Stay a beginner: why beginner's mind outlasts expertise

The Short Version

Expertise and success tend to harden into rules, habits and identities that people then defend, and that rigidity is what quietly shuts learning down. Rick Rubin credits his early breakthroughs to not knowing the rules he was breaking, and warns that a method that worked once is "just a way" [1]. Josh Waitzkin argues that much of high-level learning is unlearning, that successful people let "the groove" become "a rut, and that a beginner's willingness to look bad is our best defense in a world where AI will outthink us [2]. Jay Shetty urges people to keep putting themselves in rooms where they are not the most successful person and to treat identity as something to evolve rather than defend [3], while Bryan Callen and Joe Rogan tie the whole problem to ego and to learning to get out of the way" [4]. Their shared answer: keep a beginner's openness on purpose, because experience alone will not keep it for you.

Table of contents

What They Said

Rick Rubin: not knowing is a creative advantage

Rubin, the music producer and author of The Creative Act, starts from the premise that creativity is not an intellectual exercise at all. Speaking with Andrew Huberman, he compares it to dreaming: dreams don't always make sense, you remember only fragments, and writing them down brings more back [1]. The art-making process, he says, is a search for feeling in yourself, such as excitement, interest or curiosity. "It's not an intellectual process," he says, and he describes creativity as "closer to magic than it is science" [1].

When Huberman asks whether children are more creative than adults, Rubin says yes. Kids have no baggage and no belief system about how things are supposed to work, so they simply see what is [1]. As we grow, we filter the world for survival, and then absorb rules, ideas about right and wrong, and the styles of the people we admire [1]. Rubin does not dismiss this entirely: those influences can build skill, the way a singer imitates a favorite vocalist before finding their own voice. But they also undermine the purity of the creative process [1]. His description of the alternative is one of the clearest statements of beginner's mind in any of the sources: "when you make something, you're making it based on not knowing" [1].

He applies this to his own career directly. "I had the advantage early in my career of starting making music without any experience, which was helpful because I didn't know what rules I was breaking. I was doing things that other people wouldn't do," he says [1]. In school, rules exist to be followed; in art, he says, "the rules are there as a scaffolding to be chipped away as need be" [1].

Rubin's beginner's mind is not a one-time state that you lose with success. It is a discipline he keeps practicing. Huberman reads him a warning from the book: "be aware of the assumption that the way you work is the best way simply because it's the way you've done it before" [1]. Rubin explains: "When something works, it's easy to be fooled into believing that's the way to do it, or that's the right way. it's just a way, and it's just a way that happened to work that time" [1]. He extends the same caution to advice from experts: "the advice that they're giving you is not based on your life or your experience, it's based on their life and their experience, that have very different data points than yours" [1]. Even after you find what works for you, he says, stay curious about a better way [1].

His humility runs deeper than method. Describing how we constantly invent stories to explain what we see (a man running must be chasing his dog), and then remember those guesses as fact, he says: "Our resolution is so low on everything. We're grasping at straws. We have no idea" [1]. Rather than finding this discouraging, he adds, "there's great power in knowing that. Because if you think you know what's going on, chances are you're being deceived" [1]. In other words, the beginner's stance is simply the more accurate one.

Rubin is also candid that expertise does not remove uncertainty. He feels anxious at the start of every project, because what emerges is out of his control, and that anxiety persists "Even though it has never not come" [1]. He also admits that his own long-held assumptions led him astray: for years he treated every phase of work as open-ended play, and some of his projects ran longer than they needed to because he did not realize a deadline in the completion phase could help. Writing the book taught him that we're not required to treat the different phases of work in the same way [1]. Here is a veteran producer describing himself learning something new about his own process late in his career.

