
By Joe Byerly
This is the third question, in a five question interview with author Robert Greene.
Joe: You and the author Ryan Holiday have a well-known mentor/protege relationship. You’ve both written bestselling books and he’s been very vocal about your role in his success. How important is the mentor/protege relationship in our quest for mastery?
Robert: I discuss this aspect of mastery a great deal in my book Mastery. It’s a very satisfying relationship. I’m married but we don’t have any children, so Ryan is kind of like a surrogate son.
If it’s done right, it’s a very enriching experience for both the mentor and the protégé. I’ve had a lot of people come to me who were fans of my books, asking to be a research assistant or work for me. And I found a lot people didn’t possess the right character. They weren’t persistent and they couldn’t take criticism. They didn’t want to get inside the spirit of the books I’m writing. They didn’t have the right attitude.
Ryan was very unusual because early on he demonstrated that he could take criticism. This is an extremely important quality in people. Earlier, we discussed the importance of character. A key sign of a person’s character is their ability to take criticism. Sometimes, criticism is unfair. And you have to know how to distinguish that.
When I was twenty-four, an editor at a magazine told me over lunch, “Robert, you are terrible writer and you’re never going to make it in this world and you should give it up and go to law school.” It hurt and then I slowly realized that this was unfair criticism, so I quit taking it personally. It strengthened me. It made me realize that this wasn’t the right place for me to work.
How do you take criticism? Are you able to step outside yourself and see the value in it? Are you able to see what is true and what’s not true? This is an important quality. Ryan had that. And when I recognized that in him, I was very happy and very excited. Our relationship has been very satisfying.
Ryan helped me on the research I did for 33 Strategies of War and The 50th Law, the book I did with 50 Cent. He helped me a lot. He understands what I’m looking for; the kinds of books that I want; the kind of stories that I need. I didn’t need to train him as much as I trained other people.
On the other hand, I was able to help him with his career. I helped get him an important job that turned into the material for his first book, Trust me I’m Lying. I’ve helped him with all of his books. I taught him how to organize his material with the notecard system. I also showed him the key ingredients to making a successful book.
Like this:
Like Loading...