Book review: 'Mastery' by Robert Greene

by Robert Greene
Profile Books

Few writers can compete with Los Angeles' Robert Greene in the street-cred stakes. He is a specialist in the themes of strategy, power, sex and seduction, making him a hit with the success-fixated hip hop industry. Greene's 2000 guide to gaining clout, The 48 Laws of Power, was referenced in songs by Jay-Z and Kanye West. His 2009 strategy guide, The 50th Law, which he wrote with rapper 50 Cent, is reportedly studied by wonks in Washington, DC.

In his fifth and latest self-betterment guide, Mastery, Greene addresses the lives of some supreme high achievers. The line-up ranges from top boxing coach Freddie Roach to the Wright brothers, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison and Mozart. Tapping his background as a historian, Greene nails the ingredients that made them masters, arguing that greatness is more than innate.

Scientist Charles Darwin and Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci were nothing special before they embarked on a relentless pursuit of excellence, Greene says. Likewise, Philippine boxing prodigy Manny Pacquiao 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," Greene writes.

"This was a boxer [Roach] could work harder and harder. Soon, Pacquiao 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."

We all have a chance to be great like Pacquiao, it seems, because the mastery blueprint already exists in our brains. We are hardwired for achievement and supremacy, according to Greene, who says our emergence as a species with stereoscopic frontal vision and refined hand-eye co-ordination gave us an edge over early humans and primates. Those assets mean we can deliberate, to size up options for action, helped by our "mirror neurons" that let us sense what others think.