What does it take to become a master at your craft? Is genius innate,

or can it be learned?

In his book, "Mastery," Robert Greene draws from the latest research,

interviews modern masters, and examines the lives of former greats

like Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and Mozart to discover what it

takes to achieve excellence. 

He argues that success is within anyone's reach, if they have

discipline, patience, and follow a number of important steps.

With permission from Greene, we've excerpted the following tips for

mastering anything from his book:

1. Find your life's task.

Many people have an intense feeling about what they're best at. Too

often, they're driven away from it by other people. The first step is to

trust yourself and aim your career path at what's unique about you.

Leonardo da Vinci didn't come into his own as an artist alone, but

when he followed his childhood curiosity about everything, he became

an advisor and expert in subjects from architecture to anatomy for his

patrons. 

2. Rather than compete in a crowded field, find a niche where you can dominate.

Legendary neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran was at once a restless

and dissatisfied professor of psychology. What was supposed to be a

calling felt like a job. When he began the study of phantom limbs and

anomalous brain disorders, he found questions about the brain and

consciousness that fascinate him to this day. 

Find your perfect niche, and stand out. 

3. Rebel against the wrong path, and use that anger as motivation.

Mozart was a child prodigy on the piano. At a very young age, his

domineering father toured Europe with him. When he discovered a

talent for unique composition, his father suppressed it. It wasn't until

he rejected his father entirely that he became a master.

We are often attracted to the wrong things, whether it be money,

fame, or approval. 

4. Love your subject at a very basic level.

The things that transfixed you as a child, that you found most exciting

was not a passing fancy, but a message about what you're supposed

to do. For Marie Curie, it was wandering into her father's laboratory

and being fascinated by his instruments.

5. Find the ideal apprenticeship.

Charles Darwin was a mediocre student. He scraped by in school,

more interested in specimens than classes. When the chance to join

an expedition to the Americas came, he almost didn't go. What he

saw on that boat lead to his life's work, and one of the most influential

theories of all time. 

We are often raised as dependents then given over to teachers. It's

experience and exploration that can transform us and lead to

mastery. 

6. Engage in deep observation, practice incessantly, and experiment.

Deep observation

You don't need to impress people. You need to watch them. By

learning the rules, you can dominate.

Practice, practice, practice

Our brains are set up to master skills. By repeating one thing over and

over again, neurons are recruited, hardwired, and mirrored. That's one

of the reasons you never forget how to ride a bike.

Experiment

You don't know if you're a master until you test it. Do it before you're

ready so you actually learn.

7. Value learning over money so you're not a slave to everyone's opinion.

Instead of a more lucrative, time-consuming commercial job, Martha

Graham took a poorly paying teaching job that allowed her time to

train and develop the innovations in dance that made her as

revolutionary as Picasso was for painting.

Training, learning, and mentorship don't come from the highest-

paying, highest-pressure jobs. Those lead you down a conservative

path of pleasing others. 

8. Revert to a feeling of inferiority in order to truly learn.

Daniel Everett, a gifted linguist, was failing to learn the language of

the Paraha tribe in the Amazon, which stumped researchers for years.

He failed because he approached it as a linguist and Christian

missionary, from a position of superiority.

He didn't master the language until he learned it like one of the

Paraha's children, dependent on the tribe, and subject to the same

restraints, inferiority, and need for support that they were.

Entering a new place or path you need to learn as much as possible

as quickly as possible. Lingering prejudices and feelings of superiority

hamper that. 

9. Engage in intense practice and lean toward resistance and pain.

Hall of Famer Bill Bradley was suited for basketball only in height. He

was slow, couldn't jump, and had no feel for the game. He practiced

three or more hours after school, on weekends, put weights in his

shoes, and taped cardboard to the bottom of his glasses so he could

dribble without seeing the ball. That was just the beginning of his

regimen.

Intense practice with resistance can be twice as effective as what's

easy. 

10. Rely on trial and error more than anything.

Paul Graham was always fascinated by computers. He eventually

found that he learned by tackling problems, failing, and trying again,

not by being taught. That experience eventually lead to the creation of

YCombinator, which gives entrepreneurs the support to do what he

did. 

Now, apprenticeships are less likely to be formal. You have to make

your own based on your unique style of learning. 

11. Absorb a master's power.

The 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. You can learn a masterful way of thinking

that takes a lifetime to develop in a fraction of the time. 

But the goal must always be to surpass them. 

12. Choose a mentor who will intensely challenge you.

Carl Jung worshiped Freud as a pioneer in his field, but was

ambivalent about certain parts of his theory. By using him as a

mentor, even though they eventually split, he better understood where

he disagreed with Freud, learned a great deal, and sharpened his own

core ideas and identity. 

The more your mentor challenges others, the more they'll challenge

you. 

13. Absorb your master's knowledge completely — and then transform it.

Glenn Gould was his legendary teacher Alberto Guerrero's most

promising piano student. Gould would take what Guerrero taught him

and quickly move it in an entirely different direction. At 19 he went out

on his own, but years later, Guerrero could still see the things he

taught Gould, totally absorbed, but utterly transformed by his genius.  

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. 

14. Create a back-and-forth dynamic with all of your relationships.

Freddie Roach, one of boxing's most legendary trainers, found his

greatest student in future 8 division world champion Manny Pacquiao.

