"Mastery" by Robert Greene

2024 Reading List: Book 5 of 50 complete. 45 to go.

“Mastery” by Robert Greene

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I categorized this book as a study on “Talent Acquisition” — one of The Five Functions of Business.

Let's talk about what that means before diving in.

Talent Acquisition is how capacity is developed and maintained in relation to an organization, a team, and an individual. It is the development and acquisition of standards and skills for an entity. Examples include recruiting, hiring, personal development, leadership development, professional development, team experiences, team meetings, conferences, team member onboarding, training, high return habits, etc.

Think about it… how does a [business, individual, etc.] acquire and retain talent? All of those practices that you might list will fall under this category.

And now the book...

Of my 195 highlights, here are my top 13 highlights and takeaways.

“Intuitive powers at the mastery level are a mix of the instinctive and the rational, the conscious and the unconscious, the human and the animal. It is our way of making sudden and powerful connections to the environment, to feeling or thinking inside things. As children we had some of this intuitive power and spontaneity, but it is generally drummed out of us by all of the information that overloads our minds over time. Masters return to this childlike state, their works displaying degrees of spontaneity and access to the unconscious, but at a much higher level than the child.”

This is a great description of what happens when you’ve mastered something. It becomes directly linked with your subconscious. We are able to return to the playfulness of a child while holding on to the professionalism of a practitioner.

“In our culture we tend to equate thinking and intellectual powers with success and achievement. In many ways, however, it is an emotional quality that separates those who master a field from the many who simply work at a job. Our levels of desire, patience, persistence, and confidence end up playing a much larger role in success than sheer reasoning powers. Feeling motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything. Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive.”

I’m reminded of the scripture in 1st Corinthians 9:24 — “run the race in such a way that you MAY win.” Taking the verse out of context, we can still apply its practical wisdom. I think it relates because there are ways we can set up our teams (and ourselves) to win and not be bored.

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

This is a clear definition of what winning looks like for an apprenticeship.

“The greatest mistake you can make in the initial months of your apprenticeship is to imagine that you have to get attention, impress people, and prove yourself. If you impress people in these first months, it should be because of the seriousness of your desire to learn, not because you are trying to rise to the top before you are ready.”

I wish I could go back and give myself this advice when I first entered into Manufacturing as an engineer directly after college! I think I did practice this to some extent. But there were definitely ulterior motives at play.

“People who do not practice and learn new skills never gain a proper sense of proportion or self-criticism. They think they can achieve anything without effort and have little contact with reality. Trying something over and over again grounds you in reality, making you deeply aware of your inadequacies and of what you can accomplish with more work and effort.”

THIS!! I don’t trust a person’s competence (and therefore their word) too much if they can’t display some form of focused continuous improvement in their own life.

“In the future, the great division will be between those who have trained themselves to handle these complexities and those who are overwhelmed by them—those who can acquire skills and discipline their minds and those who are irrevocably distracted by all the media around them and can never focus enough to learn. The Apprenticeship Phase is more relevant and important than ever, and those who discount this notion will almost certainly be left behind.”

There are two types of people. Those who can acquire skills and discipline their mind. And those who are irrevocably distracted and can never focus enough to learn. My 10-cent tip? Wear earplugs.

“You must value learning above everything else. This will lead you to all of the right choices. You will opt for the situation that will give you the most opportunities to learn, particularly with hands-on work. You will choose a place that has people and mentors who can inspire and teach you. A job with mediocre pay has the added benefit of training you to get by with less—a valuable life skill. If your apprenticeship is to be mostly on your own time, you will choose a place that pays the bills—perhaps one that keeps your mind sharp, but that also leaves you the time and mental space to do valuable work on your own. You must never disdain an apprenticeship with no pay.”

This highlight reminds me so much of the heart behind “kaizen” in Toyota. What does Toyota do when they observe a defect? Shut the line down. Immediately evaluate and develop a countermeasure. And then improve the standard. That COSTS. But the greater cost is to nonchalantly keep producing defects and not develop a deep respect for the people you’re there to serve and the people you’re serving alongside.

