Money and Finance
- Josh Waitzkin On The Tim Ferriss Show
This is Waitzkin's second appearance on Tim Ferriss' podcast (the first was Episode 2). Link to: Josh Waitzkin on The Tim Ferriss Show .................... Related book: The Art of Learning (It looks like the Audible version...
- Make Obstacles Spur You To Creative New Angles In The Learning Process...
Another excerpt from The Art of Learning: One thing I have learned as a competitor is that there are clear distinctions between what it takes to be decent, what it takes to be good, what it takes to be great, and what it takes to be among the best. If...
- The Natural Voice...
As I go back through Josh Waitzkin's book The Art of Learning, which I had originally read several years ago, I'm paying special attention to things that might be applicable to business and investing; ideas that may lead one to achieve peak performance,...
- Learning And Fundamentals...
From Josh Waitzkin in The Art of Learning, and applicable to investing and just about everything else as well:As I struggled for a more precise grasp of my own learning process, I was forced to retrace my steps and remember what had been internalized...
- All The Right Moves (one Of The World’s Great Chess Teachers, On How To Think Like A Champion)
I found this article on Simoleon Sense. There are some great lessons from chess that can also apply to investing. When I do talk with students, my goal is to help them develop what I consider to be two of the most important forms of intelligence: the...
Money and Finance
The delicate balance of process vs. goal...
From Josh Waitzkin in The Art of Learning:
Chess was a constant challenge. My whole career, my father and I searched out opponents who were a little stronger than me, so even as I dominated the scholastic circuit, losing was part of my regular experience. I believe this was important for maintaining a healthy perspective on the game. While there was a lot of pressure on my shoulders, fear of failure didn’t move me so much as an intense passion for the game. I think the arc of losing a heartbreaker before winning my first big title gave me license to compete on the edge.
This is not to say that losing didn’t hurt. It did. There is something particularly painful about being beaten in a chess game. In the course of a battle, each player puts every ounce of his or her tactical, strategical, emotional, physical, and spiritual being into the struggle. The brain is pushed through terrible trials; we stretch every fiber of our mental capacity; the whole body aches from exhaustion after hours of rapt concentration. In the course of a dynamic chess fight, there will be shifts in momentum, near misses, narrow escapes, innovative creations, and precise refutations. When your position teeters on the brink of disaster, it feels like your life is on the line. When you win, you survive another day. When you lose, it is as if someone has torn out your heart and stepped on it. No exaggeration. Losing is brutal.
This brings up an incipient danger in what may appear to be an incremental approach. I have seen many people in diverse fields take some version of the process-first philosophy and transform it into an excuse for never putting themselves on the line or pretending not to care about results. They claim to be egoless, to care only about learning, but really this is an excuse to avoid confronting themselves. This issue of process vs. goal is very delicate, and I want to carefully define how I feel the question should be navigated.
It would be easy to read about the studies on entity vs. incremental theories of intelligence and come to the conclusion that a child should never win or lose. I don’t believe this is the case. If that child discovers any ambition to pursue excellence in a given field later in life, he or she may lack the toughness to handle inevitable obstacles. While a fixation on results is certainly unhealthy, short-term goals can be useful developmental tools if they are balanced within a nurturing long-term philosophy. Too much sheltering from results can be stunting. The road to success is not easy or else everyone would be the greatest at what they do—we need to be psychologically prepared to face the unavoidable challenges along our way, and when it comes down to it, the only way to learn how to swim is by getting in the water.
- Josh Waitzkin On The Tim Ferriss Show
This is Waitzkin's second appearance on Tim Ferriss' podcast (the first was Episode 2). Link to: Josh Waitzkin on The Tim Ferriss Show .................... Related book: The Art of Learning (It looks like the Audible version...
- Make Obstacles Spur You To Creative New Angles In The Learning Process...
Another excerpt from The Art of Learning: One thing I have learned as a competitor is that there are clear distinctions between what it takes to be decent, what it takes to be good, what it takes to be great, and what it takes to be among the best. If...
- The Natural Voice...
As I go back through Josh Waitzkin's book The Art of Learning, which I had originally read several years ago, I'm paying special attention to things that might be applicable to business and investing; ideas that may lead one to achieve peak performance,...
- Learning And Fundamentals...
From Josh Waitzkin in The Art of Learning, and applicable to investing and just about everything else as well:As I struggled for a more precise grasp of my own learning process, I was forced to retrace my steps and remember what had been internalized...
- All The Right Moves (one Of The World’s Great Chess Teachers, On How To Think Like A Champion)
I found this article on Simoleon Sense. There are some great lessons from chess that can also apply to investing. When I do talk with students, my goal is to help them develop what I consider to be two of the most important forms of intelligence: the...