minds – for this one must always try to work with deadlines real or manufactured, but hurrying to the end will ensure mediocre result – ostinato rigore (da Vinci) – what must ultimately motivate you is the work itself and the process. As at Y Combinator Paul Graham discovered that what really makes successful entrepreneurs is not the nature of their idea or the university the y went to by their actual character - their willingness to adapt their idea and take advantage of possibilities they had not first imagined. This is precisely the trait – fluidity of mind, other is supreme tenacity.
Allow serendipity to enhance relativism - chance favours only prepared mind - Pasteur. Instead of beginning with some broad goal they go search fact of great yield (Ramachandran). Creativism is not linear its evolutionary – creativism and adaptability are inseparable.
Though still tenacity is regarded as key – to create a meaningful work of art or to make discovery or invention requires great discipline, self – control and emotional stability. The ability to have the intuitive graps of the whole and feel this dynamic (Erwin Rommel, Jane Goodall) is simply a function of time. 10,000 hours alter brains; power is achieved after some 20,000 hours and beyond. “That’s when the utter intuition is developed. Intuitive mind is sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We’ve created a society that honors the servant & has forgotten the gift – A. Einstein
In any competitive environment the person with wider global perspective will inevitably prevail. Look further and think wider should be a motto.

Over the last few months, things haven't been so good for me. From facing difficulties in personal life to troubled professional front, my life had been going through a roller coaster ride. In a way, I was finding it too difficult to control my life and destiny. I was tired of cursing my destiny for every wrong happening in my life and wished to direct it my way. In an attempt of driving my life to the correct path, I encountered this amazing book while surfing the web, named "Mastery" by Robert Greene. I had been following the past creations of the author and thereby instantly ordered by book, for the title and the book preface appealed to my current situation.
Turning over the pages, I discovered some basic fundamentals of life, which empowered me with the potential of guiding my life and destiny. Most importantly, the author has not portrayed any unfeasible and over philosophical ideologies, which cannot be materialized in real life. Supported by relevant examples, Robert Greene has put forward ideologies and fundamentals exercised by eminent personalities of the past. These highly inspirational biographies have boosted my confidence level and filled me with the zeal to mould life in my own way. From Mozart to Charles Darwin, I was touched by the biography of all such famous personalities. The easy to understand and captivating tone of the author made me connect with the central idea and reflect the required changes in my life.
A highly inspiring piece of literature, it is a must read for everyone going through difficult phase of life and others alike. "Mastery" by Robert Greene makes a person stronger and better in self. It fills the reader with positivity and confidence to deal with the intricate problems related to life, by submitting the realities of life.

So this here book is about how certain historical figures figured out how to be geniuses. It takes the old 10,000 hours of concentrated effort and practice and added in what it takes to be driven. It helps guide the reader in noticing when they've hit a brick wall and how to regain your momentum; it gives incite into how to deal with critics; it also looks back into the lives of some of history's most notable Masters to glean some info on what made them great.
My only complaint is that it seemed to go on and on and on and on and on. It rehashes the same information over and over again. And once he's told the same story for the third time he ends the book with yet another set of biographies on the same people.
Not only, but for a book that's supposed to be around 350 pages my Kindle reader said it would take me about 13 hours to read it. Well, it felt like it took twice as long. Was the original book typed in 2 point type?
If the author could just trim the fat this book would be a lot better. It's filled with some great quotes to highlight and has a couple of interesting things that you'll walk away wiht.

Philosophies and real life stories have always inspired me. I love reading biographies and real life tales rather than fictional piece of work. Analyzing the lives of the extraordinary personalities of the past actually fascinates me. Moreover, in my similar quest, I came across this amazing work named "Mastery" by Robert Greene. For those who are inspired by great biographies, Mastery by Robert Greene is a great piece of work to hit at. Citing real life examples, the author extraordinarily explains the secrets of gaining mastery in life. Reading through the book, the reader actually connects with one or the other story from the lives of great persons in history and understands how effective control can be exercised over the various events in life, even in difficult situations. Ranging from Charles Darwin to Mozart and Caesar Rodriguez, there are numerous such examples quoted in the book, empowering the reader with the key to gaining expertise in life and tackling the difficult challenges easily.
The author explains the six basic steps of gaining mastery in life by quoting separate examples for each step. I was extremely contented with the detailed explanation of the entire plan, especially the step which focuses on submitting to reality. The historical examples cited by the author are completely relevant and make the reader connect to them instantly owing to the simple language of the work. The focus of the author on the inner force and power for achieving life's goals influenced me a lot and energized me to the core. The realistic example of Leonardo Da Vinci made me understand the central idea extremely well and made me trace back to my origin and find the true meaning of life. Life is what you make it and how you control it; all you need to know is what your goals are! A must read for everyone!

Written by: Smartbook reviews (if you like my reviews you can follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter)

Book name: Mastery

Author: Robert Greene

Book review

Have you always thought that being a genius was just not in the cards for you? Perhaps that you were just not destined for greatness like the Einsteins, Da Vincis or Mozarts of this world? Well, this book might just make you reconsider these premises.

Robert Greene, the author of this book, is a bestselling author and is known for writing books on strategy, seduction and power.

In this book the author describes the process of becoming a Master in the field of your choosing.
He has studied numerous Masters in different fields to identify common grounds between them and describe a general process through which one can obtain Mastery and become a genius in their field.

This process starts with finding your Life’s Task, which is the ultimate reason for your being on earth.
The author emphasizes that in order to become truly great in your field you should choose an occupation for which you have a profound love and are willing to go the extra mile for. This is extremely important since you won’t be able to put in the effort, hours of work and deal with setbacks, frustration and disappointment without this profound love.

The next phase in the process is to submit yourself to a rigorous apprenticeship in which you learn the ins and outs of your field from a mentor. This mentor should be someone who’s qualities and skills you admire and who is a Master in their field. In the book the author describes the different phases of this apprenticeship stage and also provides the reader with several strategies (applied by Masters themselves) to look for a suitable mentor and complete the ideal apprenticeship.

The following phase is the creative-active phase in which you start to apply the knowledge obtained in the apprenticeship phase, but in a creative manner that suits your personal inclinations. To support this part of the route to Mastery, the author provides the reader with several strategies from Masters themselves through which they actively and creatively applied their knowledge and successfully completed this phase.

The final phase is Mastery. As a Master you will be able to combine rational thinking with a high level of intuition. You will have a fingertip feel for your field. Through the hours spent on a rigorous apprenticeship learning from a mentor and actively and creatively applying your knowledge you will no longer see the individual parts of your field, but have an intuitive feel for the whole. This intuitive feel is qualitatively different from rational thinking, but even more accurate and perceptive. It is the ultimate form of power.

I really loved reading this book, since the author offers a whole new view on the concept of a genius / Master. In our society a genius or Master is often looked at as being reserved for the freaks of nature or the naturally talented ones. Through this book the author discards this view on geniuses as he explains how people like Einstein, Da Vinci or Mozart followed their natural inclination (found their Life’s Task) and actually worked extremely hard at developing their skills. This means that anyone can attain Mastery when they find their Life’s Task, go through the different stages of the Mastery process and are willing to put in the work. Just to be clear, this is not to say that it is easy to become a Master as it will take a huge effort to eventually and up at that level of skill (the author explains that generally at 10.000 hours of practice the human brain changes and at 20.000 hours of practice you will have become a Master given you have followed the process steps and challenged yourself along the way).

I also really liked that the author has applied a scientific approach to writing this book and describing the process to become a Master. Through studying different Masters the author identified common grounds between them and thought of a general process (this is the scientific process of induction). He then tested the validity of this process through comparing it with the life stories of other Masters (this is the scientific process of deduction). In my opinion this leads to a book which not only has great theoretical value (offers an interesting story to read), but can also be applied in a practical manner.

Another aspect of the book that I really liked is the author’s emphasis of the importance of social intelligence. Along the way to become a Master you will inevitably deal with people who are out to sabotage you. You need to develop your social intelligence in order to effectively deal with these people and not let them hinder the process of becoming a Master.

In my opinion the only (potential) downside to this book would be the length. Personally, I love a book that is a bit of a challenge and requires a time investment to read and fully understand, but I can imagine that someone may find it a bit discouraging to read 300 pages. However, I don’t feel like the book should have been shorter since every part of the book has its own purpose within the Mastery process and is efficiently written.

Summarizing, I think that this book offers new insights on the concept of a genius, has practical value, is very well written and should be a must read for anyone who wants to become a Master in their field.

So, the final question is, are you ready to find your Life’s Task and unleash your inner Einstein?