Finally, Rubin guards his openness against the pull of outside approval. He calls the most important skill for an artist "Understanding how you feel in the face of other voices without second guessing yourself" [1]. Undermining your taste for a commercial idea, he says, defeats the whole purpose [1]. Asked about instant social media feedback, he is neutral: "I don't think it's wrong or right. It's just it's more information that you can use or not use" [1]. The only thing we control, in his view, is our relationship to what we make [1].

Josh Waitzkin: unlearning, losing, and beginner's mind as defense against AI

Waitzkin, the chess prodigy whose childhood inspired Searching for Bobby Fischer, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under Marcelo Garcia, and author of The Art of Learning, makes the strongest and most urgent version of the argument [2].

Learning as unlearning. Asked by Joe Rogan why children learn faster, Waitzkin says much of high-level learning is unlearning: removing the egoic blocks and false constructs adults put on everything [2]. Kids aren't afraid of looking bad until around ages nine to twelve, when they start locking up [2]. He contrasts his son Charlie playfully dancing on a surfboard with gear-covered visitors trying to keep the ocean away [2]. The adult challenge, he says, is to discover "post-conscious freedom" as a learner: being willing to tap to everyone, or to get beaten, while crossing into a new art [2].

From innocence to self-consciousness, and through it. His own story shows how success can threaten this openness. Chess had been his first form of self-expression, a kind of pre-conscious, innocent play, but the fame from the book and movie pulled him into self-consciousness: he began thinking about how he looked to groupies and cameras rather than losing himself in thought [2]. After high school he left for Slovenia, began meditating and read East Asian philosophy, Kerouac and existentialist literature. That existential crisis, he says, ultimately made him a more complicated and integrated person [2]. His framework is a passage from the "pre-conscious" to the "post-conscious" competitor: once you become aware of your mortality and the absurdity of a 64-square board, you can't put that knowledge back in the box, so you have to work through it [2]. The implication is important for this insight: adults cannot simply return to a child's innocence. They have to rebuild openness deliberately, on the far side of self-awareness.

Losing as the engine. Waitzkin says losing the last round of his first national championship was "tremendous," because it taught him he couldn't win without struggling first, so he never associated winning with talent or labels like "prodigy [2]. He recalls a father boasting that his son hadn't lost a chess game in two years, which Waitzkin knew meant the boy was only playing people he could beat [2]. As the top-rated player for his age, Waitzkin always played up against adult masters who spotted every weakness. There's no luck in chess, he says: if there's one hole in your preparation, a strong opponent always finds it [2]. So from age eight, not taking on his weaknesses simply fell outside his conceptual scheme [2]. He admires grapplers who, near the end of a session, seek out the toughest partner instead of an easy rest, calling it seeking accountability as a way of life. Hard is beautiful," he says [2].

The groove becomes a rut. Waitzkin names the exact failure mode this insight is about. Drawing on Robert Pirsig's distinction between dynamic and static quality, he says successful people build a mental model, "the groove becomes a rut," and they cling to it because their identity is attached [2]. In sports, teams stop dominating and start protecting a lead. His advice: "don't protect the fucking lead" [2]. He sees the same ego trap in accomplished surfers who won't take up foiling because they refuse to look like beginners [2]. Citing Thomas Kuhn, he notes how fiercely humans cling to old conceptual schemes [2].

He practices what he preaches. After a herniated disc ended his competitive grappling (he says he was a "dumbass" for two years before accepting he had to stop), he moved into the ocean: surfing, then foiling, which he now trains six days a week, twice a day when possible [2]. A world-class chess player and black belt chose to become a beginner again, in public, in a sport where the ocean decides.

The peaks connect. A central idea of his conversation is that "the apexes of these arts are much closer to one another than lower down in the mountain of the same art" [2]. He recalls giving a 40-board simultaneous chess exhibition after two years of martial arts training and realizing "I was not playing chess"; he was riding the energetic flow of the games the way he would on the mats [2]. He believes most chess players struggle to transfer their brilliance because they learned in a localized language, as if the board were a prison [2]. This is expertise that stays open to other domains rather than walling itself off.

