Page 35 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

producing” instructions. Needless to say, the kids who were tempo rarily
mastery-oriented did much better on t he t ests.

So how does all this affect us in our day-to-day lives? Fundam entally. The
key to pursuing excellence is to embr ace an organ ic, long- term learni ng
process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usua lly, gr owth
comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety. The hermit crab is a colorful

example of a creature that lives by thi s aspect of the growth pr ocess (albe it
without our psychological baggage). As the crab gets bigger, it needs to fi a
more spacious shell. So the slow, lum ber ing creatur e go es on a que st for a ne w
home. If an appropriate new shel l is not found qui ckly, a terribl y de licate

moment of truth arises. A soft creatur e that is used to the pr otection of bui lt-in
armor must now go out into the world, expo sed to predators in all its mus hy
vulnerability. That learning phase in between shel ls is wher e our gr owth can
spring from. Someone stuck with an ent ity theo ry of intelligence is like an

anorexic hermit crab, starving itself so it do esn’t gr ow to hav e to fi a ne w
shell.
In my experience, successful people sho ot for the stars, put thei r he arts on
the line in every battle, and ultimately discover that the lessons learne d from

the pursuit of excellence mean much more than the immediate trophi es and
glory. In the long run, painful losses may prove much more valuable tha n wins
—those who are armed with a healthy attitude and are abl e to dr aw wisdo m
from every experience, “good” or “bad,” are the ones who make it do wn the

road. They are also the ones who are happi er along the way. Of cour se the real
challenge is to stay in range of this long- term perspect ive when you are unde r
fire and hurting in the middle of the war. Thi s, maybe our bigges t hur dl e, is at
the core of the art of learning.

*

Let’s return to the scholastic chess world, and focus on the ingr edient s to my

early success. I mentioned that Bruce and I studi ed the endgam e whi le othe r
young players focused on the open ing. In light of the entity/inc rement al
discussion, I’d like to plunge a little more deepl y int o the appr oach tha t Bruc e
and I adopted.

Rewind to those days when I was a six-year-old pranks ter. Once he ha d won
my confidence, Bruce began our study with a barren ches sbo ard. We took on