I wish I could be more enthusiastic about Mastery, Robert Greene’s latest offering. I waited for months for the paperback and should have waited longer. The truth is that my expectations were off – had I spent more time with the book before I pulled out my wallet I would have made a better decision about buying.

I was expecting more of a how-to: a book that outlines steps for study and practice for mastery. But the book is more of a collection of sermons. Greene takes a handful of ‘masters’ and dissects their lives to develop ideas for attaining mastery. Like any good sermon the preacher assumes that the choir is on board and there is virtually no argument and less research presented. The book reads very much like Greene began with his ideas and went looking for lives that argued for him.

Not that the book isn’t useful. There is good stuff here but it’s hidden pretty deep within a rather plodding and pedantic prose. For some – for me – there’s a tone of silly business too: Greene leans heavily on discovering ones calling – what you are ‘supposed to do’ with your life. This tacit appeal to destiny and metaphysics just muddies the water in my opinion.

Frankly I wouldn’t recommend the book. There are better books on practice and habit, better books on study, better books on inspiration. Better books, in fact, by Greene. It’s just not his best work.

Mastery is well written, very well written. There are many biographies of persons well known - Einstein, Benjamin Franklin - and unknown - Yoky Matsuoka, Ignaz Semmelweiss - and they are fascinating vignettes. Some of these biographies are continued in later chapters as Greene makes his points and elaborates on them. The insights are fascinating and I can only imagine the research that has gone into this book.

Ignaz Semmelweis, for example, discovered early on that the reason that so many women died during childbirth was because doctors did not wash their hands and thus contaminated their patients. The idea was revolutionary but he had the data to back him up. However, he was inadroit in his human relationships and so alienated powerful figures in the medical establishment that he was fired from several jobs and ignored. William Harvey, on the other hand did come up with an equally revolutionary theory on the circulation of blood. But he charmed his superiors who eventually championed his theory and helped it gain credence and supplant earlier thought. The moral: For Mastery you had better have strong social intelligence.

The entire book is like this. There are stories - sometimes in pairs depicting one person who exemplified the trait being described and therefore succeeded and the other who did not have those qualities and failed because of it.

Good read, great insights.

This book itself, is the work of mastery. I was totally consumed by it, from the beginning all the way to the end.

The author deconstructs the mystery of genius, and shows us the path to achieve what seems impossible. Many people have experienced this sensation of entering into a "zone" when they are doing something challenging, and the task at hand seems easy, as if something of a higher power is directing them. Often times this happens in sports. This is what the author calls Mastery: An intuitive, deep understanding of a field of work achieved by years and years of learning and practicing, overcoming emotions and at times, hardship, that allows one to fulfill one's Life's Task.

A long read, but once you are into it, you can't put it down. I am already looking forward to his other books.

Robert Greene is a brilliant writer. And he is eminently qualified to write about Mastery.

Digging deep into the past Greene brings alive the strategies of Mastery through pertinent
stories of the lives of people like Leonardo de Vinci, Mozart, Buckminster Fuller, Ben
Franklin, Frank Lloyd Wright and on and on.

Greene begins your journey with your path. His approach is most useful because Greene,
unlike most others interested in real life personal development, illustrates what not to
do.

Transformation begins once you are on path. Again, Greene goes where most "feel good"
writers won't go, which is "move toward pain," and master both HOW and WHAT.

Along the way you'll meet the mentor. Greene doesn't go into great detail here and he
probably could have. Nevertheless the significant factors of finding the right mentor
are suitably covered.

His advice about interactions with other humans is excellent. He bluntly deals with
overcoming the normal humans laziness and need to conform.

Once that is met, creativity and creation are covered in dramatic detail.
This was perhaps the most enjoyable part of the book for me.

In sum, this book is every bit as good as 48 or 33.

If you liked his previous work then you'll find Mastery a historical and contextualized
textbook for accomplishing just that.

Each of us has a passion. For a variety of reasons within and outside our control, very few of us pursue our respective passions to the point of achieving mastery over them. Author Robert Greene's great new book, "Mastery," can't help us defeat objective limitations truly beyond our control that prevent us from mastering those passions. Barring such limitations, however, "Mastery" is brilliant. It's nothing short of a concise, elegantly written, well-researched and deeply inspirational guide to assess, confront and overpower any other obstacles (whether internal or external) standing between us and approaching, if not achieving, mastery of a pursuit core to our particular natures and desires.

Other reviewers here and elsewhere note that from time to time "Mastery" is repetitive. That's true. Then again, so too is the path to mastery one of repeating meaningful thoughts and actions over and again until the objective is within reach. In that sense, the book practices what it preaches, and encourages its readers to do so as they absorb Greene's instruction and commentary.

I'm one of Robert Greene's big fans -- I consider his book "The 48 Laws of Power" (2000) one of the most important and enjoyable I've ever read. "Mastery" is a worthy, and in many ways essential, companion to "The 48 Laws of Power."

I am a big fan of Robert Greene's other books, "the 48 laws of power," "Seduction," "War," but while "Mastery" was a good book, I think it fell short of his other works. Don't get me wrong, this is a very good book worth reading because you will gain some insight here. I just felt it became a bit repetitive at times. Maybe he was being repetitive to reinforce the fact that attaining mastery requires repetition?

I love the layout of the book because it is small chapters on a topic with dozens of notes and stories in the borders of the page. It works out great for me because I would read a page or two, put it down and come back to it later, which gave me time to let each idea or thought sink in and gave me time to analyze them thoroughly. I normally go through a book in a day or two, this one took me almost 3 months to read fully. But I think I got a lot more out of it that way.

The author breaks up mastery into a few stages, apprenticeship, a creative-active level, and then mastery. He further breaks down each level in strategies and modes. Mastery will not come easily, it takes self discipline and perseverance, but it is achievable. He also talks about something more important, making sure you are trying to gain mastery in the correct area or field. Life could suck if you gain mastery and then realize it is something you hate to do. Pick the right area.

This book can help at many levels. There is mastery of a career or maybe just mastery of a hobby or sport. I used a number of the things I have learned in this book and others and applied it to a hobby of mine, competitive shooting. I shot for many years achieving a level of just being average. Then I found an acquaintance at a party who talked about competitive shooting. He invited me to go shoot with him one day. I realized that while I was learning at my own trial and error pace it could take me decades to get to his level on my own, or I could see this person as a mentor and knock years off my learning curve. Since I started training with my friend I have already won two matches in my classification. I have improved on every level imaginable in this sport and the more I learn, the more I realize there is to learn. But getting back to the book, I am focusing on some thoughts the author laid out about mastering the basics through effort and practice before trying to move up a level with incomplete or inferior skills. While I have yet to gain what I consider mastery in this sport, I know for a fact that I am well on my way and will achieve it quicker than if I did not follow the guidance of this book.

I have read before The “48 Laws of Power” and this is my second book from Robert Greene. I have also watched some of his speeches on internet. I like his style of putting a lot of effort in using real examples from history in his books. He talks about the great masters like Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe, Mozart… and also mentions some contemporary masters like Paul Graham, Temple Grandin…in this book.

Greene puts Mastery in a 6 step process:

1. Find your gift/calling
2. Learn through apprenticeship
3. Have a master – mentor
4. Develop “Social intelligence”
5. Find another perspective/creative methods
6. Fuse the intuitive with the rational :Mastery

When you read this book, you feel like we can all be masters once we find our calling and do the next steps which I don’t think is realistic. But if the calling is easy enough may be :)

What I didn’t like is there were too many repetitions in examples.

I'm a big fan of Robert Graham's books "the 48 Laws of Power" and "the Art of Seduction", and "Mastery" is a perfect continuation of his lessons in living a more complete life.

For those unfamiliar, Graham presents his guidelines for improving your life in many different ways, and illustrates those guidelines with historical examples.

In "Mastery," Graham seeks to explain what makes an individual a master of a particular field, and how the reader can follow the path to making him/herself a master.

Graham breaks the development up into discreet sections, based on learning what you are truly interested in pursuing, gathering knowledge and competence in that field, and then using that knowledge and competence in ways which reflect your inclinations. Each of these sections is further broken down into various methods that historically significant figures have used to achieve the partiular goal Graham is discussing.

This is a wonderful book, and I encourage it for anyone. I wish I had had it about the time I was starting college, but it's no less useful and interesting to me today.

Such a powerful book on finding your life's purpose and developing a path to mastery. This was the first time I got an interesting view on life's task or vocation. I have to admit that I used to related the historical figures mentioned in the book - Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Leonardo da Vinci, Paul Graham and 8 others as sheer geniuses or privileged. After learning about their journeys especially during the apprentice phase, I have a very positive outlook on my own life. The anecdotes were inspiring - focussed on both highs and lows of the masters lives. People might find some text repetitive, but I see that as an advantage to re-visit key points which the authors wants us to know. The first 2 chapters blew my mind and Robert Greene's use of words kept me enthralled till the end. I listened to Audible version multiple times - will get a paperback version too. This is a treasure, grab a copy today.

