"A much-needed handbook for learning how success really happens" (Cal Newport, bestselling author of Deep Work), Decoding Greatness is a game-changing approach to mastery that will transform the way you learn new skills and generate creative ideas.
For generations, we've been taught there are two ways to succeed-either from talent or practice. In Decoding Greatness, award-winning social psychologist Ron Friedman illuminates a powerful third path-one that has quietly launched icons in a wide range of fields, from artists, writers, and chefs, to athletes, inventors, and entrepreneurs: reverse engineering.

To reverse engineer is to look beyond what is evident on the surface and find a hidden structure. It's the ability to taste an intoxicating dish and deduce its recipe, to listen to a beautiful song and discern its chord progression, to watch a horror film and grasp its narrative arc.

Using eye-opening examples of...