Mastery is the ultimate power

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person. – Albert Einstein

You are a whiz kid now, or if you’re not one yet, you could be one; but only if you put your shoulder to the wheel and pay out long and precious time working at it. This thought captures the proposition of Mastery, the latest tome from Robert Greene, whose other works include The 48 Laws of Power and The 50th Law. Mastery writes about fulfilling your built-in promise as a person by recognizing your passion, by undergoing training and by finding a mentor to coach you. Greene brought into play historical masters  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Martha Graham and Manny Pacquiao’s coach Freddie Roach among others  and made use of examples to inspire you to achieve mastery. There’s still a continuing debate over whether people are born with innate talents, or their talents are developed through intense practice and involvement, and it’s argued that humans are hardwired to succeed, and with discipline and a number of tangible steps, anybody has the potential to accomplish something. Here are 20 thoughts to consider from Greene’s work to push you to a level of mastery:

1. Have faith in yourself and build your future based on your own uniqueness. Follow your childhood curiosity about anything and everything, the way renaissance genius Leonardo Da Vinci did. He turned himself into an authority in varied subjects from architecture to anatomy for his supporters. You may have a forceful feeling about what you’re best at, but too often, you’re discouraged from pursuing from it by other people.   Da Vinci pursued what he believed he does best and gave the world “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper.”

2. Discover your niche. Indeed, “in niches there are riches.” Instead of competing in a crowded field, you’re better off playing in a specific area where you can be on top of your game.

3. Turn your anger into a motivation. Rise up against what you believe is an erroneous trail.  Piano child prodigy Mozart grew up with a dominant father who traveled around Europe with him. When he realized he had a talent for unique musical composition, his father stifled it. It wasn’t until he rebuffed his father completely and followed the desire of his heart that he became a master, and was regarded as the world’s greatest natural musical genius.

4. Get fixed at your fixation from the very start. The thing that had your young mind riveted is the one thing that you should follow. It is the most stimulating point, not just a passing fancy, and a message about what your next step should be. Marie Curie’s meandering in her father’s laboratory and her fascination for his instruments were major factors in what she would become, a Nobel Prize winner whose work led to the discovery of radioactivity.

5. Get involved in bottomless observation, practice without let-up, and experiment. There’s no need to impress people. What you need is a deep scrutiny of things and people around you. Watch and learn the rules of the game, because by doing so, you can rule. Practice, practice, and practice some more. Your brain is set up to master skills, and by repeated action, your nerve cells are engaged, connected, and reflected.

6. Give priority to learning so you don’t end up a slave to everyone’s point of view. “Training, learning, and mentorship don’t come from the highest paying, highest pressure jobs. Those lead you down a conservative path of pleasing others,” said Greene.  Mother of modern dance Martha Graham engaged herself in the pursuit of innovations in dance and choreography instead of getting tied-up to a better paying, protracted professional commercial job. The decision made her as maverick as Pablo Picasso was with painting.

7. Play inferior to truly learn. Exceptional polyglot Daniel Everett was not experiencing success in learning the language of the Paraha tribe in the Amazon, and this puzzled researchers for years. He was a failure because he approached the whole process as a Christian missionary and linguist, from a position of pre-eminence. He didn’t master the language until he picked it up like one of the Parahas children --- reliant on the tribe, and subject to the same limits, inadequacy, and need for support. If you’re venturing into a new place or path, you need to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible. Persistent prejudices and feelings of superiority hinder that. 

8. Engage in concentrated practice and bend toward opposition and pain.  Basketball hall-of-famer Bill Bradley was suited for the sport only because of his height.  He was sluggish, couldn’t jump, and had no sense of the game. To overcome all these negatives, he practiced over three hours after school or on weekends. He put weights in his shoes and taped cardboard to the bottom of his glasses so he could dribble without seeing the ball. These activities started his regimen towards mastery. As Greene underscored, “Intense practice with resistance can be twice as effective as what’s easy.”

9. Try and try until you get it right.  English programmer and venture capitalist Paul Graham’s enormous interest has always been computers. In the end he realized that he gained stock knowledge, not by being formally schooled, but by confronting problems, by failing, and by trying again. This practice ultimately led him to the creation of Y Combinator, a new model of startup funding, which offers entrepreneurs the support to do what he did. 

 10. Choose a mentor who will intensely challenge you. While undecided about some elements of Sigmund Freud’s hypothesis, Carl Jung, originator of analytical psychology, revered the former, as a forerunner in the arena of psychoanalysis. Freud became Jung’s mentor, and even though they split in the end, it was clear with Jung where he disagreed with Freud, learned from him, and honed his own core thoughts and individuality. â€œThe right mentor-protege relationship is the most efficient and fastest way to learn, you focus on one excellent source of knowledge instead of casting about for many,” Green pronounced.