I got this book a few months ago for my birthday and it is in the top 5 most inspiring books I have ever read.

I can relate to almost everything in this book to my life both past and present and that means one of two things: I am destined to be a master or Greene is an absolute genius of a writer. Although I want to believe the former, I am leaning towards the latter and I secretly hope both are true.

Mastery is so loaded with excellent and relevant information that I limit myself to a few pages at a time so that I can digest and assimilate the goodness. This is one of those books that you read and you know that when you reread this is 5 or 10 years it will have a completely different meaning.

The most helpful insight I have come across thus far is what Greene refs to as "the naiive perspective". The mistake of projecting ideals onto others rather than accepting everyone for who they are.

Mastery is not all ooey gooey self-help material about following your passion. Greene clearly illustrates that the path to Mastery is about overcoming hardships and misunderstandings, it's about years of deliberate practice, it's about being weird and embracing that weirdness to reach deep into ourselves an unleash our creativity on the world.

If you struggle by any means with complacency this book can do wonders to motivate you to stop at nothing less than excellence in what you do. I read it anytime I need to be inspired.

I started off liking what I was reading until it started to repeat itself,over and over again. The book summarizes what is already pretty clear. Involve yourself deeply in your "subject"and learn from someone who knows more than you. What really got to me in the end what how mean and manipulative Greene suggests we have to be to gain (his version of ) "power". His worldview may be correct in that people climb to "success" by manipulation, lying (telling people anything) to get your own way and generally throwing any morals you may have to the wind to get what you want but that's not a world I believe we want anymore. Some of the stories on famous people from the past can only have been fabricated to fit Greene's ideas: Goethe thought this, Edison decided this for this reason. How do we really know? That is just manipulating history to suit your own way of thinking. Still many people see to like his many books on essentially, getting your own way.

This book as well as the book of the 48 Laws of Power , The Art of Seduction and The 33 Strategies of War belongs to the library of any person that is in business.

Mastery is a grimoire for the attainment of mastery in any field. If you are on your way to attain mastery in any field this book is for you. If you are mentoring someone or are raising kids, this book is for you! Simply stated, the book is a blueprint toward the attainment of mastery in any endeavor.

Mr. Greene is one of those authors that always surprise his readers with books packed with so much knowledge that is beyond comprehension. You may read his books today and in six months or a year you will be searching his books for reference or as a refresher for a specific application.

This book belongs in the personal library of anyone who is an achiever or is looking to be one.

One of the strongest ideas in the book is that it takes about 10000 hours to attain Mastery in a subject. Malcolm Gladwell
has been cited as an originator of this idea but the idea has been suggested by Brian Tracy for many years before Gladwell's
"Outliers" posited the idea. (others as well I am sure but Brian Tracy has suggested it for a very long time)

The idea of 10000 hours may seem daunting on the surface but working 40 to 50 hours in a vocation would put one at mastery in just
a few short years. I realize it is not that simple but I do believe it is accessible to most people who would aspire
to this level in any undertaking.

"Mastery" includes many great stories and case studies rather than just theory which greatly enhances the text and the readers
understanding of "Mastery" and the often painstaking road to achieve it.

A great read by a great author. High praise for "Mastery" and Robert Greene.

Greene's Mastery is filled with gems. For example, he related that Leonardo Da Vinci once said, "One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself."

For writers:

Robert Greene wrote in Mastery that, "A character in a novel will come to life for the reader if the writer has put great effort into imagining the details of that character. [However] The writer does not need to literally lay out these details; readers will feel it in the work and will intuit the level of research that went into the creation of it."

Consequently, according to Greene's Mastery, the level of effort, emotion, and intensity that a writer puts into his writing will be projected to the reader. Therefore, one can project his mindset even when not in the presence of others through his creations (e.g. poetry, art, etc.).

[...]

Da Vinci is referenced often in Greene's fifth book, along with other masters like Charles Darwin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Marie Curie, Henry Ford, and Zora Neale Hurston. The author's goal to discover the commonalities found in history's great masters and map those principles for the rest of us. Ultimately, with the right mode of thinking, working, and living, mastery is inevitable, Greene contends.

This is the second time I've read it {on account that I didn't take notes the first time} and I've learned to appreciate several of the core principles more deeply. One in particular involves Greene's observation that all great masters are incredibly failure-prone. That is, they seek out situations in which they're supposed to fail. They're seeking to test their weaknesses.

They are a long-time apprentice to others, whether it's Verocchio for da Vinci, their father for Mozart, or a team of professors for Marie Curie. They lean in to the red-ink.

But more importantly, all masters are life-long apprentices to reality. Greene writes "You are not tied to a particular position; your loyalty is not to a career or a company. You are committed to your Life's Task." It's one thing to memorize facts. It's another thing to see them. And even harder to act accordingly.

{Read along with me at [...]

I have had Robert Greene's other books on my wishlist, for years. I always say I'm going to read them, but never got around to it. When this book popped up on the Vine's Newsletter, I had to take a chance on it. I am glad that I did!

It is an instructional guide to achieving mastery in any field. The author uses biographies of some influential people in history, and by telling their stories, their struggles, triumphs and "supposedly shortcomings" he gives the readers advice on how to overcome. How to find your Life's Task".

Since I love history anyway, the biographies are very interesting and the best part of the book. I think this is a wonderful book, and wish I would have read the others
before this one, but thankfully (as his avid followers tell me) I didn't have to read the others before this one, and they say those are even better and easier to read so I must get to work!

This is indeed a masterful book. In a self-help genre littered with lightweight booklets ranging from quotes to babble to magical thinking this is the real deal. It's not how to tidy your house or win at baseball. And it's not (another) review of the (compelling) 10,000 hour psychology of expertise field. Rather, this is a well-rounded well-writen review of obtaining the deep learning that results in mastery. The examples given are interesting and informative, not superficial or cherry-picked pocket bios. Overall it's an intelligent balanced mix of inspiration, information, and advice on the path. Highly recommended for folks willing to play the long game in gaining mastery of (whatever) which of course will require mastery over self.

I love Robert Greene. Aside from his fascinating portraits of actual people that you probably would not hear about anywhere else, he really provides succinct lessons on each of his elements of mastery, power, seduction and war. While I don't always agree with some of his rules, especially the power ones, I am still captivated because there are people who live by this book and when you know how they operate, you know how to work around them and still get what you want.

This book, though, skips all the unsavory "laws" of living and just shows you how to live your BEST. I can't recommend all of his books highly enough but this one shines because it's all about fulfilling your own purpose in this world and applying your best to being your best. This book is perfect for anyone and everyone should read it.

Like some of you, I come to Mastery as a fan of Greene's earlier works -- The 48 Laws of Power and The 33 Strategies of War. Mastery differs from those two in density. I found myself getting lost in the multitude of detail (not to mention the red margin text) and sheer volume of words in Laws and Strategies. Mastery somehow manages to impart as much, if not more, information in more readable, digestible chunks. I found Mastery has a narrative flow the other two equally brilliant books lacked.

Greene presents the stories of masters both old and new to give readers a look into the journey of great men and women. Benjamin Franklin, Mozart, and John Keats are studied. But so are contemporary masters like Paul Graham, Caesar Rodriguez, and Yoky Matsuoka. Instead of relying on stale examples and lazy writing, Greene once again presents fascinating examples from throughout history that hint at the author's great erudition. We are lucky enough to be privy to his wide reading!

The best compliment I can give a book is to say I skipped dinner to read it. That's what I did with Mastery. Supper came and went and I was still reading. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Overall, I think this is an excellent book for people looking for inspiration on how to stand out as masters in the market place.

However, one thing I find awkward is that the author who seems to base his key thoughts on the Darwin theory of evolution begins to talk about purpose. Where does purpose and destiny come from if our existence is contained within the ideas of Darwin?

According to Greene, "You must also maintain a sense of destiny, and feel continuously connected to it. You are unique, and there is a purpose to your uniqueness. You must see every setback, failure, or hardship as a trial along the way, as seeds that are being planted for further cultivation, if you know bow to grow them. No moment is wasted if you pay attention and learn the lessons contained in every experience. By constantly applying yourself to the subject that suits your inclinations and attacking it from many different angles, you are simply enriching the ground for these seeds to take root". Robert Greene (Mastery, page 261) .

In all, it was a great read.

Chidi Jacob
Christian Career, Business, and Relationship Development Trainer/Coach
Founder, [...]

I have so much respect for Robert Greene.

