which is the best book on success

[Harikrishnan]

8 hours ago, Ramanujan said:

@Jacob Morres i have trouble choosing between success principles and mastery. What do I do

 

Which is better

 

Mastery is best. Then success principle.

[Jacob Morres]

@Ramanujan i dont choose, they are both part of my theory. Both have great ideas. 

Mastery i like:

10,000h rule + general direction to mastery for success 

Deliberate practice 

Finding love and passion in growth and nuance

Success principles i like:

Visualization, surrounding yourself with successful people, developing incredible self belief, developing focus on one endeavor 

[hyruga]

Peter Ralston has a book called The Art of Mastery which is amazing as well (but harder to understand)

[Cireeric]

14 hours ago, Ramanujan said:

@Jacob Morres i have trouble choosing between success principles and mastery. What do I do

Dude you can read both in 2 weeks, work to incorporate what seems valuable for you in your life and go on. 

[Hasson_Miah]

Think and Grow rich. 

 

Not for the money aspect, read the book for the esoteric aspect.

[Ramanujan]

@Jacob Morres how do I mix mastery and success principles

At many places, those 2 books contradict each other

Edited Wednesday at 04:59 AM by Ramanujan

[Ramanujan]

On 09/03/2026 at 10:47 PM, Harikrishnan said:

Mastery is best. Then success principle.

I am not sure whether mastery is the best. Only leo recommend mastery. All the legends who are experts on success, never mention mastery. You never hear them recommending mastery. Leo is not an expert on success

 

 

Idk man. I am doubting myself. Idk how much benificial mastery really is

[Ramanujan]

It's hard to trust leo on some things

 

Where does he get the idea that "mastery is the greatest self improvement book of all time"

 

 

 

Poor old me believed in this shit. Now I am in a good place and is skeptical of some of his takes and ideas. Leo is not a special or unique snow flake. He make mistakes. He is a human with fantastic marketing. 

 

 

 

[Ramanujan]

On 10/03/2026 at 4:37 AM, hyruga said:

Peter Ralston has a book called The Art of Mastery which is amazing as well (but harder to understand)

How good is it. Is it as good as mastery

Edited Wednesday at 05:10 AM by Ramanujan

[Jacob Morres]

@Ramanujan what does mastery mean to you though? to me it means just putting a lot of time into a craft before being able to reap the rewards. like putting 10-20k hours into a career to get good fruits for example

and there are a few good tactics in the book that you can use for that

Edited Wednesday at 05:11 AM by Jacob Morres

[Ramanujan]

2 minutes ago, Jacob Morres said:

@Ramanujan what does mastery mean to you though? to me it means just putting a lot of time into a craft before being able to reap the rewards. like putting 10-20k hours into a career to get good fruits for example

For me mastery means

 

There are a lot of principles in the book mastery by George leoanrd. Those principles are mentioned here and there . Each chapter has a lot of principles. 50-100+ principles. I need to live my life based on those principles

 

 

Since mastery has 50+ principles, and I wanna live by it, it's hard to live by another system. It's hard to add principles from another book on top of it. As I am already living by 50+ principles from mastery

 

 

So I find it hard to add success principles on top of mastery. Also the principles in mastery and success principles contradict each other

[Jacob Morres]

@Ramanujan 

Okay got it thank you. What is your goal with mastery and these books? Like what result are you hoping from it? 

[Ramanujan]

14 hours ago, Jacob Morres said:

@Ramanujan 

Okay got it thank you. What is your goal with mastery and these books? Like what result are you hoping from it? 

I wanna have a successful life. i want to achieve some big things and want to be proud of some accomplishments

 

I wanna be no1 in the world in 1 field I am interested in and do alright in another field

Edited Thursday at 07:05 AM by Ramanujan

[Jacob Morres]

@Ramanujan i feel you - i have similar goals. have you tried to implement anything from mastery/success principles? im curious what ur experience with it has been so far 

you need something to be mastering otherwise the principles won't really work

Edited Thursday at 10:48 PM by Jacob Morres

[Ramanujan]

17 hours ago, Jacob Morres said:

@Ramanujan i feel you - i have similar goals. have you tried to implement anything from mastery/success principles? im curious what ur experience with it has been so far 

you need something to be mastering otherwise the principles won't really work

i tried to live by mastery for 8 years.  i used it to learn about  various self improvment knowledge and i used it to find my lifes purpose. i took leos course and i tried to find my life purpose. took me 9 years to find my life purpose . i finally found it

 

 

i dabbled in success principles for 6 or 7 months. it was like living in a fairy land. i went thorugh an enormous internal change. it was amazing. it felt like i was on top of the world

but there is downside with using success principles.  i will be chasing short term goals. my success willl be superficial. 

 

i will defenietly get rich if i live by success principles for 10 or 20 or 30 years. but some of my success will look superficial.

 

with mastery , it is amazing if you wanna master a field. like software developing . but it has problems. like george leonard wrote mastery by observing a sport akido. akido is a soft sport. knowledge work like programming is different from sport. idk how relevent mastery is when it comes to knowledge work

 

best system for knowledge work is franklin planner or GTD. but i am  super mentally attached to mastery . i cannot switch. franklin planner and GTD has also its share of limitations. its best for noobs

 

 

i cant choose . for now i stick with mastery . cos i put in lot of effort to make it work. and i am mentally attached to it

 

 

 

[Joshe]

"Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less" is a good one. 

Success is simple but not easy to reach. You can easily map out paths that lead to success. The hard part is being able to sustain trajectory while navigating an ever changing, unpredictable reality that demands action and persistent context switching across multiple logistical domains, and being able to absorb all the shock from that while avoiding drift. 

Goal → action → interruption → new demand → context switch → loss of momentum → restart → drift

The best strategy is to design systems and environments that stabilize trajectory and minimize derailment, while excluding everything that isn’t essential. This is the thing to get handled. 

One foot in front of the other with the main thing remaining the main thing. That's it. 

Edited 12 hours ago by Joshe