Productivity
Mastery by George Leonard Summary & Review: Love the Plateau
George Leonard’s Mastery is a short dojo manual for staying with a skill when the graph goes flat. Love the plateau —…
Read Summary →George Leonard
"The aikido teacher who made the plateau the point."
George Burr Leonard (1923–2010) was a writer, editor, and aikido teacher. He wrote for Look magazine, served as president emeritus of the Esalen Institute, and held a fifth-degree black belt in aikido. Mastery is his short manual for staying with a practice through long plateaus.
1 book·Practice & Human Potential
Books by George Leonard
Our in-depth summaries and reviews of his work
Key Ideas & Recurring Themes
Love the plateau
Skill grows in spurts. The long flat stretch is where the work is encoded — stay.
Dabbler, obsessive, hacker
Three ordinary exits from the path. The master is the one who remains.
Five master keys
Instruction, practice, surrender, intentionality, and the edge.
Notable Quotes
"To be a learner, you've got to be willing to be a fool."— Mastery
Book Author George Leonard
Mastery by George Leonard Summary & Review: Love the Plateau
George Leonard’s Mastery is a short dojo manual for staying with a skill when the graph goes flat. Love the plateau — that is the work. Stay through the first stall.