Seeing more frames. Waitzkin's account of Marcelo Garcia shows what open expertise looks like at the top. Garcia's principle was to let opponents move and to spend as much training time as possible in transition rather than holding position. "The in between is where the real virtuosity happens," Waitzkin says [2]. Like an illusionist, the masters perceive moments others can't: "They have more frames and they can play in frames that you don't have" [2]. He describes Garcia as a "low rep" learner who can learn from a single repetition, exploring the edges of Ryan Hall's trap-laden game like a cat putting its paw near a fire without entering it [2]. Even at the peak, Garcia is still probing, still learning.

Why it matters now: AI. Waitzkin watched computers overtake chess firsthand; he helped develop the Chessmaster program and has been friends since age 11 with DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis [2]. He says AlphaZero, given no human chess knowledge, became stronger than any human or computer in history within three hours of experimentation [2]. Today the best AI is rated around 3,700 Elo versus roughly 2,850 for the top humans, a gap similar to the one between a strong nine-year-old and the world champion [2]. Imagine that, he says, in everything, from decision-making to social media manipulation. We have to accept that "we are the ant relative to the human" [2]. He believes AI can bring breakthroughs, and works on a project called Lila Sciences combining scientists with AI, but he doubts rosy predictions because the path will be chaotic and "it's much easier to destroy than to create" [2]. His answer is that people must train at the art of reinventing themselves and embracing new paradigms, since the pace of change will keep accelerating for the rest of our lives [2]. In a world where machines will outthink us at nearly everything, the summary of his view is that the best defense is a beginner's mind, honest feedback loops, a decision journal and time away from manipulative feeds [2].

Coaching that doesn't kill genius. Waitzkin's coaching of elite performers, including investors, fighters and the Boston Celtics, is built on the same humility. He says his work is 99% listening and observing, because a person's brilliance is entangled with their dysfunction, and formulaic coaching slices away genius [2]. He recalls a Russian-school coach who pushed him, a naturally aggressive, creative attacker, to play like cold defensive players, alienating him from his love of the game, and another coach who claimed he could have made Bobby Fischer stronger without the craziness, which Waitzkin calls hubris [2]. The expert who is sure of the formula is exactly the one who does damage.

Jay Shetty: the power of being a beginner

Shetty, the former monk, speaking with Lewis Howes, approaches the same point from the angle of identity, success and failure [3]. His core recommendation is simple: always put yourself in rooms where you're not the most successful person [3]. Keep challenging yourself, expand your identity and stay curious. Success, like failure, should be a teacher and not a trap [3]. He speaks openly about the weight of success, the fear of failure and imposter syndrome, and his advice for staying grounded when things go well is to keep choosing situations where you are the learner [3].

His view of failure supports this. Failure, he says, becomes toxic only when you take it personally; seen as feedback, it is a mirror that reveals areas for growth rather than a judgment about your worth [3]. This is the emotional precondition for staying a beginner: you cannot keep putting yourself in rooms where you'll be outmatched if every stumble feels like a verdict on who you are.

Shetty also asks people to question every belief, even those inherited from family or culture, not as rebellion but as alignment [3]. Every belief should be evaluated through experience, experimentation and reflection: What's working for you now? What did you inherit without examining? Who do you want to be? [3] He warns that too many people feel safe in limiting identities, and argues that identity should be fluid, not fixed, something we evolve rather than defend [3]. That phrase, evolve rather than defend, is a close cousin of Waitzkin's warning about identity attached to a rut [2][3].

He also offers a practical tool that fits the beginner's stance, Spot, Stop, Swap: spot the moment you begin to spiral, stop and ask whether the thought serves your growth, then swap it for a more empowering but realistic narrative, such as replacing "I'm not good enough" with "I feel capable when I seek feedback" [3]. Seeking feedback, in this framing, is part of how a learner builds confidence rather than a threat to it.

