Gian Dara's Key Ideas from The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance
by Josh Waitzkin

• If you want to be the best, you have to take risks others would avoid, always optimizing the learning potential of the moment and turning adversity to your advantage.
• When aiming for the top, your path requires an engaged, searching mind. You have to make obstacles spur you to creative new angles in the learning process. You should always come off an injury or a loss better than when you went down.
• Big setbacks and adversity are often the greatest teachers. These are the moments where you confront the scary pain of life but have the opportunity to learn from them and grow.

We look at the world through a relative lens. You compare your success to your friends, not to the average. You compare your intelligence to your peers, not to other groups.

Looking at everything through a relative lens gives meaning to opposite ends of a spectrum.

Think about this: What emotional states fuel your performance?

Once you know this, learn to create those emotional states through triggers or routines that put you in a state of creative expression and inspiration. Or learn to be effective in different states you face.

Instead of always trying to be “on,” learn to take short rests to allow yourself to recharge. Your thinking is often clearer after a period of rest.

• To learn how to ebb and flow quickly between being “on” and “off,” introduce interval training into your exercise routine.
• In between sets, you let things go and relax the mind.
• Then, you get going again.

Your new abilities will flow over into your performance outside of the gym as well.

When nothing exciting is going on, we might get bored, distracted, and disconnected from the moment. So we look for new entertainment, surf channels, and flip through magazines.

When these societally induced tendencies translate into the learning process, they have a devastating effect.