He was Roach's most intense, teachable student, and over time, he

learned to take Roach's strategies and instructions a step beyond

what he ever could have alone.

The best relationships are interactive. 

Learning someone else's dogma is never as effective as adapting and

improving it. 

15. Master social intelligence.

One of the biggest barriers to becoming a master is dealing with

others. It's far too easy to live life as a series of battles and skirmishes

over power that turn out to be minor. 

The idea that people can be so brilliant they don't need to deal with

society is a misleading one. Masters use social intelligence to amplify

their skills, rather than turning others into an obstacle. 

16. Accept criticism and adapt to power structures and society.

Ignaz Semmelweis was one of the earliest pioneers of using antiseptic

techniques, something that could have and since has saved millions

of lives. It was never fully adopted in his time because of the high

handed, arrogant way he dealt with his superiors, and his refusal to

actually prove his ideas. He died penniless and abandoned at 47.

Use those in power, don't alienate them. Otherwise, genius goes to

waste. 

17. Meticulously craft your persona.

Teresita Fernandez, a sculptor and winner of a MacArthur "Genius

Fellowship" could have let others define her. Sculpture, and working in

metal in particular was a largely male medium, and she could have

easily been perceived as as a fleeting novelty. By spending time on

her persona, as well as on her art, she added to her success. 

We all wear masks in society. Being aware of that rather than self

conscious about it allows you to be more effective in any situation. 

18. Suffer fools, and learn to exploit them.

The German poet and novelist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe spent a

period of his youth in the court of a prominent Duke. Upon accepting

it, he found himself in a claustrophobic and petty court culture. Rather

than engaging, he used their behavior as the basis for later plays and

novels. 

There are simply too many fools to avoid. Don't engage or sink to their

level.

19. Awaken the dimensional mind, and be bold.

After emerging from an apprenticeship, the inclination is to be

conservative, to work firmly within a field and established, familiar

rules.

The key to mastery is rejecting conservatism and becoming

increasingly bold. 

20. Absorb everything, and then let your brain make connections for you.

The brain is designed to make connections. When we focus too

intently on a given task, we can grow tense, and our brain closes off.

Masters read and absorb everything that could be related to stimulate

the brain into making a leap. 

That's how Louis Pasteur made the leap that lead to vaccines. He

spent years developing germ theory, which enabled him to see the

importance of a group of chickens that survived injection with an old

culture of disease. As he said, "Chance favors only the prepared

mind."

21. Avoid putting things into familiar categories.

The most creative minds resist one of the brain's signature

tendencies, to put things in easy categories, to use a mental

shorthand to simplify everything. With an effort to alter perspective,

that can change. 

Larry Page and Sergey Brin came up with the insight that made

Google by seeing what seemed to be a trivial flaw, bad results in

search engines that ranked pages by how often something was

mentioned. One anomaly led them to a vastly more effective path.

22. Don't let impatience derail your plans.

John Coltrane's greatest strength, improvisation, was once a

weakness. He would resort to imitation rather than innovation. After

years of absorbing other's styles and learning a vast technical

vocabulary, he learned how to bend it 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.

23. Value mechanical and abstract intelligence equally.

The most brilliant engineers in the world failed to create a working

flying machine. Orville and Wilbur Wright were bicycle mechanics. A

simple insight, that a flying machine needed to be able to bank like a

bicycle rather than moving in straight horizontal lines like a ship,

helped them beat men who had attacked the problem for years.

Mechanical intelligence, the focus on functionality, can be equally as

vital and creative as the abstract. 

24. Avoid "technical lock," or getting wrapped up in technical artistry instead of the real problem.

Honeybee Robotics

"Neurobotics" pioneer Yoky Matsuoka had an impossible goal, to build

a robotic hand that was lifelike. To her, it wasn't a series of

mechanical puzzles, but a learning process to understand the human

hand. Seemingly irrelevant anatomical details turned out to be

extremely important for function.

Technical lock makes people lose sight of larger questions. By looking

at the human hand, already weirdly perfect, Matsuoka surpassed

people who had been absorbed in technical issues for years. 

25. Fuse the intuitive and the rational.

This is the final step. Deep immersion in a particular field, experience

in an apprenticeship, time under a mentor, and unlocking creative

potential create an extraordinary depth of knowledge and an ability to

quickly and instinctively respond to any situation.

Combining that instinct with rational processes allows people to

achieve their greatest potential, to become masters. 

26. Shape your world around your strengths.

Albert Einstein was a bad scientist. He hated the way physics was

taught and didn't like experiments. His greatest insights came from

elsewhere. His theory of simple relativity, came partially from thinking

about an image in his head of trains, beams of light, men and

women. 

By deciding at 20 to stray away from conventional, experimental

science, and to use his distaste for authority to remove conventions

that held him back, Einstein did something that felt intuitive, looked

illogical, but was intensely rational. 

27. Know that practice is just as important as innate skill.

Cesar Rodriguez, nicknamed "America's Last Ace" wasn't a naturally

gifted pilot. He fell behind at first. He caught up, then passed

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. 

Achievement through thousands of hours of practice seems so

ordinary somehow. But it's how most people become masters.