Bryan Callen and Joe Rogan: ego is what gets in the way

Callen, the comedian and actor, and his friend Rogan approach the topic through Buddhism, comedy and sport [4]. In a conversation that wanders from the Los Angeles fires to classic Porsches, a thread keeps returning: ego distorts learning, and progress means getting yourself out of the way.

Callen walks Rogan through a meditation exercise from Sam Harris's work, trying to locate where you actually are when you hear someone speak. Rogan playfully refuses to go along, but acknowledges there's something real in learning to observe your thoughts and emotions rather than being them [4]. Callen shares a teaching that the part of you that wants to improve yourself is the part that needs improving [4]. Rogan sums up the traditions: "I think all those things are tools to try to break out of the ego right" [4]. The problem most people have, he says, is that "they think about themselves all the time," and "the best people the people to think about others more than they think about themselves Those are the people that we admire the most" [4]. Later, Callen shares a sports psychologist's mantra for hitters, "one two get out of the way," and suggests meditation's real point is getting out of your own way [4].

Their stories about comedy show the same principle at work in a career. Callen recalls calling Rogan after a failed audition and being told, "You can't be good. You gotta be great" [4]. Rogan remembers telling Callen he seemed to be auditioning even during stand-up, and that the vulnerable, ridiculous offstage Callen was the funny one [4]. In other words, the self-conscious performer trying to impress was getting in his own way. Now 57, Callen says, "I'm enjoying stand up more now than I ever have," and both credit Dom Irrera, who told Rogan that comics get sharper with age [4]. Callen notes that despite having five specials, each new one is just as hard [4]. Experience has not made the work easy, and the two treat that as normal.

Rogan adds a personal version of Waitzkin's "hard is beautiful." Callen reminds him that he once said fame hasn't changed him because "I do something really difficult every day and it just reminds me of what a bitch I am," and Rogan adds that he doesn't read comments, good or bad [4]. He also says he does his podcast only with people he wants to talk to, doesn't care about ratings, and warns that caring would distort the show, pointing to audience capture among online commentators [4].

Callen extends ego-humility to ideas. Relaying Arnold Schwarzenegger's frustration as governor at how little he could actually do, Callen says government is enormously complicated, and recommends Michael Lewis's The Fifth Risk, which humbled him as a self-described libertarian [4]. His conclusion: "take politics out of it," "approach everything like it's a problem," respond to evidence and be humble [4]. That is beginner's mind applied to one's own convictions.

Finally, the pair talk about mastery itself. Rogan quotes pool champion Jeremy Jones calling pool "the most Mental game in the world" because it combines thinking with execution under pressure, and Callen compares it to Rafael Nadal reportedly thinking about adjusting his grip moments after winning Wimbledon [4]. Both agree mastery at the highest level is about micro-adjustments, and that when you get that good at anything, you learn a great deal about yourself [4]. Even at the top, the masters they describe are still adjusting.

Where They Agree, and Where They Don't

Where they agree

Experience tends to harden, and hardening blocks learning. Rubin says the rules and styles we absorb build skill but undermine the purity of creative work, and that a working method is easily mistaken for the right one [1]. Waitzkin says "the groove becomes a rut" when identity attaches to a mental model [2]. Shetty warns against limiting identities that people feel safe inside [3]. Callen and Rogan locate the problem in the ego that thinks about itself all the time [4]. Four different vocabularies, one diagnosis.

Children show the natural version. Rubin says kids simply see what is, because they have no belief system about how things are supposed to work [1]. Waitzkin says kids aren't afraid of looking bad until about nine to twelve, and that adults learn more slowly because of the egoic blocks they add [2]. Both treat children as evidence that openness is the default state, and that adults lose it rather than never having had it.

Success is a hazard, not only a reward. Waitzkin's fame pulled him from innocent play into self-consciousness [2]; Huberman notes Rubin's point that success can bring pressure rather than confidence [1]; Shetty speaks about the weight of success and imposter syndrome [3]; and Rogan says caring about ratings would distort his show [4]. Each treats success as the moment when openness is most at risk.

