The course Mastery: Personal Leadership and Development from Full Sail University met my personal goal of self-fulfillment for my master’s degree program. In this class, I learned from studying a master in his own right, Robert Greene (Greene, 2012). His best-selling work entitled Mastery encourages those on the path to mastery to work on cultivating negative capability, thinking like and outsider, using active imagination, and subverting one’s patterns of thought (Talks, 2013).
This wisdom in cultivating a logical yet open mind is key to my personal development not just in my personal life but key to my professional career. My original goal was self-improvement specifically in working professionally in digital marketing. Cultivating negative capability will help me directly when I work for a digital marketing firm. This piece of advice means that one must be able to turn negative experiences into positive ones through learning from your mistakes. For example, in digital marketing I will be tracking negative comments, unsubscribes, and complaints. Rather than getting disheartened by these metrics I will be able to use them to improve my content.
Thinking like an outsider was a surprising suggestion from Greene at first, but now it makes sense. Even though organizations rely on some forms of homogeny we should not allow ourselves to become biased toward only tried and true practices. In order to avoid stagnation, we need to address things as scientists, considering points of view from disciplines outside our own.
Robert Greene as well as professor Daniel Spellman encouraged original work. Using active imagination is what many people are talking about when they mention being in “the zone”. In active imagination it is crucial to examine many sides to a given problem and to be okay with paradoxes. In active imagination we tap into our child-like curious nature which can be tempered with logic later. I will apply this professionally when I am writing engaging copy and creating graphics.
Subverting my own patterns of thought is the most challenging call to action Robert Greene placed upon me in Mastery. How can I subvert my own thoughts? It is actually a matter of separating my own thoughts from what I perceive as real. It is the simple admission that my judgements might not be right. They are formed out of repetitions but there are always exceptions to every rule. I have to be able to look at my own thoughts as a passing river and not as absolute truths. I cannot become overly attached to ideas just because they are mine. I think this goes a long way toward personal humility and working well with others. In this way the class the course Mastery: Personal Leadership and Development from Full Sail University set me up for success in becoming a master of digital marketing.
Watch Robert Greene’s enlightening talk at Google in 2013 where he speaks personally about his work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1191&v=J4v_34RRCeE&feature=emb_logo (Talks, 2013).
Reference
Greene, R. (2012). Mastery. New York, NY: Penguin
Talks at Google. (2013, April 7). Robert Greene: “Mastery” Talks at Google. Retrieved November 20, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1191&v=J4v_34RRCeE&feature=emb_logo.
Brooke – Suraba's – Mastery Journal 