Mastery
By: George Leonard
ISBN: 978-0452267565
READ: April 2025
RATING: 9/10
Summary: Mastery is a classic book on the keys to investing yourself fully into something in order to master it. This book dives deeply into how humans are made to go deep into something in order to find fulfillment and satisfaction. What Mastery does best is it casts a vision of life that encourages practice and becoming over pursuing a role in consumerism. While not a Christian book, the principles laid out fit well within the rabbi-disciple framework. It’s a message the Western church needs to learn in order to separate from a consumer-oriented life.
Chapter titles are: Introduction, Part One: The Master’s Journey, 1. What is Mastery? 2. Meet the Dabbler, the Obsessive, and the Hacker 3. America’s War Against Mastery 4. Loving the Plateau Part Two: The Five Master Keys, 5. Key 1: Instruction 6. Key 2: Practice 7. Key 3: Surrender 8. Key 4: Intentionality 9. Key 5: The Edge Part Three: Tools for Mastery, Introduction 10. Why Resolutions Fail—and What to do About it 11. Getting Energy for Mastery12. Pitfalls Along the Path 13. Mastering the Commonplace 14. Packing for the Journey Epilogue: The Master and the Fool
Introduction:
“…mastery, ‘the mysterious process during which what is difficult becomes progressively easier and more pleasurable through practice.” Pg. xi
“…the quick-fix, fast-temporary-relief, bottom-line mentality doesn’t work in the long run, and is eventually destructive to the individual and society. If there is any sure route to success and fulfillment in life, it is to be found in the long-term, essentially goalless process of mastery.” Pg. xiii
“The types of learners I would later characterize as the dabbler, the obsessive, and the hacker revealed themselves, in most cases, after only a few classes.” Pg. xiii
“Bottom-line thinking might now prevail, but the master’s journey has deep roots. It also has deep resonance. One might say, in fact, that it’s not so much an idea whose time has come as an idea that has always been with us—it’s just that we need to be reminded.” Pg. xiv
Part One: The Master’s Journey
Introduction
Chapter 1: What is Mastery?
“It resists definition yet can be instantly recognized.” Pg. 5
“It’s available to anyone who is willing to get on the path and stay on it—regardless of age, sex, or previous experience.” Pg. 5
“The modern world, in fact, can be viewed as a prodigious conspiracy against mastery.” Pg. 5
“…quick-fix, antimastery mentality that pervades our society, and see how it not only prevents us from developing our potential skills but threatens our health, education, career, relationships, and perhaps even our national economic viability.” Pg. 6
“If you’re going to go for mastery, it’s better to start with a clean slate rather than have to unlearn bad habits you picked up while hacking around.” Pg. 6-7
“It starts with baby steps….You feel terribly clumsy and disjointed. You have to think to keep the parts of your body synchronized, and thinking gets in the way of graceful, spontaneous movement.” Pg. 7
“The practice just goes on and on…” pg. 8
“Then after about five weeks of frustration, a light goes on….There you are on that damned plateau.” Pg. 8
Master’s Journey Cycle of Growth:
1. Clean slate
2. Baby steps
3. Ongoing Frustrating Practice
4. Burst of Progress
5. Plateau
6. Repeat steps 3-5
“And the process is generally incremental. You can’t skip stages.” Pg .10
“With the introduction of each new stage, you’re going to have to start thinking again, which means things will temporarily fall apart.” Pg. 10
“You realize that you have a decision to make at some point along the journey, fi not now. You’re tempted to drop tennis and go out looking for another, easier sport. Or you might try twice as hard, insist on extra lessons, practice day and night. Or you could quit your lessons and take whatever you’ve learned out on the court; you could forget about improving your game and just have fun with friends who don’t play much better than you. Of course, you could also do what your teachers suggests, and stay on the long road to mastery. What will you choose?” pg. 11
“This question, this moment of choice, comes up countless times in each of our lives, not just about tennis or some other sport, but about everything that has to do with learning, development, and change.” Pg. 11
“Seduced by the siren song of a consumerist, quick-fix society, we sometimes choose a course of action that brings only the illusion of accomplishment, the shadow of satisfaction.” Pg. 11
“But genius, not matter how bright, will come to naught or swiftly burn out if you don’t choose the master’s journey. This journey will take you along a path that is both arduous and exhilarating. It will bring you unexpected heartaches and unexpected rewards, and you will never reach a final destination. (It would be a paltry skill indeed that could be finally, completely mastered.)” pg. 15.
