Chess as a sport requires a lot of mental stamina, and this is what that makes it different from a physical sport. Chess players have a unique ability of taking in a lot of information and remembering relevant bits. So, memory and mental stamina are the key attributes.
A lot of guys have tons of talent, but it boils down to the mental side of things. Preparing and knowing your offense and studying the defense. Being able to read and react quickly. The mental side is often overlooked.
Mental stamina - determination - is a quality of the mind shattered by fatigue.But physical stamina - endurance - is built upon fatigue.
I think getting your head in the right mental space is important, and maybe I do need to go back to my rookie vibes to where I'm very happy-go-lucky, nothing really matters.
I don't mind it when people come up to me and say, 'Well done.' That's lovely. The bit that's weird is stuff like... I've had a load of eBay people hounding me. Just sort of getting you to sign stuff which they can then sell.
All athletes speak about the mental element of athletics, and it usually boils down to the same thing: if you can remove your ego from the game, you can function with much more clarity and you are more likely to succeed. Wouldn't it be interesting if we all began speaking about the mental element of our lives in this way?
But I can tell you that the issue, on one side, boils down to money - a lot of money. And it boils down to people and their connections with this money, and that's the portion that, even with this book, has not been mentioned to this day.
The way I write is, I listen to things in my head, and then I copy them down. I memorize conversations and things like that; I seem to be able to do that pretty well. I suppose in that respect there's some improvisation, although I work over the stuff after I've got it down on paper.
Screen work always boils down to that moment between the camera and the actor or the actors. It always boils down to that, ultimately. You serve the camera.
Your whole life boils down to a moment that will take 20-40 seconds. How crazy is that? And it's every four years. I wouldn't tell myself that during the meet, but it's terrifying. A lot of it boils down to a very precise moment in the universe, and that just happens to be the Olympics.
We all liked the Descendants and stuff like that, so we started playing it. It's not that it was really hard, well, it does take skill to play fast and keep up your stamina. But it was something that just happened.
At the moment I'm doing this space movie, so I'm obsessed with physics and space travel. I know three months down the line it's gone. Then I'll be able to superficially say stuff about space.
We've gotten better at shooting down routine material or stuff we feel like we've done better in the past. Getting different people in the band for periods also keeps it from going stale.
... censorship often boils down to some male judges getting to read a lot of dirty books--with one hand.
I'm discovering my sexual side, and exploring relationships. You know, sensual stuff. And I'm discovering a lot of sides of myself, stuff I've buried. So the music is also therapeutic, to come to terms with things. And I feel now like my head is in the right space.
Grit, in a word, is stamina. But it's not just stamina in your effort. It's also stamina in your direction, stamina in your interests. If you are working on different things but all of them very hard, you're not really going to get anywhere. You'll never become an expert.