Joshua Waitzkin
Joshua Waitzkin
Joshua Waitzkinis an American chess player, martial arts competitor, and author. As a child, he was recognized as a prodigy, and won the U.S. Junior Chess championship in 1993 and 1994. He is the only person to have won the National Primary, Elementary, Junior High School, High School, U.S. Cadet, and U.S. Junior Closed chess championships in his career. The movie Searching for Bobby Fischer is based on his early life...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionChess Player
Date of Birth4 December 1976
CountryUnited States of America
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.
We learn by pushing ourselves and finding what really lies at the outer reaches of our abilities.
At the very core of my relationship to learning is the idea that we should be as organic as possible. We need to cultivate a deeply refined introspective sense, and build our relationship to learning around our nuance of character.
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...it does not base success on a submissive world or overpowering force, but on intelligent preparation and cultivated resilience.
Very gifted people, they win and they win, and they are told that they win because they are a winner. That seems like a positive thing to tell children, but ultimately, what that means is when they lose, it must make them a loser.
Growth only really comes at the point of resistance, but that is the moment that we tend to stop. Because it hurts…pushing our limits is a muscle that can be cultivated like any other–incrementally
Not only do we have to be good at waiting, we have to love it. Because waiting is not waiting, it is life.
Our minds are all different and I believe cultivating a keen introspective sensitivity is absolutely essential in discovering our potential.
The moment we believe that success is determined by an ingrained level of ability as opposed to resilience and hard work, we will be brittle in the face of adversity.