The Mental Model of a Prodigy
Joshua Waitzkin — A national chess champion at age 16, 2x Tai Chi push hands world champion; Black belt in Jiu-Jitsu under Marcelo Garcia; Currently mastering Paddle Surfing and Foiling.
His LinkedIn profile could have been a slayer…but it doesn’t because it doesn’t exist. He doesn’t have any social media presence for that matter.
Considering his achievements in his life, it is needless to say that he has cracked the art of learning anything. Based on a few of his interviews and reviews on his book “The Art of Learning”, I’ve compiled a few points based on what we can learn about learning.
I would like to start with the phases of learning. Here I quote George Mack.
PHASES OF LEARNING
The process of learning anything can be broken into 4 stages:
- Unconscious Incompetence: I don’t know how bad I am.
- Conscious Incompetence: I know how bad I am. I feel so lost.
- Conscious Competence: I can do this if I follow this particular routine and steps.
- Unconscious Competence: I don’t remember the last 10 minutes of driving my car.
It is the Conscious incompetence stage where many people quit. The sense of feeling lost puts you in a state of disbelief about yourself. At this low point, one may also see a shortage of motivation to continue which makes it harder.
Josh battles this by completely preparing his mind and acquiring a deep understanding of the core principles first (say hand-eye-leg reflexes while learning to drive a car) and then pours in more practice.
DEPTH OVER WIDTH
It goes by the saying that different professions require you to exhibit the qualities of an I-shaped individual(high expertise in one field) or a T-shaped individual(awareness of several fields and expertise in one). When it comes to conquering life, Josh was an I-shaped individual.
He dedicated 5–10 years of his life to each craft and *only when he reached the pinnacle of the craft* he moved to the next one. By following this principle he was eventually able to achieve more width (along with depth) than most people.
If you are really good at one thing, then you are probably good at a lot of things.
Once you understand something deep enough, you will already have a head start in your hunt to master another filed. At the root level, all sports and art forms have the same mountains to climb.
CONSISTENCY
Another principle that echos through the example of his life is that:
Learn to be pleased with consistency. Greatness will be your reward.
You have to do it on a Moody day, Sunny day, Rainy day, Saturday, Every day. Whatever we do, we are always in a race against time. Doing the same thing over and over again lets you squeeze two months of learnings into just one. Elon Musk is a passionate ambassador for the same.
BREAK
When you thrive with competence at an international level, breakdowns are inevitable. Things like losing an important match or a deal can crush you and set you back.
In an interview with Tim Ferris, Joshua says this:
“I have come to understand that the little breaks from the competitive intensity of my life have been and still are an integral part of my success.”
Regular breaks envelope your conscious mind from all the noise, distractions, stress, and the beatings. It makes way for your subconscious mind to do its magic (ever observed that you get your best ideas while taking a walk or while having a shower?)
I loved how Josh displayed determination and singular focus throughout his life and there is a lot more to learn from him. He goes on to elaborate his learning techniques through real examples from his life in his book “The Art of Learning”. At the very least this summary of the book is worth checking out.
