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The Psychology of Finding Your Life's Task! | Robert Greene

Channel: Bold Fella
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st13sD7falE

A montage of Robert Greene interview clips (Mastery) on entering the work world, learning from failure, the social brain, and becoming irreplaceable. (Re-titled compiled footage; his framework, not cited research.)

Key points

  • You leave school naive and "starting at zero" - disconnected from reality, people, and office politics; treat entering the work world as transforming yourself, and if you think you already know things you are three steps back.
  • Negative experiences are how you actually learn (Henry Ford failed twice; Charles Darwin spent 8 years on barnacles and 35 years proving evolution, sustained only by being personally connected to the discovery).
  • A block in your work is there "for a reason" - push past it and use the frustration to improve, trusting the brain's learning process rather than collapsing into "I'm not good enough."
  • Mastery is not just geeky expertise: humans are the finest social animals (theory of mind, mirror neurons), so develop the empathy to read people and stop the interior monologue - it builds political/social skill and, for a writer, character.
  • The brain is a "supreme opportunist" (early humans seeing a rock as a tool; Edison turning a telegraph noise into the phonograph); an open, practiced, adaptable mind makes creative connections.
  • Everyone is born unique and manifests it as childhood pre-verbal pulls toward certain activities - the "voice" / vocation / life's task, the seed planted at birth.
  • Pursuing it triggers a "cycle of accelerated returns": excitement makes practice pleasurable, so you practice harder and learn faster, building an intense apprenticeship.
  • The great career danger is being replaceable - someone younger and cheaper will take your place; the end game is to be irreplaceable and one of a kind (Leonardo, Napoleon, Steve Jobs), the ultimate position of power.