Mastery

Hands down, the best book you will ever read on how to live the highest, best, and most exulted version of your life possible.

This is a great book, and I truly appreciate all the advice it offers—especially during this time when I feel drained of creativity. However, I found myself skimming through most of the biographies, as I struggled to connect with them. That said, I particularly enjoyed the section on Proust; it was fascinating to learn more about him, especially since I hadn’t known much about his life despite having read his work before.

Although delving at times into what must be unhappy memories of his parents, Robert Greene touches on ideas also found in Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist series, especially about time and practice, and Dr. Caroline Leaf's research on the neuroplasticity of the brain, enabling us to grow and change. Lots of good encouragement here! I'd like to get a paperback and highlight/circle sections to read aloud to my kids. There is a lot of redundancy and detail that I would edit out, to keep their attention yet share the gems.

What does it take to rise to the top of one’s profession or any other domain in life? Through artful storytelling of historical and contemporary figures, Greene offers us a plethora of examples to follow. He tries to tie each case to principles of how the individual mastered her/his own environment. In so doing, he offers us a self-driven manual for how to command a sector in life.

Greene’s contemporary exemplars include figures from many domains, including piloting, research, and linguistics. Ancient figures include geniuses that you learned about in school. All in all, a variety of personality and professional types are represented, including both men and women, people with disabilities, and the formally educated as well as the self-educated.

The author is clearly adept at spinning a good story. His storylines stick to readers’ ears and hearts. I listened to this book as an audiobook while I performed other tasks with my hands; each chapter drew my attention in, and time passed quickly. I have not read Greene’s other works for comparison, but his skill in the narrative arts is evident.

What most lacked was intellectual rigor. Yes, he brought forth diverse inspirational examples that illustrated key concepts related to mastery, but I could not deduce if Greene’s theorizing was ever tested via a scientific method. I hoped to see studies cited or some sort of quantitative analysis to back up his far-reaching claims of long-standing principles. What shows me that his contentions are true besides anecdotal evidence?

That said, this book does offer much fodder to activate readers’ creative juices. Inspiration needs to be followed by perspiration, no? That means that I have a lot of work to do because Greene began a process of trying to learn about the finer details along life’s paths. He showed how these figures, through their own perspiration, managed to overcome situations to help others and to lead. If one function of books is to push us on to increasing excellence, then this book succeeds in spades.

This book came to me at the right time. An excellent tool for reflection about your path in life. What are you passionate about? How can I find my way in this world?
I think it's a perfect book to push you out of your comfort zone, to encourage you to reflect on yourself, your path, and what you want. Finding what you want to master. (Translated from Spanish)

A book full of accounts of people who acieved much in their field. Some of these were familiar, more less so, with a varying mix of interest to myself. There was a lot of repetition in using each of these examples to convey the point of each chapter. A bit long winded.

Jewels among sand (Translated from Spanish)

An amazing book, due to the great biographies it narrates and explains the arduous process to reach an intellectual point that it calls "Mastery" of renowned artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, or Goethe, to scientists like Michael Faraday and Albert Einstein. It is personally fascinating how the author captures you from the prologue and guides you on a beautiful journey through the centuries and all around the world, reaching modern figures like Temple Grandin and Freddy Roach. All in different fields where hard work and 10,000 hours of study and perfection culminate in a lifetime of work. (Translated from Spanish)

4 stars

I'll probably end up rereading this at one point and maybe buying it.

Great book. If nothing else it's worth reading for the stories.

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."