in my experience successful people shoot for the stars put their hearts on the line in every battle and ultimately discover that the lessons learned from the pursuit of excellence mean much more than the immediate trophies in glory josh waitzkin few people ever become a national champion at one thing far fewer will do it twice at two completely different skills as a child josh waitskin became a prolific chess player who would go on to become a champion in the push hands martial art known as tai chi chan josh attributes his success in both push hands and
later in brazilian jiu jitsu to his ability and skill at learning he had simply cultivated his ability to learn better than others in his book the art of learning josh relates these lessons as he tells the story the first lesson is investment in loss when you first attempt to learn anything you will look silly at times and you will make mistakes it is inevitable josh has many examples of people who progressed slower than him because they were too proud to lose or make mistakes as a kid one of josh's biggest chess rivals wouldn't even play
josh he had been praised by all of his friends and family as unbeatable playing josh would risk losing something that he was not willing to do and thus stunted his growth the next lesson we'll cover is to stop repeating mistakes if step one is to be okay making mistakes step two is to not be okay making the same mistakes repeatedly in both martial arts and chess josh tried to find both his and his opponent's errors and learned from both if he lost a queen to a trap he would spend time understanding why he lost the
piece for many of us we have habits or patterns that result in the same outcome over and over if you find yourself repeating mistakes you need to analyze what caused them and what you can do to change that behavior paulo coelho author of the alchemist once said and a mistake repeated more than once is a decision next up improvement is a balancing act if you try and dead lift five pounds more than you did last week chances are you'll get stronger if you try to lift a hundred pounds more than you did last week chances
are the bar won't move or that you'll hurt yourself as a kid josh often played in adult tournaments so he would be challenged by older more experienced and often better players to learn that being said he still spent plenty of time in study or playing other kids so he wouldn't become completely demoralized josh like many teachers today believes that growth comes outside of your comfort zone you need to push yourself outside the places that you feel safe to learn and grow focusing on the simple is the next idea in one of the notable scenes from
the search for bobby fischer which was based on josh's childhood he and his teachers start their chess lesson with just three pieces on the board especially in the attention deficit world that we live in it is easy to become overloaded with details and information learning a new task can seem like staring at an ocean there is so much to learn don't focus on the ocean focus on a single drop of water one that is most important to you now let's look at interval training the fitness community has learned the benefit of high intensity interval training
for years now doing hard intense exercise for a short time frame resting a minute or two and then repeating as a kid josh was able to work with some of the leading sports psychologists in top athletic performance centers he noticed that all of these athletes had planned recovery sessions between training he applied this to both his chess game and his practice after 10 minutes of deep thought and focus he would take a quick break and think of something other than chess letting his mind refresh josh applies the same concept to all areas of his life
if he is working and loses focus he gets up and takes a short walk if he is meditating and it becomes difficult he might jump up and grab a drink of water before resuming over time you can extend the periods of focus that you apply to work fun meditation and any other area of your life that you choose to apply this to the next lesson is to master the fundamentals josh attributes this lesson as one of the main reasons that he won the push hands world championship just two years after he started in the art
all of his competitors knew more than him but what he did know he had a very high level of mastery over you saw this with chess as well working with three pieces before adding complexity allowed him to master peace interactions and movements fundamental mastery and understanding will trump bright shiny objects and flashy tricks it will also allow you to learn the more complex aspects of a topic easier since they are all interrelated bruce lee had a famous quote that perfectly summarized this point i fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks once but
i fear the man who has practiced one kick ten thousand times and this leads us right to the next lesson learning as a pyramid if you really really focus on learning and mastering the basics then you will have a strong foundation for learning that topic once you have mastered the basic principle each layer of a skill knowledge and areas you can add on is like adding a layer onto a pyramid the basics also become easier as you add layers you don't have to think about the how as much anymore your body and mind just react
a world-class chess player doesn't have to think about how the pieces move piece combinations or space on the board they have internalized these things and so they are natural a skier doesn't think about keeping his knees bent or his tips up he focuses on the details of the terrain around him or her start with the foundation and make sure it's strong then you can build on that now working on your weaknesses we all have weaknesses in work play and learning we all have things that we're good at and we all have things that we're bad
at when it comes to competition weakness can be used against you when it comes to learning having a weakness in one area can slow down your progress elsewhere working on weaknesses is never fun but it is extremely important if we are going to succeed and the last lesson match your personality josh had several coaches as he was learning chess the last of these basically blunted his love of the game and led him to quit josh had always played an aggressive attacking style of play this one wanted him to play positionally conservatively and defensively a teacher
or coach needs to match your personality and learning style some people need to be pushed yelled at and faced with consequences to learn at their peak others respond better to rewards and praise learning something new isn't easy don't make it harder by forcing yourself to learn from someone who doesn't match your personality type remember in my experience successful people shoot for the stars put their hearts on the line in every battle and ultimately discover that the lessons learned from the pursuit of excellent means much more than the immediate trophies and glory in this book like
many of our favorites is part of a story and part lesson josh uses his life as an example for the lessons that he teaches using these principles you can accelerate your learning curve and retain information faster helping you progress in your chosen craft like learning from our channel hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to our channel so that you'll get notifications when we publish new videos and content