11. Get completely engrossed with your master’s knowledge and then revolutionize it.  Renowned Chilean-Canadian pianist and teacher Alberto Guerrero identified Glenn Gould, a foremost interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach, as his most promising piano student. Gould would absorb quickly what Guerrero taught him and swiftly parlay what he picked up using a completely diverse route. Gould ventured on his own at the early age of 19, but years later, proud teacher Guerrero could still distinguish the things he taught Gould, entirely sucked up, but totally transformed by his brilliance.  Greene declared, “It is almost a curse to learn form somebody brilliant; it can be very intimidating. But overcome this by absorbing everything, and then going beyond.”

12. Establish a backward-forward energizing force with your relationships.  Freddie Roach, one of boxing’s celebrated trainers, found his greatest student in “pound for pound” world champion, and the Philippine’s Pambansang Kamao Manny Pacquiao. Greene articulated, “He was a middling one-punch fighter until he met Roach, who sensed his promise and pushed him. Roach kept waiting for the inevitable dynamic in which the fighter would begin to tune him out, but this never came.” Pacquiao was Roach’s most concentrated, teachable “coachee,” and over time, he embraced Roach’s attack lines and coaching suggestions beyond what he ever could have alone. Pacquiao was a boxer Roach could work harder and harder. “Soon enough, he had developed a devastating right hand, and his footwork could match the speed of his hands. He began to win fight after fight, in impressive fashion,” Green related.

13. Put up with criticism and get accustomed to power structures and society. Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis was one of the earliest pioneers of antiseptic procedures, something that could have saved millions of lives. It was never fully taken on in his time because of the autocratic, egotistical way he dealt with his superiors, and his refusal to defend and provide evidence to rationalize his ideas. At 47 he died broke and forsaken. Greene suggested,  “Use those who are in power, don’t alienate them. Otherwise, your mastery goes to waste.”

14. Carefully design and build your own brand. Contemporary sculptor Teresita Fernandez could have allowed others to define her persona and the works she does. After all, metal sculpture was principally a male-dominated medium, and she could have easily been seen as a flash in the pan in that milieu. Fernandez, however, put time into building her brand and her art, and she ended up a success. “You wear masks in society. Being aware of that rather than being self conscious about it allows you to be more effective in any situation,” Greene observed.

15. Like a sponge, absorb everything and allow your brain to make the connections. When you are too keen on the work at hand, you can get stressed, and your brain shuts down. “Masters read and absorb everything that could be related to stimulate the brain into making a leap,” Greene shared. That’s how microbiologist Louis Pasteur soared, leading to the discovery of vaccines, proving the adage, “Chance favors only the prepared mind.”

16. Shun grouping things into familiar clusters. The most creative minds defy the brain’s distinct propensities --- to put things in convenient collections, to use cerebral shorthand, and to simplify things. Google founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin came up with an insight and an altered perspective that brought the company to where it is today. Both saw what appeared to be an inconsequential flaw  bad results in search engines that ranked pages by how often something was mentioned.

17. Don’t be defeated by impatience. American jazz saxophonist John Coltrane’s greatest strength was improvisation, which was once his weakness. As a musician, he would resort to replication rather innovation. After years of absorbing the styles of other artists and learning a vast technical vocabulary, he learned how to bend his ways into something intensely personal and different from everybody else. “One of the greatest impediments to creativity is impatience. Stay the course and develop your authentic voice,” Green enthused.

18. Place equal importance on both perfunctory and conceptual intelligence. The most talented engineers in the world failed to create a functioning flying machine. But bicycle mechanics Orville and Wilbur Wright only had a simple insight to be able to build one. --- a flying machine needs to be able to bank like a bicycle rather than move in straight horizontal lines like a ship. This basic perception helped them beat men who had attacked the problem for years. “Mechanical intelligence, with focus on functionality, can be equally as vital and creative as the abstract,” Green posited

19. Form your world around your strengths. Albert Einstein loathed the way physics was taught and didn’t like experiments. His greatest insights came from elsewhere. His theory of simple relativity, for example came partially from thinking about an image in his head of trains, beams of light, men and women. At age 20 he decided to stray away from conventional, experimental science, and use his distaste for authority by removing conventions that held him back. Green averred, “Einstein did something that felt intuitive, looked illogical, but was intensely rational.”

20. Accept that practice is just as critical as inherent skill. “ Cesar Rodriguez wasn’t a naturally gifted pilot. He fell behind at first, but caught up, and then got ahead of everyone through endless practice. He knew every control in his bones, and reacted better than those who relied on talent. That helped him make three aerial kills and earn his nickname, ‘America’s Last Ace.’ Achievement through thousands of hours of practice seems so ordinary somehow. But it’s how most people become masters,” Greene highlighted.

The author has shared his thoughts on the 48 laws of power, but you will agree when he declares that the ultimate power is mastery itself.

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Email bongosorio@yahoo.com or bong_osorio@abs-cbn.com for comments, questions and suggestion. Mastery is available in National Bookstore.