The Art of Learning
Why do we recommend it?
"Prove yourself to yourself." - Ranjit Chhetri -
A true source of inspiration, I know that everybody can benefit from this book. It really does have the formula to take you from mediocre to a high-level performer. It's about the evolution from a skill set, breaking it down into micro-steps as a foundation and building up from there again towards macro steps. If you are looking to develop your skills in your career, it's about breaking apart everything you know, starting over from the foundation up to build the steps that will eventually help you evolve into a top performer.
Title: The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance
Author: Josh Waitzkin
Year: 2008
Pages: 288
An eight-time national chess champion and world champion martial artist shares the lessons he has learned from two very different competitive arenas, identifying key principles about learning and performance that readers can apply to their life goals. He begins by recounting his own quirky journey.
At the age of six, Waitzkin learned chess from a motley crew of street hustlers, gamblers, junkies, and artists. Since then, he has been among the highest-ranked chess players. He recounts the distractions of adolescence as well as fame after the publication of his father's book and, later, the film based on it, Searching for Bobby Fischer. He later discovered that chess principles could be applied to learning tai chi. In fact, he found respect for artistry, meditation, and philosophical devotion within both chess and martial arts and realized the possibility for broader application to learning in general.
With a narrative that combines heart-stopping martial arts wars and tense chess face-offs with life lessons that speak to all of us, The Art of Learning takes readers through Waitzkin’s unique journey to excellence. He explains in clear detail how a well-thought-out, principled approach to learning is what separates success from failure. Waitzkin believes that achievement, even at the championship level, is a function of a lifestyle that fuels a creative, resilient growth process. Rather than focusing on climactic wins, Waitzkin reveals the inner workings of his everyday method, from systematically triggering intuitive breakthroughs, to honing techniques into states of remarkable potency, to mastering the art of performance psychology.
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