Seek out places where you're not the best. Waitzkin always played up against adult masters and admires grapplers who pick the toughest partner at the end of a session [2]. Shetty says to always put yourself in rooms where you're not the most successful person [3]. Rogan does something really difficult every day [4]. Rubin, the most inward of the four, still says to stay curious about a better way even after you find what works [1].

Failure is information. Waitzkin calls his early loss "tremendous" [2]; Shetty says failure is a mirror, toxic only when you take it personally [3]; Rubin treats self-doubt as a check that can serve a great function when used as a balancing tool [1].

Where they differ

How much to trust outside feedback. This is the clearest tension. Rubin wants artists to trust their own taste and to understand how they feel "in the face of other voices without second guessing yourself"; he treats audience feedback as "more information that you can use or not use," and thinks external input that clouds your connection with the work is probably bad for the art [1]. Waitzkin, by contrast, wants people grounded in a truth-telling arena with an accurate feedback loop, like the jiu-jitsu mats or a chess rating: "your rating is how strong you are" [2]. Shetty sides with feedback too, suggesting self-talk like "I feel capable when I seek feedback" [3]. The difference is less a contradiction than a difference of domain. Rubin works in art, where success can't be measured and approval can pull you toward commercial ideas; Waitzkin works in competition, where the scoreboard is objective and ego tends to hide from it. Both are protecting the learner from the same thing: flattering stories that stop growth. Notably, on social media they diverge more sharply: Rubin calls it neither right nor wrong [1], while Waitzkin's blunt advice is "everyone should get the fuck off social media" [2].

Can you get back to innocence? Rubin speaks as if the child's freshness can be kept by chipping away rules and staying present [1]. Waitzkin is more realistic about the adult condition: once you've become self-conscious, you can't put that knowledge back in the box, so the goal is "post-conscious freedom" rather than a return to childhood [2]. Callen and Rogan, similarly, treat meditation and ego-work as tools you use repeatedly rather than a place you arrive [4].

How much of the beginner's mind is effort. Rubin's approach is receptive and gentle: hold problems lightly, because "to stew over a problem is not the way to solve a problem" [1]. Waitzkin's is intense: take on your weaknesses, seek the hardest partner, "Hard is beautiful" [2]. Rogan's daily difficult task sits on Waitzkin's side [4]. Waitzkin himself admits the relentless drive can be a blind spot (a friend told him to just cook an average turkey), and says the goal is for that drive to be a choice rather than something that runs you [2].

How meditation fits. Callen favors the meditative route out of ego, while Rogan jokes, via Terence McKenna, about a monk who spent years learning to walk on water only to be told the ferry costs a nickel, McKenna's argument for psychedelics over decades of meditation [4]. Rubin and Shetty both endorse quiet practice (Rubin's single-pointed and awareness meditation [1], Shetty's recommended 20 minutes of daily solitude [3]), and Waitzkin began meditating during his post-fame crisis [2]. The sources agree on the goal of loosening the grip of the ego, but not on a single method.

The stakes. Only Waitzkin frames beginner's mind as a matter of survival in an age of superintelligent AI [2]. The other sources don't discuss AI; for them, the stakes are creativity, peace of mind or doing better work [1][3][4].

Why It Works

The sources offer several mechanisms, some from lived experience and some from the neuroscience Huberman brings to the Rubin conversation.

Fewer filters, more seeing. Rubin's explanation is that we filter the world for survival and then layer on rules, right-and-wrong, and borrowed styles [1]. Each filter narrows what we notice. Huberman adds a neuroscience parallel: in his lab's research, animals pursuing survival goals narrow their visual focus, and their behavioral playbook narrows too, which suggests new ideas might require broadening vision or thinking [1]. Rubin refines this: the move can be either broadening or narrowing, but what matters is shifting the aperture away from the standard so something new can appear, something you may have already known without knowing it [1]. Expertise tends to fix the aperture; a beginner hasn't fixed it yet.

