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New Book Summary: The Art of Learning by Joshua Waitzkin

Published 12 days ago • 1 min read

Joshua Waitzkin was a chess prodigy who won 8 National Championships before the age of 20. He later took up Tai Chi and became a world champion within 6 years. His book The Art of Learning is partly a memoir and partly a self-improvement book, explaining the principles that helped him succeed in disciplines as different as chess and martial arts.

As usual, the key takeaways are below, and you can find the full summary by clicking the link above.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Mastering the fundamentals will enable you to make new connections:
    • Once you’ve learned the fundamentals deeply, you can apply them intuitively. To the untrained eye, your actions will look almost mystical.
    • When learning chess, Waitzkin focused on endgames instead of starting positions, which gave him a richer understanding of each piece’s value.
    • When learning Tai Chi, Waitzkin would break down a single throw into its components, and practise it hundreds or even thousands of times.
  • Learning (and life) involves balance in many areas, such as:
    • Conscious vs Unconscious. Your conscious mind provides focus and precision, but can only take in so much information at one time.
    • Stretch vs Recovery. Push yourself to your limits, but not past them.
    • Process vs Results. Find joy in the process, but still use results for motivation.
    • Winning vs Losing. Win often enough to maintain confidence but lose often enough to maintain humility.
  • Mental resilience is critical for performing at a world-class level. Building such resilience requires learning to
    • Be at peace with imperfection. Conditions will never be perfect, so you must learn to cope with them.
    • Use adversity. Adversity can sometimes spur us to a higher level of clarity and performance.
    • Create inspiring conditions internally. Find ways to reach that higher level of clarity and performance even without externally inspiring conditions.

You can find the full detailed summary on the website. If you found this summary useful, consider forwarding to a friend you think might enjoy it.

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