Business Insider
by Max Nisen and Aimee Groth
2 Nov 12
There's still a debate over whether people are born with innate talents, or develop their talent through intense practice.
In his new book, "Mastery," Robert Greene argues that humans are hardwired to succeed and overcome, and with discipline and a number of concrete steps, anybody has the potential to become great.
He looks through the biographies of historical geniuses, interviews contemporary masters, and draws from years of psychology research to distill steps anyone can follow to become a master.
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.
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."
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 Sergei 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.
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.
For more thought-provoking tips –
http://www.businessinsider.com/rober...y-2012-11?op=1
Originally Posted by Sheila
