Mastery by George Leonard

When explaining to a mentor the self determination precepts detailed in Daniel Pink’s book Drive (Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose), the mentor recommended George Leonard’s book Mastery.  I am glad for the mentor’s recommendation.  This book written in 1991 is an oldie but goodie.

Mr. Leonard writes from the perspective of an Aikido master.  The core premise of his book is that the true mastery comes from the path (aka practice) itself.  Mr. Leonard writes, “you practice diligently, but you practice primarily for the sake of the practice itself.”

Offering a perspective that certainly holds true almost 20 years later, Mr Leonard writes in his first chapter, “The modern world, in fact, can be viewed as a prodigious conspiracy against mastery.”  Mr. Leonard presents 3 profiles in disguised or attempted Mastery: ‘the Dabbler’, ‘the Hacker’ and ‘the Obsessive’.  Any reader will resonate with these profiles (as this Dabbling Hacker did for himself).  Then Mr. Leonard observes how modern consumerist life is presented as an unending sequence of climatic moments:

“One epiphany follows another.  One fantasy is crowded out by the next.  Climax is piled upon climax.  There’s no plateau.”

Instead of the “quick-fix” mentality that permeates education, business, personal life and society at large, Mr. Leonard advocates the intrinsic path of the master.  Introducing his “mastery curve”, Mr. Leonard writes:

“To take the master’s journey, you have to practice diligently, striving to hone your skills, to attain new levels of     competence.  But while doing so – and this is the inexorable fact of the journey – you also have to be willing to     spend most of your time on a plateau, to keep practicing even when you seem to be getting nowhere.”

Drawing upon his Aikido teaching experience, Mr. Leonard outlines 5 “Master Keys”:

Key 1 – Instruction
Mr Leonard outlines what makes a good instructor as well as what it takes to be a good student

Key 2 – Practice
“For one who is on the master’s journey, however, the word [practice] is best conceived of as a noun, not as something you do , but as something that you have, something you are … akin to the Chinese word ‘Tao’ and  Japanese word ‘Do’ both of which mean, literally, road or path.”

Key 3 – Surrender
Surrender to your teacher, be willing to sacrifice, even take a step back to advance your mastery.

Key 4 – Intentionality
Positive mental awareness – “Thoughts, images and feelings are indeed quite real.”

Key 5 – The Edge
After accumulating many years of Instruction, Practice, Surrender and Intentionality, the master, writes Mr. Leonard, is able to “not only engage to test the edges of the envelope, but also to walk the fine line between endless, goalless practice and those alluring goals that appear along the way.”

From there Mr. Leonard provides an overview of tools to help Mastery stick.  Mr. Leonard outlines 5 approaches to overcoming the homeostasis resistance that naturally counteracts any change and then provides 7 very helpful pointers to increase your energy while pursuing the path of mastery.  My Leonard also details no less than 13 “pitfalls” to Mastery and techniques for overcoming them.  I leave this wisdom for the reader to find on their own.

Mr. Leonard ends his book with two gems.  The first gem is that he circles back to his 5 Master Keys and applies them to relationships.  Mr. Leonard writes, “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 completely to chance.”  In his second and ending gem, Mr. Leonard tells the story of how the founder of Judo, Jigaro Kano, instructed his students to bury him in his white belt when he died.  Ending his book, Mr. Leonard writes,

“Are you willing to wear your white belt?”

Sales and alliances are ripe for the principles outlined in Mastery.  While sales and alliances certainly require a deal to close, there is a never ending practice to improve upon behind the deals to master.  The book has some dated references but the maxims hold true.  Are you pursuing the path of mastery?  Find out for yourself in a quick read of Mr. Leonard’s book.

Copyright King Mediary, Inc. 2010