Unlearning removes the blocks. Waitzkin's mechanism is that adults learn slowly not because they lack capacity, but because of the egoic blocks and false constructs they place on everything [2]. Fear of looking bad, which appears around ages nine to twelve, makes people lock up [2]. Remove the fear and the child's speed returns, at least partly. The gear-covered visitors trying to keep the ocean away, next to a child dancing on his board, is his picture of the difference [2].

Identity attachment makes models rigid. Waitzkin's account of why the groove becomes a rut is that people's identity attaches to the mental model that made them successful, so questioning the model feels like questioning themselves [2]. Kuhn's observation about how fiercely people cling to old conceptual schemes points the same way [2]. Shetty's recommendation to evolve identity rather than defend it attacks the same mechanism from the other side [3].

Reality corrects faster than stories. Rubin notes that we invent explanations and then live as if they were true [1]. Waitzkin's answer is to live in arenas where reality won't let those stories stand: "There's no luck in chess," and a strong opponent always finds the hole in your preparation [2]. The summary of Callen and Rogan's conversation draws the same conclusion from pool tables, jiu-jitsu mats and farms: contact with objective reality keeps people honest, while comfort, ideology and fame make it easy to fool yourself [4].

Ego takes up attention. Rogan's view is that most people think about themselves all the time [4]. Rubin's version is that "being able to stay present in the work is probably the most important part of it," and mood matters only if it gets in the way of feeling how the work makes you feel [1]. Waitzkin's fame pulled his attention from the board to the cameras [2]. Callen's audition-mode stand-up and the hitter's "one two get out of the way" mantra describe the same trade: attention spent on the self is attention taken from the task [4].

Transfer comes from the peaks. Waitzkin's idea that the apexes of different arts sit closer together than their lower slopes [2] explains why an expert who keeps becoming a beginner in new fields doesn't start from zero. He learned to ride the flow of chess games from the mats [2]. The openness to cross over is what lets deep skill travel.

Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't

It applies most where the terrain keeps changing. Waitzkin's case is strongest for a future in which the pace of change keeps accelerating and AI surpasses human skill at nearly everything; there, the ability to reinvent yourself matters more than any single expertise [2]. It applies to creative work, where Rubin says originality comes from not knowing [1], and to competition, where a team that starts protecting a lead stops improving [2].

It applies to people at the top, not only novices. The most striking examples involve masters: Garcia still exploring the edges of an opponent's game [2], Nadal thinking about his grip right after winning Wimbledon [4], Callen finding each new special as hard as the first [4], and Rubin learning late in his career that deadlines help in the completion phase [1]. Beginner's mind is not a stage you pass through; it is something the best keep choosing.

It does not mean discarding skill. Rubin grants that imitating others builds skill, like a singer copying a favorite vocalist before finding their own voice [1], and calls rules a scaffolding to be chipped away "as need be," not all at once [1]. Waitzkin's own openness rests on decades of training; Garcia's single-rep learning sits on a mountain of experience [2]. Callen and Rogan's discussion of Dagestani athletes and boxers points out that some foundations are hard to build late: if you start striking in your 30s, Rogan says, you may never develop the radar that early starters have [4]. The beginner's attitude doesn't erase the value of early, deep training.

It does not mean ignoring danger. Waitzkin's willingness to push limits nearly killed him: swimming underwater laps between rounds of hypoxic breathing, he blacked out and lay on the pool bottom for over four minutes [2]. He warns never to do Wim Hof-style breathing in water, because flushing carbon dioxide removes the urge to breathe, and notes that highly trained people are often the ones who die from shallow-water blackout [2]. His back injury came from grappling, and he admits he was slow to accept he had to stop [2]. Callen tweaked his neck rolling with a 26-year-old, and Rogan's advice is to roll slow, smooth and technical as older experts do [4]. Beginner's mind is an attitude toward learning, not a license to take beginner's risks with your body; if you are starting a demanding physical practice or any breathwork, get guidance from a qualified professional first.

