The book " Mastery; The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment" is written by George Leonard, founder and trainer at Leonard Energy Training.
The book is filled up with lots of ready to use advice for long term success through continuous practice and patience.
Here are 33 Key points from the Book Mastery By George Leonard
1. There is a sure root to achieving success, and that is the long-term and never-ending process of continuous and consistent efforts in a direction.
2. If you can touch your forehead then you have got all the abilities to do anything you consider doing and succeeding at. The most important thing here is starting and working on it as a continuous improvement process through practice.
3. Anybody can learn any skill or can do unimaginable things through Mastery. There is no need for any special talent but to follow a simple path and stay on it. It is a process never-ending.
4. There is no quick way to Mastery. It is a process and not a destination. You don't just get better after a couple of trials. You have to stay here as long as you want to get better at things and that is a long process.
5. The practitioners of Mastery are capable of inventing things that have never been seen before, asking questions that have never been asked before and seeking answers of any kind from the universe.
6. With practice, You can learn any skill. You would not achieve a comfortable level of proficiency immediately. But, you will get better every day. Even when you're seeing no improvement you are moving ahead and you must never stop practising. You have to spend most of your time on the plateau before seeing any spurts.
7. Learning is done in stages. The habitual system has to be reprogrammed with a new system by withdrawing cognitive systems.
8. When you don't see any significant improvement in learning, you feel to leave and start other things. This is a common behaviour of all of us. We want instant pleasure and avoid things that just do not fit in that category. But to get better at anything you have to love practising it daily. You must know that the path to mastery is not pleasurable but rocky and you have to put off your desires for big achievement.
9. You don't like to be called a Dabbler. She just wants to start new things. If she experiences a plateau then she immediately wants to start something new. She does not like to be staying on the same platform for a long without seeing anything exciting. She just wants easy payoffs and frequent spurts. She is not on the path of mastery.
10. You don't like to be called an obsessive as well. The obsessive wants to achieve the results fast. They want to work for long hours and even use quick fixes to get to the target. They want to do anything to get faster to achieve the goal. They start with full energy and see the first spurt as expected. But, they have no patience. When they come upon the plateau they just feel irritated and double their efforts. They just push harder.
11. The obsessive does not work for long-term benefits. And when they don't see any significant progress then they just break down. So, you don't be an obessive too.
12. Do you like to be hackers? Hackers are someone who does not bother about anything. They just work sufficiently hard and when they don't see any progress they either quit or blame others for their situations. Elizabeth Holmes is a perfect example of a hacker. Once she set out to revolutionise the healthcare industry with innovative technology and affordable solutions. But, when her innovations failed to deliver what she had promised, she chose to take the help of immoral means.
13. You can be a mix of all. You can be a master in your job, hacker in your relationship, obsessive in sports and a dabbler in your behaviour.
14. The essence of living a good life is practising mastery and never surrendering even when you don't see any improvement for a long time.
15. Most of your learning journey will be spent on plateaus. You will see some spurts but most of the time it will be just a journey of boredom. And when you experience such times you must willingly accept the condition and keep on working on your things. The spurts and plateaus are an integral part of your journey to success. You can stop everything but can't stop practising if you are following the path of mastery.
16. If you truly want to experience the greatest joy of success, you need to keep on working on your things even in the hardest times. You need to acknowledge that you can only succeed if you have the skills to succeed, and that is, you need to keep on practising every day, every week, every month and every year.
17. Are you waiting for any reward to keep on practising and improving yourself? If you're expecting such things you can't be as effective as you must be. The people who practice mastery love practising. They love it as a journey, not as a goal.
18. There are unlimited numbers of resources available to learn a new skill. It is up to you now to start and get going. But before starting it, you must know that it is a path which only a few people travel. People who have succeeded have completed most of their milestones without any achievements or excitement. It is a path with no or scarce excitement. You can only travel it if you love it without expecting any short-term gains. Jiro Ono is a perfect example of relentless work, working without appreciation for so long, and in the meantime perfecting his art of Sushi. His sushi is the world's most popular and also the most expensive. It costs $400 per person to taste his dish or a craft which he has honed in 90+ years.