“To take the master’s journey, you have to practice diligently, striving to hone your skills, to attain new levels of competence.” Pg. 15
“To put it another way, the cognitive and effort systems ‘click into’ the habitual system and reprogram it. When the job is done, both systems withdraw. Then you don’t have to stop and think about, say, the right grip every time you shift your racket.” Pg. 16
Chapter 2: Meet the Dabbler, the Obsessive, and the Hacker
The Dabbler
“The Dabbler approaches each new sport, career opportunity, or relationship with enormous enthusiasm. He or she loves the rituals involved in getting started, the spiffy equipment, the lingo, the shine of newness.” Pg. 20
Dabblers love the start, but don’t survive the plateau. Their enthusiasm wanes and they go find something else.
“The Dabbler might think of himself as an adventurer, a connoisseur of novelty, but he’s probably closer to being what Carl Jung calls the puer aeternus, the eternal kid.” Pg. 21
The Obsessive
“The Obsessive is a bottom-line type of person, not one to settle for second best. He or she knows results are what count, and it doesn’t matter how you get them, just so you get them fast.” Pg. 21
Obsessives start fast, pushes through the first plateau, and continues with extraordinary effort and passion. The spurts of progress are followed by sharp declines. The declines hurt and eventually the obsessive can’t keep up their own ferocious energy.
The Hacker
“The hacker has a different attitude. After sort of getting the hang of a thing, he or she is willing to stay on the plateau indefinitely. He doesn’t mind skipping stages essential to the development of mastery if he can just go out and hack around with fellow hackers.” Pg. 23
Hackers look for the shortcut. They try to find a way that’s good enough. Overall, they are more interested in competence than mastery.
“He or she is willing to settle…” pg. 24
“The categories are obviously not quite this neat. You can be a Dabbler in love and a master in art. You can be on the path of mastery on your job and a Hacker on the golf course—or vice versa.” Pg. 24
Chapter 3: America’s War Against Mastery
“Our hyped-up consumerist society is engaged, in fact, in an all-out war on mastery.” Pg. 27
“Life at its best, these commercials teach, is an endless series of climactic moments.” Pg. 29
“And the sitcoms and soaps, the crime shows, and MTV all run on the same hyped-up schedule: (1) If you make smart-assed one-liners for a half-hour, everything will work out fine in time for the closing commercials. (2) People are quite nasty, don’t work hard, and get rich quickly. (3) No problem is so serious that it can’t be resolved in the wink of an eye as soon as the gleaming barrel of a handgun appears. (4) The weirdest fantasy you can think of can be realized instantly without effort.” Pg. 29
“In all of this, the specific content isn’t nearly as destructive to mastery as is the rhythm. One epiphany follows another. One fantasy is crowded out by the next. Climax is piled upon climax. There’s no plateau.” Pg. 29
Similar problems/challenges exist in the modern Western church where influence is offered without character, effort, or sacrifice.
The Path of Endless Climax…
“It should come as no great surprise that many of us have the idea that our lives by all rights should consist of one climax after another. So what do we do when our day-to-day existence doesn’t match up? How do we keep those climactic moments coming without instruction or discipline or practice? It’s easy. Take a drug.” Pg. 30
“This vision isn’t just an invention of television. It resonates in the rhetoric about scoring (‘I don’t care how you win, just win’)…” pg. 32
This idea is utilitarianism. Just do it—no matter how.
“The quick-fix, antimasterry mentality touches almost everything in our lives. Look at modern medicine and pharmacology. ‘Fast, temporary relief’ is the battle cry.” Pg. 33
Very similar to the battle cry of modern-day disciple making.
