Joshua Waitzkin Quotes

study of numbers to leave numbers, or form to leave form

Of course there were plateaus, periods when my results leveled off while I internalized the information necessary for my next growth spurt, but I didn’t mind.

To walk a thorny road, we may cover its every inch with leather or we can make sandals.

There will be nothing learned from any challenge in which we don't try our hardest.

I knew how to block out my issues in a sprint, but in marathons I ran out of gas. Consistency became a critical problem. On days that I was inspired, I was unstoppable. But other days I would play bad chess. The time had come for me to learn the science of long-term, healthy, self-sustaining peak performance.

Growth comes at the point of resistance.

I think that anyone can become tremendously success at what they do as long as they approach the learning process in a way that isn't self-paralyzing.

Conditions might not be calm or reasonable. It may feel as though the whole world is stacked against us. This is when we have to perform better than we ever conceived of performing. I believe the key is to have prepared in a manner that allows for inspiration, to have laid the foundation for us to create under the wildest pressures we ever imagined.

When we are present to what is, we are right up front with the expansion of time, but when we make a mistake and get frozen in what was, a layer of detachment builds.

I was unhindered by internal conflict — a state of being that I have come to see as fundamental to the learning process.

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.

At the highest levels of any kind of competitive discipline, everyone is great. At this point the decisive factor is rarely who knows more, but who dictates the tone of the battle. 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.

I would take in vast amounts of technical information that my brain somehow put together into bursts of insight that felt more like music or wind than mathematical combinations. Increasingly, I had the sense that the key to these leaps was interconnectedness — some part of my being was harmonizing all my relevant knowledge, making it gel into one potent eruption, and suddenly the enigmatic was crystal-clear. But what was really happening?

We must take responsibility for ourselves, and not expect the rest of the world to understand what it takes to become the best that we can become. Great ones are willing to get burned time and again as they sharpen their swords in the fire.

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.