Quotes from Josh Waitzkin

The clear thinker is suddenly at war with himself and flow is lost.

Growth comes at the point of resistance.

the fields of learning and performance are an exploration of greyness—

In the long run, painful losses may prove much more valuable than wins. Those who are armed with a healthy attitude, and are able to draw wisdom from every experience, good or bad, are the ones who make it down the road. They are also the ones who are happier along the way.

Painful losses may prove much more valuable than wins

Brilliant creations are often born of small errors.

I couldn't count on the world being silent, so my only option was to become at peace with the noise.

I believe that one of the most critical factors in the transition to becoming a conscious high performer is the degree to which your relationship to your pursuit stays in harmony with your unique disposition.

For this reason, almost without exception, champions are specialists whose styles emerge from profound awareness of their unique strengths, and who are exceedingly skilled at guiding the battle in that direction. With

Since childhood I had treasured the sublime study of chess, the swim through ever-deepening layers of complexity. I could spend hours at a chessboard and stand up from the experience on fire with insight about chess, basketball, the ocean, psychology, love, art. The game was exhilarating and also spiritually calming. It centered me. Chess was my friend.

The weakness of an art is its dogma. And when I'm competing against an individual from a different discipline, I try to find the dogma of that discipline. When I'm competing with someone within a discipline, I try to find their personal dogma.

Danny's mom can help him internalize a process-first approach by making her everyday feedback respond to effort over results. She should praise good concentration, a good day's work, a lesson learned.

In your performance training, the first step to mastering the zone is to practice the ebb and flow of stress and recovery. This should involve interval training

Interval work is a critical building block to becoming a consistent long-term performer. If you spend a few months practicing stress and recovery in your everyday life, you'll lay the physiological foundation for becoming a resilient, dependable pressure player. The next step is to create your trigger for the zone.

I believe an appreciation for simplicity, the everyday—the ability to dive deeply into the banal and discover life's hidden richness—is where success, let alone happiness, emerges.

The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.

Growth comes at the point of resistance. We learn by pushing ourselves and finding what really lies at the outer reaches of our abilities.

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 and glory.

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.

One of the most critical strengths of a superior competitor in any discipline—whether we are speaking about sports, business negotiations, or even presidential debates—is the ability to dictate the tone of the battle.

One idea I taught was the importance of regaining presence and clarity of mind after making a serious error.

The secret is that everything is always on the line. The more present we are at practice, the more present we will be in competition, in the boardroom, at the exam, the operating table, the big stage. If we have any hope of attaining excellence, let alone of showing what we've got under pressure, we have to be prepared by a lifestyle of reinforcement. Presence must be like breathing.

Great ones are willing to get burned time and again as they sharpen their swords in the fire.

Everyone at a high level has a huge amount of chess understanding, and much of what separates the great from the very good is deep presence, relaxation of the conscious mind, which allows the unconscious to flow unhindered.