“Our dedication to growth at all costs puts us on a collision course with the environment. Our dedication to the illusion of endless climaxes puts us on a collision course with the human psyche.” Pg. 36
Chapter 4: Loving the Plateau
“We spend our lives stretched on an iron rack of contingencies.” Pg. 39
“We are taught in countless ways to value the product, the prize, the climactic moment.” Pg. 39
“If our life is a good one, a life of mastery, most of it will be spent on the plateau.” Pg. 40
“The question remains: Where in our upbringing, our schooling, our career are we explicitly taught to value, to enjoy, even to love the plateau, the long stretch of diligent effort with no seeming progress?” pg. 40
“When you discover you own desire, you’re not going to wait for other people to find solutions to your problems. You’re going to find your own.” Pg. 45
“Love of your work, willingness to stay with it even in the absence of extrinsic reward, is good food and good drink.” Pg. 47
“But it seems to me that mastery’s true face is relaxed and serene, sometimes faintly smiling.” Pg. 47
“Practice, the path of mastery, exists only in the present. You can see it, hear it, smell it, feel it. To love the plateau is to love the eternal now, to enjoy the inevitable spurts of progress and the fruits of accomplishment, then serenely to accept the new plateau that waits just beyond them. To love the plateau is to love what is most essential and enduring in your life.” Pg. 49
The Five Master Keys
“Man is a learning animal, and the essence of the species is encoded in that simple term.” Pg. 53
Key #1: Instruction
“There are some skills you can learn on your won, and some you can try to learn, but if you intend to take the journey of mastery, the best thing you can do is to arrange for first-rate instruction.” Pg. 55
“For mastering skills, there’s nothing better than being in the hands of a master teacher, either one-to-one or in a small group.” Pg. 56
“Instruction demands a certain humility; at best, the teacher takes delight in being surpassed by his or her students.” Pg. 57
“To see the teacher clearly, look at the students. They are his work of art.” Pg. 57
“Sometimes, strange4ly enough, those with exceptional talent have trouble staying on the path of mastery.” Pg. 66
“In our scriptures, it is said that there are four kinds of horses: excellent ones, good ones, poor ones, and bad ones. The best horse will run slow and fast, right and left, at the driver’s will, before it sees the shadow of the whip; the second best will run as well as the first one just before the whip reaches its skin; the third one will run when it feels pain on its body; the fourth will run after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones. You can imagine how difficult it is for the fourth one to learn to run.” Pg. 66-67, quoting Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki
“When you learn too easily, you’re tempted not to work hard, not to penetrate the marrow of a practice.” Pg. 67
“The best horse, according to Suzuki, may be the worst horse. And the worst horse can be the best if it perseveres, it will have learned whatever it is practicing all the way to the marrow of its bones.” Pg. 67
“Learning eventually involves interaction between the learner and the learning environment, and its effectiveness relates to the frequency, quality, variety, and intensity of the interaction. With tapes, there’s no real interaction at all; information flows in one direction only.” Pg. 68
Chapter 6: Key 2: Practice
“For one who is on the master’s journey, however, the word is best conceived of as a noun, not as something you do, but as something you have, something you are. In this sense, the word is akin to the Chinese word tao and the Japanese word do, both of which mean, literally, road or path. Practice is the path upon which you travel, just that.” Pg. 74
“Ultimately, the master and the master’s path are one. And if the traveler is fortunate—that is, if the path is complex and profound enough—the destination is two miles farther away for every mile he or she travels.” Pg. 74
“In a nation obsessed with achievement of goals (‘It doesn’t matter how you score; the score is all that counts.’ ‘Don’t tell me how you are going to sell the add, just sell it.’ ‘Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.’) devotion to the goalless journey might seem incomprehensible if not bizarre.” Pg. 75
Again, utilitarianism is deeply rooted in our US Culture.