““We see,” said Goethe, “that the young man has talent; however, you should not praise, but rather blame him, for learning everything by himself. A man of talent is not born to be left to himself, but to devote himself to art and good masters who will make something of him.” —JOHANN PETER ECKERMANN, CONVERSATIONS WITH GOETHE

To learn requires a sense of humility. We must admit that there are people out there who know our field much more deeply than we do. Their superiority is not a function of natural talent or privilege, but rather of time and experience. Their authority in the field is not based on politics or trickery. It is very real. But if we are not comfortable with this fact, if we feel in general mistrustful of any kind of authority, we will succumb to the belief that we can just as easily learn something on our own, that being self-taught is more authentic. We might justify this attitude as a sign of our independence, but in fact it stems from basic insecurity. We feel, perhaps unconsciously, that learning from Masters and submitting to their authority is somehow an indictment of our own natural ability. Even if we have teachers in our lives, we tend not to pay full attention to their advice, often preferring to do things our own way. In fact, we come to believe that being critical of Masters or teachers is somehow a sign of our intelligence, and that being a submissive pupil is a sign of weakness.”

Find a master. Become an apprentice.

“Mentors do not give you a shortcut, but they streamline the process. The mentor is like the philosopher’s stone—through direct interaction with someone of experience, you are able to quickly and efficiently heat up and animate this knowledge, turning it into something like gold.”

This is a key takeaway. Reducing friction is good. Reducing experiential wisdom is bad. This is, in part, what Path for Growth Coaches provide. Someone who has “been there and done that.” Also, someone who is a professional when it comes to developing other leaders — they’re actively engaged in the process of mastering the discipline of coaching. What is the “apprenticeship” of being a Path for Growth customer? Growing a HEALTHY business.

“People will say all kinds of things about their motives and intentions; they are used to dressing things up with words. Their actions, however, say much more about their character, about what is going on underneath the surface.”

Don’t be fooled by your desire to ‘look the part.’ Be the part.

“We sometimes have the experience of doing work that we consider to be quite brilliant, and then are rather shocked when we receive feedback from others who do not see it the same way at all.”

Engage in the marketplace. The marketplace of your business and the marketplace of your team (customers and prospects; internal and external)

“Perhaps the greatest impediment to human creativity is the natural decay that sets in over time in any kind of medium or profession. In the sciences or in business, a certain way of thinking or acting that once had success quickly becomes a paradigm, an established procedure. As the years go by, people forget the initial reason for this paradigm and simply follow a lifeless set of techniques.”

This is the risk of BEING and EMPLOYING an “aged person.” The difference is mindset. I’ve seen plenty of 20-year-olds “set in their way.” So unfortunate and miserably sad. Furthermore, I’ve seen plenty of 60-year-olds with a hunger to learn and grow.

“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. To rise to the level of mastery requires many hours of dedicated focus and practice. You cannot get there if your work brings you no joy and you are constantly struggling to overcome your own weaknesses. You must look deep within and come to an understanding of these particular strengths and weaknesses you possess, being as realistic as possible.”

It requires hard work. There is no “get rich quick” pill.

My review?

Here's my scale:

1. Strong, would not recommend
2. Inclined not to recommend
3. Inclined to recommend
4. Strong, would recommend
5. Must read

As this book relates to The Five Functions of Business, I give it a 4 out of 5.

Spending time with this book helped me develop a framework for an “apprenticeship.” First — identify your master. What is it that they’re a master of? Second — ratify yourself as the apprentice. Third — specify daily disciplines to support the apprenticeship. Fourth — clarify components of PRACTICE (focused and deliberate dedication) and PLAY (novelty and adventurous exploration) in each of the disciplines.

Robert’s way of writing ‘feels’ very objective and like he is attempting to leave his opinion out of it — and instead, just document observations in a really compelling way. I appreciate that. And I could envision some people being turned off by some of the things he states ‘as fact.’

Nonetheless — “Mastery” is a version (maybe THE version) of individualized (could it be corporate, too?) Talent Acquisition and I’d highly recommend this book for people to adopt a framework of mastery for their own personal and professional development.