His writing style is out of this world outstanding. A book simply can not give one the diligence it takes to achieve greatness. BUT, the book tell stories of the masters who took years of practice and apprenticeship to rich their fullest potential. Which makes it very inspiring and insightful. I have to say it feels like I'm reading a book written by the god of people. He has a tremendous understanding of psychology. His writing style again is so intensely perfected, that he himself is a master.

I bought the audio version of MASTERY and it is superb. I'm about 1/3 of the way through. I do not understand the bad reviews for this book. It is brilliant and I have to think that anyone who gives it a bad review has completely missed the point it makes. Greene is a master himself and shares his knowledge and wisdom about the path to mastery. I also recommend THE SOUL'S CODE by James Hillman.

An excellent and insightful read for anyone wanting to understand how to become great.

My complaint, as one who has written a book about starting a law firm called Make It Your Own Law Firm: The Ultimate Law Student's Guide to Owning, Managing, and Marketing Your Own Successful Law Firm; is this book's repetitive nature. I suspect the extra content was made to fill pages rather than to deepen the reader's understanding of the subject. It took far longer to read Mastery; because it would hash, than rehash information that had already been provided. For this reason I am giving it 4 instead of 5 stars.

What is the process of moving from an interest in a topic to becoming an apprentice to gaining mastery over it? Robert Greene has written a fascinating, well-crafted how-to book. You will learn the inside stories of Buckminister Fuller, Wolfgang Mozart, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Darwin and many others. This book combines stories of actual people who have mastered an area with practical how-to tips for every listener. How do you find the calling in your heart and follow it to become a master? How do you find a mentor where you can apprentice and learn the skill? These questions and many others are answered in this book.

I love the practical information and ideas in MASTERY which are richly illustrated with detailed stories from well-known people. The result is a book well-worth hearing.

MASTERY is a highly recommended audiobook. I heard the book cover to cover.

W. Terry Whalin is an editor and the author of more than 60 books including his latest Billy Graham: A Biography of America's Greatest Evangelist

I haven't read any of Robert Greene's other books yet, as I probably will given how much I enjoyed Mastery, but the closest thing that I could compare it to is Macolm Gladwell's Outliers. They both offer case studies of great men or women and showcase how that greatness was attained. Mastery offers more of a formula on how you can achieve mastery whereas Gladwell's main point was the 10,000 hour rule, that you need to spend at least 10,000 hours devoted to your chosen craft, and also luck plays a role. For instance, in Hockey, if you are born within a certain window you will be at your maximum age and thus at an advantage against the younger kids during the hockey season. 

Greene's formula involves getting a mentor and serving an apprenticeship, but he also offers counter examples, the exceptions that prove the rule, as it were. For instance, inventor Thomas Edison was forced to become an autodidact and that served him well as an inventor who pioneered new concepts and inventions, unconstrained by conventional wisdom. 

Another rule with an exception was that you should define your niche and then focus on it with laser-like intensity, but one of his best examples was Benjamin Franklin, a polymath, Renaissance, man for all seasons, if ever there was one. I really enjoyed one of Benjamin's earliest and most important lessons: That you approach people as they are, not trying to change human nature, but without being naive or cynical. No wonder Franklin is on the $100--it's all about the Benjamins.

Now that I reflect back on Mastery, I find that these rules are rife with exceptions. For instance, virtuoso pianist Glenn Gould studied with a mentor but he transfigured his ideas, in order to absorb his mentor's influence without losing his own identity and originality.

In summary, Robert Greene's Mastery is a worthwhile book for anyone wishing to attain Excellence in their lives. The road may be difficult, but with determination and this book as a map, the goal is attainable. 

Robert Greene has put out tremendously useful information, all in an entertaining way. With Mastery, he goes above and beyond his usual standards. Here, he attempts--and successfully, I think--to dissect what it takes to achieve the eponymous title. He does this by a common-sense method: studying the lives of past (and present) masters to find what trait or combination of traits that made them what they are. Even the most casual reader can tell a Cyclopian amount of research went into creating this work and all of it immediately applicable. If I could give this more than five stars, I would; a first class book.

The collection of cherry-picked anecdotes in "Mastery" support an ambitious yet slippery thesis. I'm not sure how to sum it up because the author is so very sure of the correctness of his own thinking. The reviewer with more vested interest in challenging Greene will argue against his points better than I will.

The problem I see with that is that the territory "Mastery" covers is so vast, the author's certainty of his thesis makes one question large parts of it and how he arrived at his conclusions. Since he admits no weaknesses in his ideas, it is up to us to discover them. A common issue with a sweeping thesis is that the way the world is perceived often has to be bent to fit it. The ideas here aren't dangerous (unlike, say, "Mein Kampf") however.

I wonder what makes Greene such an authority. Greene makes no claims for his own mastery, even when it would bolster his thesis. We learn that he considers mentoring very important but never mentions anything about his own experience with mentoring, yet he tells us how to go about getting and giving it.

As an artisan myself I appreciate Greene's idea that working in manual arts develops the mind in useful ways. Ditto for playing a musical instrument that uses your fingers to select notes.

Unlike, say, Steven Covey, the author never shares anything of himself. The exploration of mastery seems academic and remote and I think that the author's exclusion of his own experiences have a great deal to do with this. I won't bring up Ayn Rand except to say that I suspect the author is a fan and may be catering to people who embrace objectivism with this book.

The book is entertaining and verbose and at times the tone is of a professor lecturing us in the way things truly are and how to deal with people as they are - generally selfish, full of self-importance, and prone to envy. I don't entirely disagree with this sort of psychological model but those with a more "positive thinking" (or, um... polllyanna-ish ) point-of-view may find the author's pedantry repugnant.

Stories of successful masters and their struggles towards mastery engage and serve to balance the author's pedagogic tendencies.

The author's conclusions are agreeable, but I'm not invested enough in the intellectual process of finding fault here. Since the author presents his ideas with such resolve, there's not much to chew on at the end - either you agree or you don't.

I do believe that talent is often a myth - that people who are perceived as very talented are most often just intensely interested and devoted to their field of excellence. Bodies vary of course: the concert pianist with enormous hands may find some challenging pieces easier than a smaller-handed individual, but the 1000s of hours of practice in youth are mandatory to both. Greene pretty much comes down on the side of the idea that if you are fanatical and excpetionally hard-working in just about any field, you should be able to attain a level in that field that would put you on a world class. Personally, I'm interested in too many subjects to be likely to achieve global acclaim in any of them, but the path towards mastery has its own rewards even if not taken to the highest level.

In the last couple of pages Greene introduces a whole new concept to his thesis: the "false self". Like many of the author's ideas here the existence of the "false self" is introduced with confidence, but not supported. To me the idea of a "false self" is not new as I've read about such ideas before, but the author seems to be making up his own definition.

Is Mastery only for a chosen few or is it for anyone with a sense of purpose, unwavering tenacity, persistence, patience and focus?
In his book Mastery, Robert Greene makes a case for the latter by going to great lengths into the lives of world renowned masters like
Leonardo Davinci,Michael Faraday, Mozart, Edison and some contemporaries like Paul Graham, Michael Roche etc.

The book makes a compelling reading as it thoroughly explores the thought process of the Masters living and dead. Mr. Greene urges his readers to develop patience, attention to detail,and pursue the path to mastery with a sense of purpose and urgency. He argues that attaining mastery is not easy and can take years of hard work but is worthwhile as the world needs masters to show the way. Applying the principles that Mr.Greene discussed in the book will point us in the right direction and may even take us a long away in our pursuit of mastery.

However, even after reading the entire book, the book failed to convince me that mastery is for anyone willing to pay the price. I still feel that true mastery is only for a chosen few.

When you first look at the cover of Robert Greene's Mastery you could be fooled into thinking that it is just another `how to succeed' self help book, however you would be greatly mistaken.
I particularly like the straightforward layout of the book and the clear chapters. In each section the `goals' relating to reaching a level of mastery are explained and relevant examples are given in the form of biographical summaries from history and the modern day. Greene believes that `at the root of their story is a simple process that leads to mastery- one that is accessible to all of us'
Greene states that success can be outlined in 6 steps:
1. The life task - An inner force that guides us to what we want, a passion or interest.
2. The ideal apprenticeship - We must follow the right path to gain the correct knowledge for our specific interests
3. The mentor dynamic - We must find the correct mentor to teach us the relevant skills
4. Social intelligence - We need to understand our social environment in order to focus on the correct skills for our area of expertise.
5. The creative - To expand our knowledge we must use our creative powers and skills
6. Mastery -We must become exceptional by using these steps.
Freddie Roach is the perfect example of the mentor and progeny relationship. Roach believed that the problem when training a boxer was that their egos often got in the way of knowledge. Boxers would often seem like they had learnt all the necessary skills in training but as soon as they entered the ring they would slip back into their old ways. However when Roach met Pacquiao he realised that this was a boxer who was willing to learn. Roach discovered that the relationship between teacher and pupil is vital in being a good mentor. To teach you must have someone who is willing to learn and if you are teachable then you will receive the best and most effective teaching.
I also found the page on Henry Ford particularly interesting as I had not realised quite how hard he struggled before he became a worldwide name. As Greene says `mistakes and failures are your primary means of education. They permit you to see the flaws of your ideas'. For Ford the motor industry was a competitive market but he was determined to deliver something that others could not. At first he failed by trying to meet too many consumer needs however once he had realised what needed to be changed, he altered his approach. By working out what his target audience wanted he succeeded in creating some of the most famous automobiles in history.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and believe it is a very believable and interesting way to improve your idea of self worth and I believe it may encourage more people to follow their hearts in the fields that interest them.