“There’s another secret: The people we know as masters don’t devote themselves to their particular skill just to get better at it. The truth is, they love to practice—and because of this they do get better. And then, to complete the circle, the better they get the more they enjoy performing the basic moves over and over again.” Pg. 75
“Black belts at the basics classes have the knowledge and experience—the feel—necessary to appreciate the subtleties and endless possibilities contained within even the most rudimentary technique.” Pg. 76
“‘The Master,’ an old martial arts saying goes, ‘is the one who stays on the mat five minutes longer every day than anybody else.’” Pg. 76
“The master of any game is generally the master of practice.” Pg. 77
“No question, [Larry] Bird likes to win. Still according to his agent Bob Woolf, that’s not the main reason he practices so diligently and plays so wholeheartedly. ‘He does it just to enjoy himself. Not to make money, to get acclaim, to gain stature. He just loves to play basketball.” Pg. 78
“To practice regularly, even when you seem to be getting nowhere, might at first seem onerous. But the day eventually comes when practicing becomes a treasured part of your life.” Pg. 79
“Ultimately, practice is the path of mastery.” Pg. 79
“But that’s not really the point. What is mastery? At the heart of it, mastery is practice. Mastery is staying on the path.” Pg. 80
Chapter 7: Key 3: Surrender
“The courage of a master is measured by his or her willingness to surrender. This means surrendering to your teacher and to the demands of your discipline.” Pg. 81
“The parable of the cup and the quart applies here. There’s a quart of milk on the table—within your reach. But you’re holding a cup of milk in your hand and you’re afraid to let go of the cup in order to get the quart.” Pg. 84
“For the master, surrender means there are no experts. There are only learners.” Pg. 88
Chapter 8: Key 4: Intentionality
“It joins old words with new—character, willpower, attitude, imaging, the mental game—but what I’m calling intentionality, however you look at it, is an essential to take along on the master’s journey.” Pg. 89
“…thought, images, feelings, and the like are quite real and that they do have a great influence on the world of matter and energy.” Pg. 94
“More and more, the universe looks like a great thought rather than a great machine.” Pg. 95 quoting Astronomer Sir James Jeans
“What’s the role of intentionality here? It’s certainly involved in the creation of the structure-as-idea.” Pg. 96
“‘All I know,’ said Arnold Schwarzenneger, ‘is that the first step is to create the vision, because when you see the vision there—the beautiful vision—that creates the ‘want power.’ For example, my wanting to be Mr. Universe came about because I saw myself so clearly, being up there on the stage and winning.” Intentionality fuels the master’s journey. Every master is a master of vision.” Pg. 96
This is such a great point. Vision leads the way. Same in disciple making. Vision engages the heart, the heart will then be motivated to develop and learn skills. It doesn’t work reverses the order.
Chapter 9: Key 5: The Edge
“Almost without exception, those we know as masters are dedicated to the fundamentals of their calling. They are zealots of practice, connoisseurs of the small, incremental step. At the same time—and here’s the paradox—these people, these masters, are precisely the ones who are likely to challenge previous limits, to take risks for the sake of higher performance, and even to become obsessive at times in that pursuit. Clearly, for them the key is not either/or, it’s both/and.” Pg. 97
“At our dojo, we present aikido, first of all, as an endless path. But we also have periodic examinations that are rigorous, challenging, and sometimes quite dramatic.” Pg. 98
“In the words of the ancient Eastern adage: ‘Before enlightenment. chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.’” Pg. 99
“Playing the edge is a balancing act. It demands awareness to know when you’re pushing yourself beyond safe limits.” Pg. 99
“Perhaps there would be no human world at all, for there must have been countless times before the dawn of history when primitive hunters in pursuit of prey gave all of themselves in this way so that members of their bands, our distant ancestors, could live.” Pg. 101
Chapter 10: Why Resolutions Fail—and What to Do About It
“Our body, brain, and behavior have a built-in tendency to stay the same within rather narrow limits, and to snap back when changed—and it’s a very good thing to do.” Pg. 107
“This condition of equilibrium, this resistance to change, is called homeostasis. It characterizes all self-regulating systems…” pg. 108
“The problem is homeostasis works to keep things as they are even if they aren’t very good.” Pg. 110
“Homeostasis, remember, doesn’t distinguish between what you would call change for the better and change for the worse. It resists all change.” Pg. 111
“Just let it be said that the resistance here (as in other cases) is proportionate to the size and speed of the change, not to whether the change is a favorable or unfavorable one.” Pg. 112
“Realizing significantly more of your potential in almost anything can change you in many ways.” Pg. 113
