Book SummaryMastery, by Robert Greene

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Mastery

Mastery is a self-help guide that describes the path to intellectual and creative excellence. Robert Greene explains how to achieve such mastery in three stages, and he argues that pursuing it yields a fulfilling life and great creative power.

Greene is a bestselling author known for The 48 Laws of Power, his guide to power dynamics and social dominance. In 2012, he wrote Mastery to explain creative excellence and chart a clear course for anyone to reach it. Our guide...

Mastery Summary Mastery Is Creative Power

Greene first explains that mastery is the highest level of creative excellence, and it means that you’ve fully grasped your discipline or field.

Masters are experts who make breakthrough discoveries, innovate new forms of art, or shift the paradigm in their fields. For example, William Shakespeare masterfully shaped English literature through his now-acclaimed playwriting, poetry, and innovative uses of prose and narrative.

(Shortform note: In Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment, George Leonard defines mastery as a continual journey, and there’s no end or “perfection” of the skill—rather, the practice is the point in and of itself. This contrasts with Greene, who suggests that there is an end of sorts—a point at which your mastery has reached the highest level.)

According to Greene, mastery has two components: technical proficiency and social know-how.

Component #1: Technical proficiency. Greene says that thoroughly grasping the established skills and knowledge of your field enables you to break new ground. In other words, technical proficiency lets you explore...

Mastery Summary Find Your Calling

Greene explains that throughout history, masters have referred to an inner force that guided their work. Whatever we call it, we all have this sense of direction within us. It’s why you feel drawn to some things but not others—music or math, academia or entrepreneurship.

(Shortform note: In The Art of Learning, Josh Waitzkin describes this phenomenon as a deep feeling of rightness or “resonance” with the discipline that calls you. Writing of his first encounter with chess, he recounts a visceral, almost psychic pull toward the streetside boards he saw in New York City. From this natural inclination, Waitzkin explains, your personal style emerges—the natural, intuitive way in which you approach the skill—and honoring it is crucial to reaching excellence.)

By acting according to your inner sense of direction, you’ll develop your creative potential and strive toward mastery. According to Greene, everything will naturally fall into place as you follow that inner force. Get in touch with it...

Mastery Summary Stage #1: Foundational Training

Having established a connection to your inner voice and committed to acting in accord with it, it’s time to pursue your foundational training. Greene explains that all masters undergo a rigorous, self-directed practical education after finishing conventional education in school, which teaches mostly theory. This practical education involves three tasks, which we’ll cover below: learning the ropes of your field, developing key skills, and testing your progress.

(Shortform note: In Black Box Thinking, Matthew Syed argues that practice and theory develop in tandem. That is, people with practical knowledge often innovate without comprehensive theoretical knowledge—think of the Wright brothers creating airplanes through trial-and-error. At the same time, theory often leads to practical advances—for instance, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution began with an idea, yet it has sparked immense change in science and culture.)

Task #1: Learn the Ropes

Greene explains that** in any career field, there are existing rules, norms, and...

Mastery Summary Stage #2: Creative Independence

Once you’ve completed your foundational training, it’s time to step out into the world. In this section, we’ll explain the second stage of mastery: creative independence.

In this stage of mastery, you begin to pursue your own inclinations. You’ve built a solid foundation of skills and knowledge, and you can now apply them to develop your ideas—whether you want to explore a new form of art or a scientific theory. In doing so, you’ll gain recognition and start to make a name for yourself.

To achieve creative independence, Greene advises that you avoid becoming rigid. After years of foundational training, you might settle into learned conventions and familiar ways of thinking that reduce your creativity. Prevent this stagnation by taking the three steps to cultivate a creative mind: Commit to a creative project, pursue it to fruition, and persist through emotional obstacles.

Curate Your Influences

In Steal Like An Artist, Austin Kleon suggests amplifying your creativity by [surrounding yourself with art that you...

Mastery Summary Mastery

After spending years developing your creative independence, you’ll eventually achieve mastery. According to Greene, mastery comes about when you merge rational thinking with sophisticated intuition—using your experience and learned skills as well as your openness and intuition to explore novel ideas and thoroughly work them out.

However, Greene argues, Western culture often fails to recognize this powerful combination because it esteems rationality above other forms of thinking and mythologizes high-level intuition:

• Rational thinking involves laying out the steps you took—showing your work so that others can scrutinize your process and conclusions. We consider this valid thinking because it’s easy to show how you got from A → B and replicate the process.
• However, high-level creative insights can’t be explained so easily. They depend on complex, nonlinear intuition and lack clear steps from A → B. As a result, people attribute such insights to mystical forces like genius or talent.

Intuition Is Fallible

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman argues that [we have two cognitive...

Shortform Exercise: Find Your Calling

Greene asserts that the first step to mastery is to look within. Take a moment to reflect and search for your inner sense of direction.

What were you naturally drawn to as a child? Describe this with specific detail (for example, maybe you always found yourself playing sports with the neighborhood kids).