Every life is shaped by decisions - do I study for my Math test, or go out with my friends? Do I major in Science, or focus my dreams on my art? Do I try for promotion, or stay where I am? While, on the surface, the answers may seem obvious, in life nothing is really that simple and only you can know what is ultimately right for you. Finding that knowledge can be difficult, however. In Mastery, the inspiring new book by the best-selling author of The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene helps readers to acquire the tools they need to take their chosen path through life and master the art of self-discovery.

Using the examples of some of the world's great motivators and achievers, from the humble beginnings of Benjamin Franklin to the meteoric climb of Freddie Roach, Greene shows that it is the decisions we make in the here and now that can shape our present and our future, while illustrating that the past needn't dog us and prevent us from being all that we might wish.

Understanding how easy it can be in modern life for our minds to `... become absorbed in endless political intrigues and battles', both at work and in the home, Robert Greene details simple steps that anyone can use to free themselves from destructive external influences. Instead, by identifying your Life's Task, constantly learning and embarking on an Ideal Apprenticeship, we can all `win power and achieve mastery'.

This is a rousing work of reason, incentive and purpose, offering us all a spur to take the driving seat on our journey through life, but also providing a map should we get lost along the way.

`The path to power is surprisingly simple...' you just need to know where to begin.

Very much like some other books of Robert Green that I have read (48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction), Mastery is of enormous pleasure to read, with highly organized and fascinating historical personalities, accounts, examples, references, stories and anecdotes, mixed with a high density of stylized explanation, reasoning, practical knowledge, personal insights and strategies to absorb. It is indeed life-changing, and very much worth passing to your next generation.

The writing is strong, skillful, to-the-point and in all just extraordinary. Mr Greene can really build momentum with his writing, accelerate readers' thoughts, taking you smoothly around hard corners, weave a web of interconnected ideas with perfect reasoning, and get the to finish line with ruthless accuracy and amazing style. No sentence is meaningless, no punctuation is wasted, and every word serves a purpose.

It is indeed the Formula 1 Grand Prix for the mind. It is the self expression of Mastery itself. If you really enjoy the style of his writing, many other nonfiction books will begin to taste plain, and feel like a lengthy, sleepy and bumpy bus ride with a tad too many stops and detours. If you are looking for a rather rigorous, methodological, loving and gentle guidance, well, this isn't it either - like explained in the book, there is no shortcuts, no fixed ways you can blindly follow, you always need to admit to discipline, take a step back and observe and analyze yourself in the microscope with the most harsh and critical perspective, along the way also open up your dimensional mind, immerse yourself in others, and be ready to (re)discover the world, the players in it, and yourself, with a more human heart.

Reversal:
In comparison, I didn't feel while reading it as much "adrenaline rush" as when reading 48 Laws of Power. The literal high-density (word counts per page) of provocative thoughts welded in the 48 Laws was simply epic. However, achieving mastery does seem to require a much quieter and more tranquil mind.

While "Mastery" may not be as dear to my heart as The Art of Seduction or the 48 Laws of Power, this book has very applicable knowledge to offer.

The concept I enjoyed most was the aspect of the apprenticeship and learning a great deal through training and experience. I take this message into various aspects of my life and it has done well for me.

As usual, Robert Greene cites very interesting anecdotal evidence to support his theories and they never cease to amaze me. Great book again, Mr. Greene.

Despite being too long, using the same biographical examples over and over, and preaching Darwinism like a new convert, this book challenged me to consider my God-given Calling; and to get focused on it. It persuasively laid out the necessity of perseverance and hard work to become a master at anything.

It also sought to inspire by reassuring that everyone can be a master if they will follow the "proven" road to mastery. I don't know that he proved his thesis, but it did inspire me to focus and settle in for the long haul.

One thing that I thought was interesting, because the author seemed blind to it, was the contradiction between Darwinism and the idea of purpose, or as he calls it the Life Task of each individual. Really, if life is a product of random, non-intelligent chance, then it can't have an overall purpose. The author assumes both of these contradictory ideas throughout the book without ever even acknowledging the problem. Overall, he spent way too much time telling the "just so" story of Darwinism. It had nothing to do with the subject, but it kept coming up over and over and over and over and over ....

Interesting book, but by the end of it, I wanted it to end.

Robert Greene's "48 Laws of Power" is and has been one of my very favourite books of all time. His subsequent volumes of "The Art of Seduction", "The 33 Strategies of War" and "The 50th Law", written with rap artist, 50 Cent, also have honoured places on my shelves. Robert Greene's "Mastery" is a book where the can sense the author put so much of himself into it. The passion for his subject matter of what awakens the latent genius or the Mastery that any of us can potentially achieve comes across the page in the retelling of the lives and accomplishments of artists, scientists and statesmen that Greene himself has long admired. Through the recounting of these life stories, which are far less vignette-like those within 48 Laws of Power, there is an analytical depth. What was it, exactly, that caused Champollion, Benjamin Franklin and others to rise above their peers in terms of genius? Greene's work expounds on the idea that genius doesn't just happen, that it is the result of hard, focused work that is so conspicuously missing from much of today's society. Rather than mastering one's work, the things that one is passionate about, people in general want a quick fix. Perhaps this is the byproduct of living in a digital world, where everything happens instantaneously or nearly so.

I absolutely loved this book and found myself going through it with a highlighter pen and highlighting huge swaths of passages within its pages. "Mastery" seems to expound on Greene's last book, "The 50th Law", co-written with 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson)the idea that mere luck or wealth has less to do with success, or Mastery as does following that still small voice within that ultimately knows what to do and to follow it without fear. The key to finding that lies deep within absolutely every one of us. While those who would say that following one's heart and talents is really about being selfish, Greene underscores why the ultimate selfishness is to just consume without creating. Not following that inborn creative spark leads ultimately to being alienated with yourself and the untold pain, suffering and despair of that not following your Life's Task cannot be over emphasized. The ultimate selfishness and waste is not following that inner inclination and mastering that which truly drives us.

Let me start off by saying that I'm a Greene fan, and I own all of his other books and have read them multiple times. This makes me bias towards giving him a good review, but it also sets the bar very high.

This has much of the familiar writing style Greene fans have come to love. It goes over historical examples of masters, and distills the lessons to be taken away from them. I particularly like how he takes people and events and puts an interesting take on them--such as painting Franklin as a rational patriot who would do anything to help his country, and not simply a pleasure-seeker gone wild in France; in other books he said Lincoln always wanted to free the slaves but could not say it, it's not what we learned in history class but it makes more sense. He also uses what has become my favorite phrase of his: "Better to...." When I hear these words I get nostalgic and brace for a brilliant observation I can't help but agree with and wonder why I didn't think of it myself.

But where this book really shines is, of course, his example-stories. This is his classic style, he tells--or rather shows--you how the lessons he is giving work in the real world, and he does it with clarity and precision. However, where this book fails is in the analysis that precedes and follows these stories. In his past works, these conclusions were concise and accented the examples, here they dominate and bury them.

This book seems to be larger than the others, why does he spend so many pages theory-crafting about the examples he just gave? The stories are a much more powerful means to get his point across, without needing lecturing. His other works feel like a pleasant conversation where I patiently listen to his stories and brief analysis. This, on the other hand, sometimes reads like a textbook which makes me want to put it down, which is not something his books have ever done before. I don't mind the cross-references or the bit of neurology here and there, but what I can't stand is any more than two pages of analysis to conclude an already lengthy example. Worse, much of these conclusions are redundant! Sometimes he will say something, then a few paragraphs later he will say it again in different words and possibly in the negative.

The stories are like the cake, they [should] make up the bulk of the text, and get the obvious points across. The analysis and explanation should be the frosting on the cake, to connect the dots and narrate the examples. But, like too much frosting on a cake, these meandering and repetitive analyses have broken the delicate balance his other books have perfected.

