A fresh graduate weighs two options—a lucrative corporate job with a six-figure salary at Goldman Sachs or a startup making $30,000 a year. Robert Greene says you definitely should take the later. As a 20-something-year-old, you can live on Top Ramen. You will learn so much more, whereas with the first job, you’ll be lost in the crowd at the office and ultimately be unhappy.
The guy who takes the low-paying job ultimately will come out ahead of recent grad who landed at Goldman Sachs. How is that possible? Because he bet on acquiring skills, which is the surefire way to success in the modern world where AI is making jobs redundant.
Figures like Elon Musk and Oprah Winfrey didn’t chase jobs but honed skills—engineering and storytelling, respectively—that propelled them to extraordinary success.
The world used to have apprenticeships — a training of seven years to become a master craftsman. The allure of a fat paycheck straight out of college has killed the craftsman mentality.
Greene calls the acquiring of skills “mastery,” and recommends everyone find what truly excites them and apply in a way that can support your wife and kids.
In the current world, young men are adrift, told they are useless or toxic. There’s no wonder that suicide rates among young men are so high. At the same time, youth are distracted the fool’s gold of celebrity status and fake life projected on social media. Greene recommends people ditch the phone and get out and meet people, learn interpersonal skills, live life and follow adventure.
“Get out of this way of thinking that that so many people have which everything has to be simple and linear and I’m heading this direction,” Greene says. “It’s got to be a solution like I’m hacking my way to the truth. Life doesn’t work that way. Life is very complex, so I can’t give you a single track answer to finding your life purpose.”
Greene himself was a struggling writing in London. Today, he’s hit great success, having published The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law (with rapper 50 Cent), Mastery, The Laws of Human Nature and The Daily Laws.
