![]() ![]() Books like Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers have begun dissecting those people previously held up as near-mythical giants – the Albert Einsteins and Bill Gates of the world – and making the case that while they may be something special, they weren't necessarily born that way. With his argument, Greene is continuing a narrative that has been picking up steam for a long time in Western culture. Greene uses these narratives to build up one very important argument: Geniuses, as we understand them, are not real. The story of the famous saxophonist John Coltrane is used to illustrate the importance of apprenticeships and practice a condensed biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart leads into admonishments from Greene about the importance of rebelling against authority and maintaining a childlike sense of wonder.Īs with all of Greene's books, readers will pick up some lessons worth considering while learning some fun bits of history along the way. Greene, in his usual style, introduces every chapter with a story pulled from the life of one of these figures, then analyzes the story and extracts valuable lessons from them. In the new book, Greene develops a theory about how mastery is formed by looking at the lives of people like Frank Lloyd Wright, Leonardo da Vinci and Henry Ford – people who became true masters of their respective fields of study. I called Robert Greene, best-selling author of The 48 Laws of Power and The Art of Seduction, to talk about his new book, Mastery. Intrigued by the development in my reaction speed, I began to wonder why my abilities were improving so rapidly. ![]()
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