In sum, the book is a good read, but it is not as easy or fluid as his others. The author exposes himself too much by over-explaining his examples, especially since there are no more colorful side-anecdotes to break up the text, which I miss dearly. Perhaps I shall update this later after I have time to re-read and reflect...

I found this book to be a total dud. A loosely structured collection of stories that I found very difficult to stay interested in reading. I'm really surprised the reviews are so high and I'm struggling to understand the phenomenon.

Fans of Robert Greene won't be disappointed when they read Mastery. Greene follows the same basic outline of his previous books, including The 48 Laws of Power , giving readers the benefit of years of research and sharing multiple interviews and historical data derived from studying several notable masters. Readers will enjoy Greene's strategic view of how to obtain ultimate power and intelligence using examples of how past masters used six key principles to discover and develop their own life tasks. Greene weaves historical anecdotes throughout the book as he explains the six keys to achieving power by becoming master of one own's life. The path to achieving each key is masterfully crafted in a way that takes each concept from its complexity into easy to understand steps so that the reader will come away from the book with a clear understanding of how to achieve his or her own life goals.

Anyone interested in reading historical biographies will really like Mastery, because it contains some well-known masters throughout ancient and contemporary history such as Charles Darwin, Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, Paul Graham, Temple Grandin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Marcel Proust, and Freddie Roach.

The six keys are easy to comprehend because Greene gives a detailed explanation of each key including relevant historical examples of how other masters took action as well as strategies for readers to achieve each key and how to move to the next key successfully. The six keys include:
* How to discover your calling: the life's task
* How to submit to reality: the ideal apprenticeship
* How to absorb the master's power: the mentor dynamic
* How to see people, as they really are: developing your social intelligence
* How to awaken the dimensional mind: creative-active
* How to fuse the intuitive with the rational and becoming a true master

Mastery is a book well worth reading if you have ever wondered what historical figures did to become well known and famous and how to apply those same tasks to your own life so that you too can gain power, and influence others in the same manner that all great masters have done throughout the history of the world. This is not light reading but a book that will inspire you, and is a resource for exploring your own life tasks and goals.

This book is also on my top-ten list of best non-fiction books of all time and will remain there until I write at least nine more reviews as I have only have one other book, also by Robert Greene, on my top-ten list!

I like Robert Greene's body of work because, among other things, he is a highly literate and widely read storyteller and this book is no exception. It's full of facts and anecdotes about people who attained mastery and great power in their chosen fields and lines of work. Robert Greene has identified the patterns and the commonalities among thosse who have become Masters in a wide variety of fields and this is what makes the book compeling reading. In short, Mastery is something potentially within each of us. It's not something some are born with and others without. Rather, it's chosen and there is a process by which one becomes a Master.

Highly recommended.

Mark Henry Saft

This book has much to say about the learning process and the nature of creativity itself. The book contains lots of theory and many eloquent and powerful pep talks, guided by shining examples in the form of biographical sketches of many outstanding people. including Mozart, Einstein, Temple Grandin, da Vinci, the seafaring Carolinian Islanders, and many more. These people's stories
recur throughout the book, more riveting each time. The author has a knack for explaining things that are hard to put into words: for example, the idea of "fingertip feel" as both a stage and ideal of the learning process. I found myself marking page after page for continued study and practice.

Two possible cons need mentioning: there is a lot of material to wade through here. Sometimes the tone is a little stilted and could come across to some as rigid. At other times, it is very much the opposite. At times the writing seems to stop moving forward: elsewhere (later in the book) I found myself racing on, marker in hand. Also, what I construed as peptalks may come across to some as pompous or even preachy. There is quite a lot of "Understand: you must..." Once I got used to this, I found it invigorating; perhaps some would disagree.

We are so fortunate to live at a time when so much fascinating work is being done on the subjects of learning and creating. The beauty of the material in this book is that it is so profoundly practical and immediately useful. I look forward to revisiting the marked parts of the book and experimenting with these ideas.

First book I read from Robert Greene. This book reminded me of my basic knowledge, but took it to a deeper level. I had a lot of "aha moments" during this read. I think its especially good for people out there who feels pressured to follow their parents paths.

Small points i did not like:
I love the mini-stories, however, I think Greene is being a little manipulative when he tells us what Henry Ford and Benjamin Franklin were thinking at different points in their careers just to validate his philosophy.
I did not like the social intelligence too much. By taking that chapter to heart you will have to spend all your time being suspicious by other peoples presence.
Table of content is a little messy.

Anyhow, this was a highly inspirational and motivating read. By following his formula I believe you will have a happier and more meaningful life. I would recommend this to all my friends and family. As soon as my future son/daughter turns 13, they will have to read this book to get nice Christmas presents.

I chose this book because as a professional who has (ahem) been around a while I wanted to get past the books devoted to those just determining their path and move toward refining the path. This book does not disappoint! No matter what the goal or stage in life this is a very enlightening book filled with often surprising biographical notes that back up the concepts presented. Honest, real world and packed with statements such as the following (many that we instinctively realize but are expertly expressed by the author) as we revisit a deeper level of the concept of mentor, apprentice, and social intelligence.

"In any event, you will probably have several mentors in your life , like stepping stones along the way to mastery. At each phase of life you must find the appropriate teachers, getting what you want out of them, moving on, and feeling no shame for this. It is the path your own mentor probably took and it is the way of the world."

Mastery expands on some of Greene's previous books such as 48 laws of power and 33 strategies of war. In this book Greene shows how his theories can be applied to the success of both historical and contemporary powerful figures. What I found particularly interesting when reading Mastery is the balance between extremely famous figures such as Einstein and Darwin and lesser known individuals. Unlike many self help books, these mini biographies make the book both instructive and interesting to read.
One successful figure who is mentioned in Mastery is Cesar Rodriguez, someone who I was not familiar with until reading Greene's book. After joining the US Air Force training program Rodriguez realised that flying did not come naturally to him. He had to use his mathematical skills and hours of practice to achieve his goals, and was finally accepted to become a fighter pilot. He soon realised however that to become a great pilot he not only needed practical skills but he also needed to become more aware of his overall part in the campaign. By practising the flying skills to the point where he no longer had to think about them he was able to concentrate on other aspects of air combat, a skill that other `golden boys' had not mastered.
All of Rodriguez's skills were put to the test during Operation Desert Storm when he undertook an evasive manoeuvre based on the hostile situation they were in. Rodriguez recalls that he cannot remember anything about what he did while flying that day, it had been completely intuitive. For Greene this is explained because `in our daily, conscious activity we generally experience a separation between the mind and the body' however `each time one skill becomes automatic, the mind is freed up to focus on another one'.
Daniel Everett was another figure who I was not overly familiar with before reading this book. Everett took on the challenge of integrating himself into the the storeian Pirahã tribe in a way that no other missionary had found possible. The tribe had no written language and all their words sounded extremely alike. He slowly started to pick up their basic vocabulary, but was still struggling to get any deeper knowledge of their language. Everett began to understand that it was his unconscious ideas of superiority that were hindering his grasp of their knowledge, if he wanted to learn he would have to do it in the same way as a child. As Greene says, you must `revert to a childlike feeling of inferiority...and safely navigate your apprenticeship'
Overall the book places emphasis on the importance of taking the time to learn and mould our skills in order to succeed and Greene believes we can do this by following the patterns that have been set in place by successful figures throughout history.

I have no words to praise this gem called Mastery by Robert Greene. Ten Stars. Just read/listen to it (I listened to the audio version).

If I may add, a great complement to this book, in my view, is 'Pushing To The Front' by Orison Swett Marden (available for free at archive dot org) .

I have read a few Greene Books and I have to say that this book is truly overdone. The books redundancy makes it extremely hard to follow even with the books audio playing while reading.

Also unlike other Greene Books the supportive stories seem more strung together as appose to perfect supportive examples. It seems as though Greene decided to overcompensate with extra supportive stories for just that reason.

Just my honest 2cents. Think I'm going to start reading the art of seduction

Robert Greene is back with the latest addition to his guide on hustling life, this time with a focus on harnessing an inner power within us all, recognizing and developing our life's calling, and becoming masters in our chosen field.

It should surprise no one who is familiar with Greene's work that Mastery is a deeply and tightly researched piece. Shirking abstract ideology and vague, flowery messages so often associated with the self-improvement genre, Greene presents easily digestible facts and examples in history and today of people who have successfully mastered their life's work. He does not pretend that the path is easy, but he outlines the concrete steps needed to deconstruct and control the elements of your field.

I appreciated too that his focus did not lie exclusively within the business or commercial world. He references scientists, pilots, dancers, and musicians, all with equal respect and reverence. This cross section of masters further proves his point that the steps to mastery are the same regardless of your field.