5 Guidelines to Get on and Stay on the Path: pgs. 114-117
1. Be aware of the way homeostasis works.
2. Be willing to negotiate with your resistance to change.
3. Develop a support system.
4. Follow a regular practice.
5. Dedicate yourself to lifelong learning.
“Bear in mind that an entire system has to change when any part of it changes.” Pg. 114
“It’s easier to start applying the principles of mastery to your profession or your primary relationship if you’ve already established a regular morning exercise program. Practice is a habit, and any regular practice provides a sort of underlying homeostasis, a stable base during the instability of change.” Pg. 117
Chapter 11: Getting Energy for Mastery
“A human being is the kind of machine that wears out from lack of use.” Pg. 120
“As Frederich S. (Fritz) Perls, founder of Gestalt therapy, used to say, ‘I don’t want to be saved, I want to be spent.’” Pg. 120
“The conventional classroom setup, with twenty to thirty-five kids forced to do the same thing at the same time, makes individual initiative and exploration nearly impossible.” Pg. 121
“The fundamental learning is negative. ‘It is in fact nothing short of a miracle,’ Albert Einstein wrote, ‘ that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry….It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and sense of duty.” Pg. 122
7 Ways to Retain Negative Energy
1. Maintain Physical Fitness
2. Acknowledge the negative and accentuate the positive
3. Try Telling the Truth
4. Honor but don’t indulge your own dark side
5. Set Your Priorities
6. Make commitments. Take Action
7. Get on the path of mastery and stay on it.
“…physical fitness contributes enormously to energy in every aspect of our lives…” pg. 123
“To a man and a woman, they stress the value of a positive attitude and the effectiveness of praise and other forms of positive feedback.” Pg. 124
“Generally, denial inhibits energy, while realistic acknowledgement of the truth releases it.” Pg. 125
“Telling people what they’re doing wrong while ignoring what they’re doing right reduces their energy.” Pg. 125
“Lies and secrets are poison in organizations—people’s energy is devoted to deceiving and hiding and remembering who it is you don’t want to tell what to. When people start telling the truth, you see almost immediate reductions in mistakes and increases productivity.” Pg. 126
“An affluent, consumer-oriented way of life multiplies the choices that face you.” Pg. 129
“Indecision leads to inaction, which leads to low energy, depression, despair. Ultimately, liberation comes through the acceptance of limits.” Pg. 129
“The gift of an externally imposed deadline isn’t always available. Sometimes you need to set your own.” Pg. 130
“A regular practice not only elicits energy tames it.” Pg. 130
“On the master’s journey, you can learn to put things in perspective, to keep the flow of energy going during low moments as well as high. You also learn that you can’t hoard energy; you can’t build it up by not using it. Adequate rest is, of course, a part of the master’s journey, but, unaccompanied by positive action, rest may only depress you.” Pg. 131
Chapter 12: Pitfalls Along the Path
“It’s easy to get on the path of mastery. The real challenge lies in staying on it.” Pg. 133
Thirteen Pitfalls to the Master’s Journey
1. Conflicting Way of Life
2. Obsessive Goal Orientation
3. Poor Instruction
4. Lack of Competitiveness
5. Overcompetitiveness
6. Laziness
7. Injuries
8. Drugs
9. Prizes and Medals
10. Vanity
11. Dead Seriousness
12. Inconsistency
13. Perfectionism
“The traveler whose main path of mastery coincides with career and livelihood is fortunate; others must find space and time outside regular working hours for a preferred practice that brings mastery but not a living wage.” Pg. 133
“When you’re climbing a mountain, in other words, be aware that the peak is ahead, but don’t keep looking at it.” Pg. 134
“The statement, ‘Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” is one of the greatest hoaxes. Think about it; if winning is the only thing, then practice, discipline, conditioning, and character are nothing.” Pg. 135
“If your path is a physical one, and if you’re like most of us, you’ll probably encounter injuries somewhere along the way.” Pg. 136
“The best way of achieving a goal is to be fully present.” Pg. 137
“Excessive use of external motivation can slow and even stop your journey to mastery.” Pg. 137
