The World's Best Book Summaries
Do you work out until exhaustion? How do you avoid exercise burnout? According to Joshua Waitzkin, the key to avoiding training burnout is to build a rhythm of exertion and relaxation. Not only does alternating between effort and rest help prevent overexertion and injury, but it also increases performance. Here’s how balancing exertion and rest can help prevent exercise burnout.
Does victory necessarily have to involve fighting? How does one win a war without fighting? Winning without fighting, Sun Tzu argued, is the best outcome of any war. If the surrender comes before a battle is fought, all the better. Here’s why fighting should be your last resort, according to Sun Tzu.
What makes a “next-level” athlete? How does mindset affect athletic performance? Elite athletes didn’t become successful thanks to their physical prowess alone. The greatest Olympic athletes also put work into honing their mindset. According to tai chi champion Josh Waitzkin, one of the keys to developing the athlete mindset is to learn how to handle mistakes while winning. If you dwell on the mistake, you’ll lose your cool and your subsequent performance will suffer. Here’s how to develop an athlete mindset, according to Waitzkin.
How do you develop a skill in the most effective and efficient way possible? Is there a method to make mastering skills easier? According to Josh Waitzkin, the author of The Art of Learning, the fastest and most effective way to master a skill is to build individual elements of the skill into memory “chunks.” Memory chunks are combinations of multiple elements, like how to shuffle, deal, and count cards—and networks of chunks. Here’s how to develop a skill and make it stick, according to Waitzkin.
What is Sun Tzu’s theory of war? Under what circumstances should you advance and retreat? According to Sun Tzu, if victory is not certain, you should not engage in conflict. Before you advance, you must attain an advantage over your opponent. In The Art of War, Sun Tzu describes several tactics for securing an advantage. Here are Sun Tzu’s tactics to gain an advantage in a battle.
Can you inspire creativity on demand? Or does creativity only come in fits of spontaneity? Your creative muse can come and go of its own volition. But you can also conjure creative inspiration on demand. To this end, create triggers for creative states. Here’s how to inspire creative states whenever you want.
What is Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning about? What is the essence of effective learning? In his book The Art of Learning, Josh Waitzkin argues that effective learning comes from a resilient commitment to your growth process. His learning philosophy can be boiled down to three themes: 1) to always strive for “presence,” 2) to learn through trial and error, and 3) to balance tensions as you grow. Let’s explore each theme in detail below.
What did Sun Tzu mean by “all warfare is based on deception?” How can deception help one secure a military advantage? As a well-known translation of Sun Tzu puts it, “all warfare is based on deception.” According to Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War, deception is the key to gaining a military advantage over your opponent. Here’s how to use deception to get the upper hand over your opponent.
What’s the best way to measure progress? Why are results not a good indicator of progress? People generally track progress by measuring results. The problem with using results as an indicator of progress is that they don’t tell you how to improve. For example, if your goal is to save up a certain amount of money, your only measurement might be the number in your bank account: If it’s lower than your goal, you don’t learn anything about how to increase it. A better way of measuring progress is to track your efforts, rather than just the results. Here’s why efforts
Is there a trick to winning competitions? How do the world’s top athletes consistently stay on top of their game? According to American chess player Josh Waitzkin, the key to winning competitions, even when the margins are incredibly slim, is to operate on a deeper, more subtle level than your opponents. In practice, this means achieving enhanced perception through deep refinement of your skills and control of your mental arena. Here’s how to win competitions even when the margins are small.