Mastery is structured in an easy to consume package. Each chapter addresses the stories of several notable historical or contemporary figures, discussing their individual evolutions to Mastery, and then breaking down the Keys of Mastery. The numbered sections make it simple to refer to particular stories. The biographies are detailed enough to gain an understanding of their lives, but also short and simple. I found myself not getting stuck in the details, but rather forming enough of a story to tease out the important elements.

This is not a book to be ignored. Greene takes no shortcuts in his writing, and offers no shortcut to success. What he does offer is a fascinating look into some of history's greatest minds, and path to put that greatness a little less out of reach.

Before I can write any review about any Robert Greene book, I have to reveal some bias. I've considered myself an indirect apprentice to Mr. Greene and his work since 2004. After my divorce, the Art of Seduction changed not only my life but the way I look at society and human interaction. I've read it several times since that first exposure and it might be one of the most influential books I've read in the past decade.

Greene has written five books to date and the concept behind his voice is always the same. He describes a method of achievement based on a central idea and represents that concept with certain historical figures. Art of Seduction focused on people like Casanova and Cleopatra, The 48 Laws of Power used Machiavelli and Talleyrand, The 33 Strategies of War dissected luminaries like Sun Tzu and Napoleon. Mastery continues in this same vein; highlighting figures like Mozart, Einstein and Darwin. The difference between this work and his others is the target of his analysis. While all his other books described methods for dealing with others, Mastery creates a model for improving your own personal abilities.

The Premise

The idea behind Mastery is simple at first glance. Greene argues that the achievement of all the great artists, inventors and business leaders is always the product of a specific process that the rest of us can duplicate. He claims that genetics, luck or divine intervention play no role in the success of anyone from Benjamin Franklin to Freddie Roach. He then goes on to describe the process and provide historical examples to support his theory.

The Process

There are five steps in Greene's road to Mastery:
* finding your life's work through exploring your natural inclinations,
* practice through apprenticeship,
* gaining knowledge through mentoring,
* self-expression through creativity
* finally mastery

While the process only has five steps, it is not short by any means. A person can spend their entire childhood before they find what they really want to do with their lives. An apprenticeship typically takes 7-10 years or 10,000 hours. Mentoring can reduce the apprenticeship time, but it will probably only shave off a year or two. Self-expression and mastery may not come until after years and years of patient practice, if it comes at all. Mastery is not an easy road and the path Greene describes is littered with pitfalls.

First Impressions

I'm listing my opinion of the book as first impressions because I think Greene's books have to be read several times to fully appreciate the message. My thoughts on it may change over time, but this is what I think so far.

On the positive side, Mastery is an overarching book on development that transcends money or fame and like all of Greene's work it is tied to extensive historical examples. This book can be helpful to anyone in business, art or the sciences. It also has applications for parents looking to help their children develop and it is especially relevant to writers looking for the motivation to develop their craft.

The downside of the book comes down to the editing. Some the extensive examples are repetitious and tediously long. There are elements of the process (most notably the relationship between the apprenticeship and the mentoring) that feel vague and contradictory. Finally, the ending of the book is weak and uninspiring compared to his best work because it doesn't tie the concepts together well and the end and it doesn't deliver the same air of authority that the other books did.

To sum up, Mastery is a worthy addition to the power, seduction and war library, but it is not the best of the collection. Hopefully an abridged version will be released soon so I can dig into it again.

(Note: This review is for the unabridged audio version of the book.)

Have fun.
Gamal

My most favorite of treatments on the subject of individual mastery, so many key elements and fundamentals to achieving not only mastery but overcoming the internal barriers that make so much of the difference between being a hack / amateur / wanna be, that I cannot stress enough the value of this book to those who seek to be the best that they can be for themselves.

After reading Robert Greene's other books, I found myself a little curious to why he chose a topic such as Mastery. However after I began reading, it made total sense. Many of the messages and examples in his other books were closely linked to this topic of Mastery. I found this book to be greatly beneficial and practical. You can learn how some of the greatest achievers in recent history found their calling. Because many of these examples are extereme, Greene lays out different strategies anyone can use to find their way and become more creative thinkers. I always enjoy books where I can sit down and apply the principles, and Mastery, along with all of Greene's other books, have allowed me to do just that. So pick this book up if you enjoyed the 48 Laws of Power and the 50th Law. I wouldn't rank Mastery above those two, but it is very close.

This is Robert Greene's best work to date. I had read all his books, I use and practice his concepts on a daily basis. This book merges all his previous concepts into a unified whole. I almost use this book like a bible now. This is the best recent contribution to the human race to date, and I highly recommend this book to all who seek Mastery in their lives, no matter where or who you are right now.

If Malcolm Gladwell had actually spent 10,000 hours studying Outliers, he would have written this much, much better book.

Greene spends some time circling back and around, which is annoying, but also the correct structure to tie into the way in which our long and short term memory processes and stores information.

Smart, smart stuff.

1. Very in-depth description of the mastery process

The process of Mastery is awesomely described in this book. The way we, humans, learn how to do things and how to express our creativity is still a mystery.
Well Greene does a wonderful job in this book describing the process from its beginning to the never ending path of mastery.

2. Research-based analysis and thesis

When you'll first approach this book you'll see that the author did an outstanding research before talking about the subject.
Many of the things cited here are based on studies of psychologists and/or other professionals.

3. If you understand the process you can achieve results faster

It's as simple as that. As humans when we understand a process we can experiment it and even tweak it after some adjustments.

So so you want to become a Master or not?

As with all of Robert Greene's books, you have to read it with an open mind. They enlighten you and give you a taste of the world of power. These books can be used to protect you or take advantage of others. As with any form of knowledge, it's a matter of what you as an individual choose to do with it.

It was a good book but some parts were repetitive. Besides being repetitive some of the stories could have been thrown out all together. I would have only included stories of the really famous people and not included others who are not as well known.

Besides repeating some parts of some peoples stories there was some repetition in the rest of the material.

Overall the book was good and worth the read. It was not the authors best work though. If you have read the authors other work you will have an idea of how this book goes but I think his other work is more focused.

Having read it now if I read it again for the first time I would have skimmed parts of it and gotten through the book sooner. The books could have easily given the same info in fewer pages.

This is a fantastic guide to arranging your life for success. All high school freshmen should be required to read (or listen to) Mastery. If I had this available to me early in my life, it would not have struggled for so long. I would not have enlisted at 17, etc.

Robert Greene has put together a brilliant work as he closely studies and analyzes what it takes to achieve true Mastery (with a capital "M"). The detailed analysis is profound and gives us not only inspiration, but a guide to implement these ideals in our own lives. This is a book you will not just read, but study, devour and become a much better person for having experienced it.

This book is well versed. It had a lot of commonalities of which I could relate to in my life. It allowed me to see a bigger picture of what I am cuurently going through since I am in an apprentice like program at my job. There are plenty of wise stories of profound men that ended up being masters and acheived greatness.

Intuition, heuristic, subconscious, gut feelings...this book decodes what seems to be mysterious forces behind the genius in any field. Robert Greene presents it in such a way that is accessible to majority. Excellent job. How much you get his messages depends on how often you experience your subconscious working though.

This is another book that will potentially change your life, and even the world, just imagine how we as humanity have evolved without any roadmap to genius, and from now on, we seem to have one.

I'll give this book 4 stars because I enjoyed it, but not five, simply because it is not what I hoped for from this author. My review is probably best suited to others who have either read or or are interested in reading the other books and want to know how this compares.

I very much enjoyed the "amoral trilogy" as they used to be known - i.e. Greene's previous 3 books - 48 Laws of Power, 33 Strategies of War, and the Art of Seduction. (Amoral in that Greene does not seek to judge, only to provide the best means of attaining those things, many of which may be repulsive to some, in the same way that Machiavelli would be...for what it's worth, Mastery is much less controversial in that way)

Like his previous books, this book takes the tact of helping to make you expert in the subject by providing diverse examples throughout modern and ancient history. (The others helped you to Master Warmaking, Seduction, or Attaining Power...this one's theme is Mastery itself) It also sorts it into a series of steps just as they do - for Mastery these are finding the subject, becoming an apprentice, finding mentor, embracing social intelligence, awakening your creative-active, and finally, attaining master by fusing the rational mind with the intuitive mind.

