Mastery (2 page)

THINKING INSIDE

Benjamin Franklin

KEYS TO MASTERY

Humans as the preeminent social animal—the Naïve Perspective holding us back—interpretation of Benjamin Franklin story—adjusting your attitude

Specific Knowledge—Reading People
Nonverbal communication—paying attention to cues—looking for common emotional experiences—reading people intuitively—looking for patterns—the danger of first impressions

General Knowledge—The Seven Deadly Realities
Envy
Conformism
Rigidity
Self-obsessiveness
Laziness
Flightiness
Passive Aggression

Social intelligence and creativity

STRATEGIES FOR ACQUIRING
SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE

1. Speak through your work
A. Ignaz Semmelweis
B. William Harvey

2. Craft the appropriate persona
Teresita Fernández

3. See yourself as others see you
Temple Grandin

4. Suffer fools gladly
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—Josef von Sternberg—Daniel Everett

REVERSAL

Paul Graham

V.

AWAKEN THE DIMENSIONAL MIND:
THE CREATIVE-ACTIVE

As you accumulate more skills and internalize the rules that govern your field, your mind will want to become more active, seeking to use this knowledge in ways that are more suited to your inclinations. Instead of feeling complacent about what you know, you must expand your knowledge to related fields, giving your mind fuel to make new associations between different ideas. In the end, you will turn against the very rules you have internalized, shaping and reforming them to suit your spirit. Such originality will bring you to the heights of power.

THE SECOND TRANSFORMATION

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

KEYS TO MASTERY

The Original Mind—the Conventional Mind—the Dimensional Mind—interpretation of Mozart story—the three essential steps

Step One: The Creative Task

Altering your concept of creativity—searching for the Great White Whale—Thomas Edison, Rembrandt, Marcel Proust, and the ultimate creative challenges—The Primary Law of the Creative Dynamic—finding something to rebel against—remaining realistic—letting go of security

Step Two: Creative Strategies

A. CULTIVATE NEGATIVE CAPABILITY

Keats on the creative process—definition of Negative Capability—Mozart and Bach—Einstein and Negative Capability—Shakespeare as ideal—Faraday on humility—Negative Capability as a tool to open the mind

B. ALLOW FOR SERENDIPITY

The brain as a dual processing system—definition of “serendipity”—William James and mental momentum—maintaining openness of spirit—Louis Pasteur and serendipity—Thomas Edison, serendipity, and the recording of sound—the fluid mind—serendipity strategies of Anthony Burgess and Max Ernst—cultivating serendipity—analogical thinking and Galileo

C. ALTERNATE THE MIND THROUGH “THE CURRENT”

Charles Darwin and the Current—definition of “the Current”—our primitive ancestors and the Current—short-circuiting the Current—Buckminster Fuller and artifacts—the importance of creating objects—feedback loop

D. ALTER YOUR PERSPECTIVE

Typical patterns of thinking to alter

Looking at the “what” instead of the “how”

Avoiding shorthand—focusing on the structure—getting a feel for the whole—the importance of relationships in science

Rushing to generalities and ignoring details

Shifting from the macro to the micro—Charles Darwin and the micro-study of barnacles—Leonardo da Vinci’s attention to micro-detail in painting—letting details guide you

Confirming paradigms and ignoring anomalies

Overdependence on paradigms—the value of anomalies—Marie Curie and the anomaly of radioactivity—the founders of Google and anomalies—anomalies fueling evolution

Fixating on what is present, ignoring what is absent

Sherlock Holmes and negative cues—Gowland Hopkins, negative cues, and scurvy—meeting unfulfilled needs—Henry Ford, negative cues, and the assembly line—reversing your emotional perspective—setbacks as opportunities

E. REVERT TO PRIMAL FORMS OF INTELLIGENCE

The intelligence of our primitive ancestors—the human brain as a multiuse instrument—grammar as a limitation—thinking beyond language—examples of famous people who thought in images—the limitations of memory—using diagrams and models—Schiller, Einstein, Samuel Johnson, and synesthesia