19. You need to carefully select your mentor or teacher for learning something new. A teacher or mentor without sufficient credentials from their students is simply someone to avoid. If you want to join a teacher you should know about his/her students. The students and their skills tell a lot about their teacher. If most of the students are doing good and learning then it is proof the teacher/mentor has good teaching skills. Tim Ferris the author of "The 4-Hour Workweek" is a highly successful person. The credit for most of his remarkable achievements goes to his unique approach to finding effective teachers or mentors. Tonny Robinson and other highly successful individuals have been mentors of Tim Ferris.
20. Great teachers praise your achievement more than they shout at your failures. This is one of the important qualities of a teacher or mentor whose students thrive. Also a great teacher focuses on beginners or professionals equally in developing new skills and strengthening already good ones. All are equal for them and they do their best in teaching their crafts to everyone that comes under their teams.
21. A beginner takes time in learning a new craft. And a great teacher has the knowledge, skills, credentials, expertise and patience to help beginners to travel on the path of mastery.
22. It is not necessary to have God-given abilities to be successful in any sport or task. And most of the time it is found that a person who has no sign of skills initially develops and becomes more successful than those who have all the abilities. Learning never ends and no one is perfect or has all the skills.
23. What is practice? A path on which you travel. It is anything you do daily without even noticing it. It is something without which your day is not complete. It is an integral part of your life. A doctor does not solely practice medicine for money but it is his daily routine to participate in. The master of any game is a master of practice. They are so good in their trade only because they are so good at keeping on practising.
24. A learner gives full attention to things she does because she wants to learn. And if someone considers herself master, then she loses focus. In that situation, learning becomes tough if not impossible. Surrendering is the only approach to attain the path of mastery in those conditions.
25. Visualization is a great technique to see the future. You should have a clear vision of what you want to become or what you want to do. When you have decided, it becomes much easier to move in that direction and live the things you once visualized.
26. Our bodies or even societies resist change. When you start doing something you were not doing earlier your body experiences a change. It is a natural tendency to get back to a normal state. And when you experience such things, rather than getting back to the normal state, stay there and keep on practising.
27. We gain energy by using energy. Your body can't be strong if you don't exercise. Our heart becomes strong when we do regular exercise and keep it busy. The same applies to other aspects of our lives. We have to push ourselves hard for things we want in our lives. We can't just stay at a place and hope for the things to come in our lives. Use all your skills, knowledge and energy and in return earn more of them. Here it is not saving that is important but spending is more important.
28. We must know what we want in our lives so that we could take steps without any confusion. When you know what you want, everything becomes easy. You know what you need to do to come closer to what you want. When you don't know where to go, you just waste your time and don't take any action. You fail. This quote from Warren Buffet fits very well here.
29. True, you can't do everything but you can do one thing and then another and then another. And when it comes to taking action, do it now. This is how we can achieve the success we dream of.
30. The path of mastery is also full of shortfalls and embarrassments. Years of practice is not a sure shot to success. There is no timeline defined and you can never say this is the last milestone.
31. Consistency matters when you're travelling on the path of mastery. You can't skip the practice. And if you miss one or more sessions, come back as soon as possible and start practising again.
32. A good learner is someone with an appetite for knowledge. She accepts she does not know anything. And when we accept ignorance, we see infinite resources for knowledge. This is the way to get better at anything you care about.
33. When you want to learn something, you don't like to be called foolish. You don't want people to laugh at you. You want to look like a genius. And when you have such a feeling, you become a hurdle in your learning. So kill the fear that has become a hurdle in your way of learning. Get out of it and improve yourself.
A book is a wonderful resource of knowledge, and "Mastery by Geroge Leonard" is one such book. In 33 key points from the book, we have summarised complete book.
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