Mastery
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4.3 • 499 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
From the bestselling author of The 48 Laws of Power and The Laws of Human Nature, a vital work revealing that the secret to mastery is already within you.
Each one of us has within us the potential to be a Master. Learn the secrets of the field you have chosen, submit to a rigorous apprenticeship, absorb the hidden knowledge possessed by those with years of experience, surge past competitors to surpass them in brilliance, and explode established patterns from within. Study the behaviors of Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Leonardo da Vinci and the nine contemporary Masters interviewed for this book.
The bestseller author of The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, and The 33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene has spent a lifetime studying the laws of power. Now, he shares the secret path to greatness. With this seminal text as a guide, readers will learn how to unlock the passion within and become masters.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
We are born masters but sometimes, especially during the trials of adulthood, we need external guidance to reach our potential, says bestselling author Greene (The 48 Laws of Power). His description of mastery is reminiscent of what positive psychologists describe as "flow": a state that feels effortless once achieved. Yet mastery requires work. Greene outlines the process in nearly 50 steps, with several overarching themes: retaining a child's sense of wonder, learning from other masters, and avoiding financially motivated goals. The steps are interspersed with the stories of people who have famously achieved success: the Wright Brothers, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Mozart, Temple Grandin, and many more. Relatively few of these examples are contemporary, which poses the question of whether such mastery is possible in our current economic and profit-driven environment. And 48 steps are a little much for even the mastery-oriented mind, and Greene's presentation is disjointed and occasionally confusing. But what this book lacks in clarity it makes up for in its stories and persistent encouragement the inspiration that is essential for anybody who strives to live a full, mastered life.
Customer Reviews
A great book
This book is really good and deserves to be read.
A very, very good book
Seldom have I had the pleasure of finding and reading such an insightful book. The three sections in the Introduction, "The Ultimate Power; The Evolution of Mastery; and The Keys to Mastery" cogently outline the direction the author intends to take us.
The reader is advised that it is a mistake to consider this to be a book of pithy sayings and homilies. Nothing could be further from the truth. In essence, this book is a roadmap for the common person to explore himself, or herself, and to look deeply into the lives of such masters as: Leonardo da Vinci, Alfred Einstein, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Buckminster Fuller, Benjamin Franklin, Martha Graham, Charles Darwin, Henry Ford, John Keats, Michael Faraday, Frank Lloyd Wright, Carl Jung, Glenn Gould, William Harvey, Richard Wagner, Marcel Proust, Wilbur and Orville Wright, among others, for lessons learned and mistakes to avoid.
Each of the six main sections of the book utilized the same structure: the topic, followed by a brief biography of acknowledged masters, and a discussion of the "Keys to Mastery."
Section 1, "Discover Your Calling" suggests everyone has a unique gift to offer the world, details how Leonardo da Vinci found his, and follows it with the "keys to mastery," and strategies for finding your life's task.
Each succeeding section uses the same outline, e.g., what you need to master a part of your life, how a master did it, and strategies to emulate toward your own mastery.
I found section 5 in section 6 to be a most useful exploration of the topics of the creative (emotional) mind and the cognitive (rational) mind. Much of my 34 year career as a psychologist has focused on assisting patients to find a balance between their emotional and their rational minds. Patients whose emotions rule their lives frequently make decisions that are not in their best interest. Assisting them to evaluate their situations by using their rational mind allows them to acknowledge their feelings, yet make rational decisions that have a better chance of succeeding. Patients whose rationality rules their lives frequently make decisions that ignore giving credence to their emotions. Assisting them to incorporate the legitimacy of their feelings allows them to become more fully a human being. Even Star Trek's Mr. Spock had his emotional moments.
To put it into more historical perspectives, René DesCartes's (1596-1650) conjecture that "Cogito Ergo Sum,” translated as "I think, therefore I am," was, in my opinion, only half right. For example, if I pinch your arm really hard, are you going to have to think to know you're alive? Or is it equally valid to say "I feel, therefore I am?" Similarly, Aristotle (384-322), in creating the taxonomy of animal species, said, “Man is the rational animal.” Personally, I think Aristotle had it backward. “Man is not the rational animal,” it seems to me that “Man is the animal that rationalizes.” We do what we feel like doing, then we come up with reasons to justify having done it. One cannot ignore one at the expense of the other, in either direction.
Robert Greene’s book, Mastery, is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying, which, I surmise, is what he intended. Therefore, I highly recommend this book to anyone who, in the context of the Declaration of Independence, is in “pursuit of happiness."
Where is the Audiobook
Robert is so incredible , He changes lives with that he say but he needs his narrator Don when is it coming out ?
Found it on Audible :/