Step Three: The Creative Breakthrough—
Tension and Insight

The high internal standards of Masters—letting go—Einstein, letting go, and the discovery of relativity—Richard Wagner completing his opera in a dream—how the brain reaches peaks of creativity—blocks that precede enlightenment—Evariste Galois’s sudden burst of genius—the need for tension—manufacturing deadlines—Thomas Edison’s manufacture of pressure

Emotional Pitfalls

Complacency

Conservatism

Dependency

Impatience

Grandiosity

Inflexibility

STRATEGIES FOR THE CREATIVE-ACTIVE PHASE

1. The Authentic Voice
John Coltrane

2. The Fact of Great Yield
V. S. Ramachandran

3. Mechanical Intelligence
The Wright brothers

4. Natural Powers
Santiago Calatrava

5. The Open Field
Martha Graham

6. The High End
Yoky Matsuoka

7. The Evolutionary Hijack
Paul Graham

8. Dimensional Thinking
Jean-François Champollion

9. Alchemical Creativity and the Unconscious
Teresita Fernández

REVERSAL

John Coltrane—August Strindberg

VI.

FUSE THE INTUITIVE WITH
THE RATIONAL: MASTERY

All of us have access to a higher form of intelligence, one that can allow us to see more of the world, to anticipate trends, to respond with speed and accuracy to any circumstance. This intelligence is cultivated by deeply immersing ourselves in a field of study and staying true to our inclinations, no matter how unconventional our approach might seem to others. This power is what our brains were designed to attain, and we will be naturally led to this type of intelligence if we follow our inclinations to their ultimate ends.

THE THIRD TRANSFORMATION

Marcel Proust

KEYS TO MASTERY

Examples of Masters seeing more—the fingertip feel—a power that is mystified— high-level intuition—the Dynamic—gaining an intuitive feel for the whole—Jane Goodall’s feel for chimpanzees—Erwin Rommel’s feel for battle—the fusing of the rational and the intuitive—mastery at 20,000 hours—time as a crucial factor—make study time qualitatively rich—interpretation of Proust story

The Roots of Masterly Intuition

The Ammophila wasp—intuition and our primitive ancestors—mnemonic networks in the brain—Bobby Fischer and memory traces—engaging with complexity—gaining a tolerance for chaos—increasing memory capacity—examples of high-level intuition and youthfulness

The Return to Reality

Overview of evolution from the beginning—the interconnectedness of all life—the ultimate reality—our modern Renaissance—returning to the whole—the altered brain of the Master

STRATEGIES FOR ATTAINING MASTERY

1. Connect to your environment—Primal Powers
The Caroline Islanders

2. Play to your strengths—Supreme Focus
A. Albert Einstein
B. Temple Grandin

3. Transform yourself through practice—
The Fingertip Feel
Cesar Rodriguez

4. Internalize the details—The Life Force
Leonardo da Vinci

5. Widen your vision—The Global Perspective
Freddie Roach

6. Submit to the other—The Inside-out Perspective
Daniel Everett

7. Synthesize all forms of knowledge—
The Universal Man/Woman
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

REVERSAL

The false self—the true self—genius demystified—your purpose in life—realizing your potential

CONTEMPORARY MASTER
BIOGRAPHIES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

THE ULTIMATE POWER

Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure. But it’s the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others: We are merely born with the capability to do it. The skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.

—J
OHANN
W
OLFGANG VON
G
OETHE

There exists a form of power and intelligence that represents the high point of human potential. It is the source of the greatest achievements and discoveries in history. It is an intelligence that is not taught in our schools nor analyzed by professors, but almost all of us, at some point, have had glimpses of it in our own experience. It often comes to us in a period of tension—facing a deadline, the urgent need to solve a problem, a crisis of sorts. Or it can come as the result of constant work on a project. In any event, pressed by circumstances, we feel unusually energized and focused. Our minds become completely absorbed in the task before us. This intense concentration sparks all kinds of ideas—they come to us as we fall asleep, out of nowhere, as if springing from our unconscious. At these times, other people seem less resistant to our influence; perhaps we are more attentive to them, or we appear to have a special power that inspires their respect. We might normally experience life in a passive mode, constantly reacting to this or that incident, but for these days or weeks we feel like we can determine events and make things happen.