Greene very much embraces something I first read in Malcolm Gladwell's work - that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to truly become expert at anything...in fact, about the same number of hours acquired by a medieval apprentice before becoming a journeyman, and Greene suggests 20,000 will work all the better. As with his other books, one of the best reasons to enjoy it is the examples he provides of people who have become Masters in their fields and even though many of these had a spark or special talent, he returns again and again to the hard work they had to put in. Examples range from Temple Grandin (autistic who became an expert in animal science), Mozart, Faraday (electricity/physics), Einstein, Daniel Everette (linguist), Paul Graham (technologist/entrepreneur), Cesar "Rico" Rodriguez (pilot known as the "Last American Ace") and many others in what turn into fascinating little historical vignettes.

That said, while I was very happy to see another book from Greene, I do have to dock a star (and if I didn't at least somewhat enjoy the book, I'd actually dock two for this)...although this book even has cover art reminiscent of his previous three of this type, it lacks the charm of the series. For me, the best part of the others were the foot notes decorating the margins which were stories all in and of themselves that elaborated, highlighted and added, giving a rather unique dimensional reading experience as you skipped around from text to notes and back (it was like a book within a book - if you've ever read a bible or other book with interpretive notes in the margins, it's very similar to the style of the other books). They were also beautiful. Often the words formed shapes on the page and the pages were colorful. Red notes in War and Power, Purple in Seduction. Mastery may adopt this in it's final form (I had a pre-reader's copy) and I hope it does, but I missed it...though the loss of the margin notes hurt most of all.

Also, the others had a delightful ruthlessness to them (examples: "Seduction" has chapters called "Choose the Right Victim," "Crease a False Sense of Security" and "Use the Demonic Power of Words to Sow Confusion". Likewise, "War" has "Seem to Work for the Intersts of Others While Furthering Your Own: The Alliance Strategy" and "Maneuver them Into Weakness: The Ripening-For-The-Sickle Strategy" alongside "Trade Space for Time: the Nonengagement Strategy" and "Defeat them in Detail: The Divide and Conquer Strategy".) and a great sense of wry fun. In these Greene intentionally through out ideas both easy to embrace and those that will make you squirm, but all of which will make you think, with fascinating examples to highlight it all (I have to say, most of what I learned about Alexander the Great, I learned best from Greene). I'd give examples from "Power" as well but I can't seem to find it on my bookshelf just now...suffice to say, the 3 make a positively grand trio...that Mastery just does not live up to, as it is bland in comparison, missing both the controversy and the humor.

While Greene still has his touch for using the examples of others to convey great ideas (whether or not you actually view them as self help books and guides is entirely up to you) and gives a coherent and detailed analysis of his overall theme, Mastery is merely a good book...but is the least masterful of the four. Even though much of its advertising latches on to the success of the others, I think anyone else who is hoping for a fourth book in the series will be disappointed. I'd prefer to think of it as its own book rather than an add on to one of my favorite trilogies.

So...if you did happen to read Mastery and liked it, consider giving the others a try. If you are looking for a Greene book, I most highly recommend "33 Strategies of War" as my favorite, though "Power" seems to be the one mentioned the most often so is probably the best seller of the bunch. If you've read the others and like the style, well...you probably will like Mastery too, but do not expect the same mischievous wit, ruthlessness or those lovely margin notes.

(P.S. If someone who gets a final copy could leave me a comment and tell me if the notes make a sudden comeback or not, please do...I suspect they will not, but if they did I would buy a final copy)

I might have misunderstood the point, I thought the book was about persona mastery... it is more about the appearance of mastery and... about success, the kind of success that is not based on true values, but on getting where you want with people
If you really think about what is being said as you read... you will find an awful lot of flaws in this book
most noticeably, the author discusses the beliefs and thoughts of famous people without any mention of the source of that information, all too often it sounds like his own belief of another belief.
I stopped at the point he tells the reader to play their intelligence and abilities down because some feel threatened by a person who is too capable... I can't imagine anything more manipulative or destructive
for one, you deny that person the opportunity to grow past a crippling juvenile emotional pattern, crippling not only to that person, but to a organization or business...
there are too many suggestions that come across that way....
and many other books on "getting what you want"
for a better laugh, read "the secret", the same lack of responsibility and values to the 8th degree....

This book is for people who are trying to find a way to bring out what truly excites and inspires them. The steps in here are wonderful. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand his own individuality, passion, and how to make them a way of life.

Great book, it encourages to look within

Your greatness is there, you need to follow your passion, it's the only thing that will fuel you to overcome obstacles

Please do NOT buy the 48 laws of power, that book isn't worth it

But this one of Mastery is GREAT!

I only read the first half of this book and quitted. Just couldn't go on, as it got really boring reading all over again about the same ideas and people. This book could be distilled into a 100-pager or even less.

Also, although English is not my native language, and I understand 99% of what I'm reading in Mr. Greene's books, I wish the author used less flowery language. Even complex ideas can be expressed using simple language. It's really tiresome to read long sentences, full of rarely-used words (which could be easily replaced with their simpler synonyms). When a sentence is long and include many rarely used words and adjectives (that doesn't really add much to the meaning), your mind starts to wander and you cannot fully gasp the meaning of the sentence, much less of the paragraph it belongs to.

My two cents.

What Greene writes is mostly true. Unfortunately, he sorely misses the mark with the final phase, Mastery, because when people (esp. warriors) are severely stressed or stretched to their limits, they do not act based on mastery. The well-trained ones fall back on their initial training as apprentices. In combat, I saw seasoned colonels and LCs and majors act like butter-bar lieutenants in the throes of battle. They did not, in any way, act like "masters." Same with CEOs and other executives. If they are not well insulated by a protective layer during a crisis, they look childish when performing. We in the public do not normally see this amateurish behavior, again, because our leaders are well insulated so their silliness is never seen by mere mortals. Mr. Green doubtless has never served in combat, so what would he understand of this curious phenomenon?

The Pre-natal assignment is the best book I have read. It revealed things to me that pricked my heart and motivated me to change. This book has changed my life forever. It is now a reference manual for me. This is a must read for every person in the world.

This was by far Robert Greenes best book as it is an overarching set of theories and philosophies that will been read long after his death. I almost want to say he should put down his pen and walk away from the table after this.

Before I can write any review about any Robert Greene book, I have to reveal some bias. I've considered myself an indirect apprentice to Mr. Greene and his work since 2004. After my divorce, the Art of Seduction changed not only my life but the way I look at society and human interaction. I've read it several times since that first exposure and it might be one of the most influential books I've read in the past decade.

Greene has written five books to date and the concept behind his voice is always the same. He describes a method of achievement based on a central idea and represents that concept with certain historical figures. Art of Seduction focused on people like Casanova and Cleopatra, The 48 Laws of Power used Machiavelli and Talleyrand, The 33 Strategies of War dissected luminaries like Sun Tzu and Napoleon. Mastery continues in this same vein; highlighting figures like Mozart, Einstein and Darwin. The difference between this work and his others is the target of his analysis. While all his other books described methods for dealing with others, Mastery creates a model for improving your own personal abilities.

The Premise

The idea behind Mastery is simple at first glance. Greene argues that the achievement of all the great artists, inventors and business leaders is always the product of a specific process that the rest of us can duplicate. He claims that genetics, luck or divine intervention play no role in the success of anyone from Benjamin Franklin to Freddie Roach. He then goes on to describe the process and provide historical examples to support his theory.

The Process

There are five steps in Greene's road to Mastery:
* finding your life's work through exploring your natural inclinations,
* practice through apprenticeship,
* gaining knowledge through mentoring,
* self-expression through creativity
* finally mastery

While the process only has five steps, it is not short by any means. A person can spend their entire childhood before they find what they really want to do with their lives. An apprenticeship typically takes 7-10 years or 10,000 hours. Mentoring can reduce the apprenticeship time, but it will probably only shave off a year or two. Self-expression and mastery may not come until after years and years of patient practice, if it comes at all. Mastery is not an easy road and the path Greene describes is littered with pitfalls.

First Impressions

I'm listing my opinion of the book as first impressions because I think Greene's books have to be read several times to fully appreciate the message. My thoughts on it may change over time, but this is what I think so far.

On the positive side, Mastery is an overarching book on development that transcends money or fame and like all of Greene's work it is tied to extensive historical examples. This book can be helpful to anyone in business, art or the sciences. It also has applications for parents looking to help their children develop and it is especially relevant to writers looking for the motivation to develop their craft.

The downside of the book comes down to the editing. Some the extensive examples are repetitious and tediously long. There are elements of the process (most notably the relationship between the apprenticeship and the mentoring) that feel vague and contradictory. Finally, the ending of the book is weak and uninspiring compared to his best work because it doesn't tie the concepts together well and the end and it doesn't deliver the same air of authority that the other books did.

To sum up, Mastery is a worthy addition to the power, seduction and war library, but it is not the best of the collection. Hopefully an abridged version will be released soon so I can dig into it again.

(Note: This review is for the unabridged audio version of the book.)

Have fun.
Gamal