“It’s possible that one of the reasons you got on the path of mastery was to look good. But to learn something new of any significance, you have to be willing to look foolish.” Pg. 138
“Without laughter, the rough and rocky places on the path might be too painful to bear. Humor not only lightens the load, it also broadens the perspective.” Pg. 139
“Consistency of practice is the mark of the master.” Pg. 139
“In a way, it’s a pity that technology has brought so many masterful performances into our homes.” Pg. 140
Chapter 13: Mastering the Commonplace
“In any case, there are all of those chores that most of us can’t avoid: cleaning, straightening, raking leaves, shopping for groceries, driving the children to various activities, preparing food, washing dishes, washing the car, commuting, performing the routine, repetitive aspects of our jobs. This is the ‘in-between time,’ the stuff we have to take care of before getting on to the things that count. But if you stop to think about it, most of life is ‘in between.’” Pg. 142
“Could all of us reclaim the lost hours of our lives by making everything—the commonplace along with the extraordinary—a part of our practice?” Pg. 142
“It’s truly bizarre, when you stop to think about it, that we are sometimes quite willing to give full attention to developing our tennis game while leaving such ‘commonplace’ things as relationships largely to change.” Pg. 147
“Surrender. The ability to surrender to your art is a mark of the master, whether the art is martial or marital.” Pg. 149
“The edge of mastery is built on unrelenting practice, but it’s also a place of adventure.” Pg. 149
“My daily affairs are quite ordinary;
But I’m in total harmony with them.
I don’t hold on to anything, don’t reject anything;
Nowhere an obstacle or conflict.
Who cares about wealth and honor?
Even the poorest things shines.
My miraculous power and spiritual activity;
Drawing the water and carrying wood.” – Chinese Zen master Layman P’ang
Chapter 14: Packing for the Journey
“An introduction to ki. It’s ki in Japanese, ch’I in Chinese, pneuma in Greek, prana in Sanskrit, and, you might say, “the Force” in the Star Wars trilogy.” Pg. 161
“The Eastern martial arts share a common faith in this energy. By somehow controlling its flow in one’s own body projecting it toward external objects, the marital artist can supposedly achieve extraordinary powers.” Pg. 162
“The idea of ki can offer the untrained person an effective way of gaining a sensation of increased power along with relaxation, especially during times of fatigue and stress, and thus is a useful item to pack for your journey.” Pg. 162
“At this moment, however, I am struck by the insignificance of anything I or anyone else could give you compared with what you already have. You are the culmination of an extravagant evolutionary journey. Your DNA contains more information than all of the libraries in the world; information that goes back to the beginnings of life itself. In potential, you are the most formidable all-around athlete who has every roamed the planet. Many creatures possess more highly specialized sense organs, but no total sensorium is so well equipped and integrated as is yours. (The unaided human eye can detect a single quantum of light—the smallest amount possible—and discern more than ten million colors). Your brain is the most complex entity in the known universe; its billions of twinkling neurons interact in ways so multitudinous and multifarious as to dwarf the capacity of any computer ever yet devised or imagined. The best way to describe your total creative capacity is to say that for all practical purposes it is infinite.” Pg. 167
Epilogue: The Master and the Fool
“It’s simple. To be a learner, you’ve got to be willing to be a fool.” Pg. 172
“By fool, to be clear, I don’t mean a stupid, unthinking person, but one with the spirit of the medieval fool, the court jester, the care-free fool in the tarot deck who bears the awesome number zero, signifying the fertile void from which all creation springs, the state of emptiness that allows new things to come into being.” Pg. 173
“…consider for a moment the learnings in life you’ve forfeited because your parents, your peers, your school, your society, have not allowed you to be playful, free, and foolish in the learning process. How many times have you failed to try something new out of fear of being thought silly? How often have you censored your spontaneity out of fear of being thought childish?” Pg. 174-175