Book review - the art of learning

As I mentioned recently, I have been reading The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin concurrently with listening to Life on Purpose. Ostensibly these books shouldn't necessarily overlap a lot but they really do.

Life on Purpose was really about finding your driving force and improving your life so that you can best put that force to good use. The Art of Learning is about cultivating a passion for self improvement and a deep understanding of whatever topic catches your attention and then also how to improve your life to really delve deep into your chosen subject.

Waitzkin was called a chess prodigy, seeing his first game at the age of 6 and by 9 competing on a national level and winning numerous national titles and then in his late teens competing for the world championships. When fame got too much for him he moved away from chess but then repeated that surge to the top in the very different field of Martial arts, namely the Push Hands version of Tai Chi.

The story behind this repeated rapid rise to the top of a chosen field makes up the first half of this book and then in the second half he explains in great detail how he structured his learning, mindset, exercise routines, diet etc to allow this to happen. This is where it conveys a very similar message to Life on Purpose by Victor Strecher.

One thing I really do like from the Art of Learning is his explanation of the long term process of understanding increasingly complex scenarios with little mental effort via chunking and neural pathways. It is a big topic but briefly: Chunking relates to the mind’s ability to take lots of information, find a harmonising/logical consistent strain, and put it together into one mental file that can be accessed as if it were a single piece of information.


Carved neural pathways refer to the process of creating chunks and the navigating system between chunks.


I would strongly recommend you read one of these books. Ideally both but if you have a growth mindset, either could really help. Would you like a copy? See here: https://amzn.to/2HqCNkY