Personal mastery

Benjamin Barber, an eminent political theorist, once said, “I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures. . . . I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners.”

research has shown that these rituals actually work because they reduce tension and give a player a sense of control and confidence in a high-stakes, anxiety-provoking situation.

Our focused attention is critical to filling the well. We need to encounter our life experiences, not ignore them. Many of us read compulsively to screen our awareness. On a crowded (interesting) train, we train our attention on a newspaper, losing the sights and sounds around us—all images for the well.

Second, we must give our brains the right amount of autonomy. When we have a choice, our brains often want to default to something easy. But we can mitigate that response by challenging ourselves to be innovative and provide incentives. For example, instead of debating whether to make a healthy choice at lunch, ask yourself: Do I want this fresh

that my deepest and most important work, professionally and personally, is still to come,

“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”

learning itself is best done slowly to accumulate lasting knowledge, even when that means performing poorly on tests of immediate progress. That is, the most effective learning looks inefficient; it looks like falling behind.

areas. I might think that my artistic skills are fixed but that my intelligence can be developed. Or that my personality is fixed, but my creativity can be developed. We’ve found that whatever mindset people have in a particular area will guide them in that area.