Book Freak #23: How to excel at something
Book Freak is a weekly newsletter with cognitive tools you can use to improve the quality of your life.
Josh Waitzkin won a National Chess Championship at the age of nine, and years later became the World Champion of Tai Chi Chuan. In this issue of Book Freak we present advice from Waitzkin's book, The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence
Basic skills are more important than secret methods
“It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set.”
Accept discomfort
“When uncomfortable, my instinct is not to avoid the discomfort but to become at peace with it.”
You improve only when you try your hardest
“The fact of the matter is that there will be nothing learned from any challenge in which we don’t try our hardest. Growth comes at the point of resistance. We learn by pushing ourselves and finding what really lies at the outer reaches of our abilities.”
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