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The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance

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The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance

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Highlights & Notes

One has to investigate the principle in one thing or one event exhaustively … Things and the self are governed by the same principle. If you understand one, you understand the other, for the truth within and the truth without are identical. —Er Cheng Yishu, 11th century

Each loss was a lesson, each win a thrill. Every day pieces of the puzzle fell together.

When I made a bad move, Bruce asked me what my idea was and then helped me discover how I could have approached the decision-making process differently. Much of the time in our lessons was spent in silence, with us both thinking.

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

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.

A heartfelt, empathetically present, incrementally inspiring mom or dad or coach can liberate an ambitious child to take the world by the horns.

The fact of the matter is that there will be nothing learned from any challenge in which we don’t try our hardest. 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 performance training, first we learn to flow with whatever comes. Then we learn to use whatever comes to our advantage. Finally, we learn to be completely self-sufficient and create our own earthquakes, so our mental process feeds itself explosive inspirations without the need for outside stimulus.

Another way of envisioning the importance of the Soft Zone is through an ancient Indian parable that has been quite instructive in my life for many years: A man wants to walk across the land, but the earth is covered with thorns. He has two options—one is to pave his road, to tame all of nature into compliance. The other is to make sandals. Making sandals is the internal solution. Like the Soft Zone, it does not base success on a submissive world or overpowering force, but on intelligent preparation and cultivated resilience.

Mental resilience is arguably the most critical trait of a world-class performer, and it should be nurtured continuously.

When uncomfortable, my instinct is not to avoid the discomfort but to become at peace with it.

One idea I taught was the importance of regaining presence and clarity of mind after making a serious error. This is a hard lesson for all competitors and performers. The first mistake rarely proves disastrous, but the downward spiral of the second, third, and fourth error creates a devastating chain reaction.

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.

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.

The learning principle is to plunge into the detailed mystery of the micro in order to understand what makes the macro tick. Our obstacle is that we live in an attention-deficit culture.

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. Depth beats breadth any day of the week, because it opens a channel for the intangible, unconscious, creative components of our hidden potential.

If I want to be the best, I have to take risks others would avoid, always optimizing the learning potential of the moment and turning adversity to my 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. Let setbacks deepen your resolve. You should always come off an injury or a loss better than when you went down.

Once we learn how to use adversity to our advantage, we can manufacture the helpful growth opportunity without actual danger or injury. I call this tool the internal solution—we can notice external events that trigger helpful growth or performance opportunities, and then internalize the effects of those events without their actually happening. In this way, adversity becomes a tremendous source of creative inspiration.

But as with all skills, the most sophisticated techniques tend to have their foundation in the simplest of principles.

In every discipline, the ability to be clearheaded, present, cool under fire is much of what separates the best from the mediocre.

In the absence of continual external reinforcement, we must be our own monitor, and quality of presence is often the best gauge.

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.

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.

Not only do we have to be good at waiting, we have to love it. Because waiting is not waiting, it is life. Too many of us live without fully engaging our minds, waiting for that moment when our real lives begin.

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

The real internal challenge is to maintain that fundamental perspective when confronted by hostility, aggression, and pain. The next step in my growth process would be to stay true to myself under increasingly difficult conditions.

The first step I had to make was to recognize that the problem was mine, not Frank’s. There will always be creeps in the world, and I had to learn how to deal with them with a cool head. Getting pissed off would get me nowhere in life.

Instead of running from our emotions or being swept away by their initial gusts, we should learn to sit with them, become at peace with their unique flavors, and ultimately discover deep pools of inspiration.

  • @gabrielhdm

The real art in learning takes place as we move beyond proficiency, when our work becomes an expression of our essence.

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.

The technical afterthoughts of a truly great one can appear to be divine inspiration to the lesser artist.

I had been to this tournament twice before and both times was shocked by the mendacity of the judges. This time the pattern was familiar to me. Basically, this is how it works: There is grand ceremony welcoming the foreigners, but they don’t want us to win. The way they tend to steer results is by making some horrific calls early in the match to get the momentum going in the direction of the local player. Usually when a foreign competitor starts to feel that the match is rigged he gets increasingly desperate and over-aggressive. Instead of competing with presence he becomes overwrought and caught up in a downward spiral. His game falls apart. Then, once the Taiwanese player is in control of the match, the judging becomes exceedingly fair. In fact, they become overly kind to create the illusion of fairness.

  • @gabrielhdm shifter

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.

In the end, mastery involves discovering the most resonant information and integrating it so deeply and fully it disappears and allows us to fly free.

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