Yesterday, I started reading Mastery, by George Leonard. This was a strong recommendation by my friend Max, who said I should read it before eating or even using the toilet. So I stopped everything, ran to my shelf while we were talking, and my heart sank. "It's over 300 pages, dude!"
"Really, 300 pages, are you certain?" "Yes, I am holding it right in my hands."
"You got the wrong 'Mastery' book." The one I am talking about is by George Leonard, and it is about 180 pages long."

With this little introduction, he went on to tell me more about the book and I was intrigued. The writer was a martial artist and had incorporated some of what he had learned in aikido in his book. Max told me that it was the process of learning, not the result, that mattered.

In my first bit of reading, I found out that the author had studied aikido for 6 years before teaching it himself. After years of teaching he could tell rather soon who would stick with the martial arts, of which aikido is one of the hardest, for a long time, and who would give up quickly. Those who cared about immediate progress or making fast results were basically doomed. Those who cared about other things, like just getting better over time, exercising patiently, and improving - those who in fact seemed least likely to make it but would persevere, those were the ones who ended up gaining mastery.

The author had reasons for knowing his martial arts experience would translate to other fields. I will talk about that in another post. But many people who have read his articles or his book have attested to the usefulness of his ideas.

In this blog I want to write not only about the Mastery book, but my mastery of particular subjects that have been ongoing, or perhaps new subjects I want to undertake.