It does not mean deferring to every voice. Rubin's warning is that advice from more experienced people reflects their data points, not yours [1], and that taste compromised for commercial reasons defeats the purpose [1]. Waitzkin sees hubris in coaches who apply formulas to people whose genius is entangled with their quirks [2]. Staying a beginner means staying open to reality and to learning, not surrendering your judgment to whoever has more credentials or more followers.

It does not fit every drive or temperament equally. Waitzkin concedes that his relentless urge to take on weaknesses can be a blind spot and should be a choice, not a compulsion [2]. Rubin's approach, by contrast, depends on disengaging fully between sessions and holding problems lightly [1]. The sources suggest people find their own balance between intensity and receptivity.

What To Do With It

1. Take up something you're bad at, and do it where others can see. Follow Waitzkin, who moved from chess and jiu-jitsu to foiling, and treat his warning about surfers too proud to look like beginners as a mirror [2]. Accept that you will tap, fall and look foolish; that is the "post-conscious freedom" he describes [2].

2. Choose rooms and partners that outmatch you. Shetty's rule is to always put yourself in rooms where you're not the most successful person [3]. Waitzkin always played up and admires those who seek the toughest partner at the end of a session [2]. If you haven't lost lately, you may, like the boy who hadn't lost in two years, be playing only people you can beat [2].

3. Audit your methods for "just a way." Write down the routines you rely on and ask Rubin's question of each: is this the best way, or just the way that happened to work that time? [1] Stay curious about a better one even when the current one works [1].

4. Keep a decision journal. Waitzkin recommends writing down each decision and why you made it, reviewing it weeks later, and letting the decision go if your reasons are no longer valid, instead of clinging to it [2].

5. Find an honest scoreboard. Ground yourself in at least one arena with an accurate feedback loop, like the mats or a rating, where stories can't survive contact with results [2]. At the same time, protect your own taste in creative work and treat opinions as information you can use or not use [1].

6. Treat failure as a mirror, not a verdict. Use Shetty's Spot, Stop, Swap: notice the spiral, ask whether the thought serves your growth, and swap in a realistic line like "I feel capable when I seek feedback" [3]. Remember Waitzkin's early loss, which taught him that winning required struggle rather than talent [2].

7. Question one inherited belief. Pick a belief you absorbed from family, culture or your field and test it through experience, experimentation and reflection, as Shetty suggests [3]. Apply Callen's approach to your own politics or convictions: "approach everything like it's a problem" and respond to evidence [4].

8. Practice getting out of your own way. Try Callen's exercise from Sam Harris of locating where you actually are when someone speaks [4], Rubin's awareness meditation of noting whatever comes up without attaching a story [1], or Shetty's 20 minutes of daily solitude [3]. Before a performance, borrow the hitter's mantra: "one two get out of the way" [4].

9. Don't protect the lead. When things are going well, notice any urge to play safe to defend your status. Waitzkin's advice to teams applies to careers: "don't protect the fucking lead" [2]. Rogan's version is to do something really difficult every day as a reminder of your limits [4].

10. Learn across domains. When you learn something new, look for principles that connect it to what you already know rather than learning in a localized language, as Waitzkin says most chess players do [2]. The peaks of different arts, he argues, sit closer together than their foothills [2].

Sources

1. Rick Rubin on Accessing Creativity: Taste, Presence, and the Four Phases of Creative Work · Huberman Lab
2. Josh Waitzkin · The Joe Rogan Experience
3. Jay Shetty: Mindset Habits for Happiness and Thinking Like a Monk · The School of Greatness
4. Bryan Callen · The Joe Rogan Experience