In the process of creating grand masters out of my kids and as a pushy daddy who likes his sons to be good in Chess I have been learning a lot of techniques and useful and useless chess tips and techniques .
Remember I want my kids to be what I couldn't be or didn't want to be! (How about you?)
I am reading this book - Letters to a Young Mathematician (Art of Mentoring)
by Ian Stewart .
While reading that book I realized there are lots of lessons from Math that we can apply for life. As an example - most of might think all math problems have been solved and the solution is the back of the book.
If you are like me and you thought that all problems have been solved I encourage you to change your view by reading this book.
Here are simple lessons I learnt that we can apply for life
Let me elaborate each one
Remember I want my kids to be what I couldn't be or didn't want to be! (How about you?)
I am reading this book - Letters to a Young Mathematician (Art of Mentoring)
by Ian Stewart .
While reading that book I realized there are lots of lessons from Math that we can apply for life. As an example - most of might think all math problems have been solved and the solution is the back of the book.
If you are like me and you thought that all problems have been solved I encourage you to change your view by reading this book.
Here are simple lessons I learnt that we can apply for life
1. Your King
2. Their King
3. Position change
4. Don't Give anything Free
5. Think before you Take
6. Pause at the pre-defined time
7. Don't Lose and it's ok to be beaten down
Let me elaborate each one
1. Your King - Be careful with your king- Body/Mind
If your are not clear on your life's mission,purpose and values you won't know what to do. Before you can do a soul search on your life mission and answer
"Why am I here on earth?"
"What can I do for the world" etc
you must first and foremost make sure your body and mind are treated like a king.
To paraphrase Buddha - you need to a sound body and mind to achieve great things in life.
We all know we need to do the following at least the following 4
1. Exercising 15-30 minutes everyday
2. Drinking 6-8 glasses of water
3. Being mindful of what your eat/drink,
4.Meditating for 10 minutes
I can guarantee (I always can!) that you the reader is not doing the 4 . Remember that is your king. Protect your king.
If you run behind kids,work,spouse,community and miss the above 4 your king will have to resign soon or will be captured (by diseases!)
2. Their King - Look always at their king - Life Mission
Always keeping an eye of your objective is the next and the best thing.
How do you want people to experience you?
How do you want world to remember you?
Never wavering out of the following 3 life values.
1. Your family - Do you want to spend time with your kids?
2. Your work - When you are 70 will you sit back and think all those career ladder and work was worth its effort?
3. Your community - What are you giving back to this world?
As documented in 7 habits of highly effective people - "Begin with end in mind".
3. Position change - See how the position change affected the game
Your body/mind and your mission represent the mission and the means. The path is zig zag anyways!. With every road not taken,every new change in the conditions your life game will be challenged!
You don't know what you will face next . No one can.
Having a game plan to get back on track whenever you hit a roadblock is critical and what is more critical is anticipating the change.
Change is good - for the purpose who creates a change
is how one of my Director's put it.
Being reactive is fun. Being proactive is more fun.
Getting back on track while protecting your body/mind and marching towards your goals while realizing that change is constant is not easy.
Most people die with a song in their heart!
Lot of people maintain good body/health.
Some folks like me keep talking about changing the world with education or other big initiatives.
Very few people can March and reach their goal.
f you don't want to do something, one excuse is as good as another - is what I read somewhere else
4. Give Free - Never give a piece for free
If you read this section as be selfish I say yes! Everyone is selfish.
You may question what about Mother Theresa. In my opinion even she was selfish.
Being selfless is a choice and here it means Mother Theresa found her peace and purpose by ensuring her selfish motive to serve the world was done to benefit humanity.
Stay will me. I promise I wont degrade Mother Theresa cos I like her a lot!
The message is don't do anything that is useless. If you gossip , talk politics,watch sports,write blogs,read books,drive your wife crazy - ensure every act has a purpose. In this sense the piece you have and most precious thing you have is TIME.
My grandfather used to say
"Ask me anything but not time" - By Napoleon Bonaparte
Don't give your time away for free. Get something out of it.
If you give material away ensure you get some happiness out of peace or satisfaction out of it.
5. Think before you Take
What are you taking from this world now - Food,water,clothing,other people's time - everything. You exist because you consume.
That is why you are always referred to as a customer.
Think what you are consuming. Don't take anything that you don't need. What do I mean here - If you take other people's time give something in return to them. If you consume resources like road ensure you pay your taxes. If you get water from city elect your Mayor and vote to ensure you continue to get good water.
Being participatory is the key here. For office goers and lovers that means if you take money to work -work without complaining.
Famous Investor and sun micro system co-founder Vinod Khosla said (to me - no! - to someone in some forum) and I paraphrase
You get paid because work is boring and if work was interesting they don't need to pay you!
Blessed are those who love what they do and get paid for it and for the rest of us ensure you give back in proposition what you take.
6. Pause - Circle score sheet 3,4 or 5 and ask kid to see the board ‘new’
I read in a pdf file (google for chess coach ) that the coach asks people to circle in the scoring sheet number 5,10,15 etc . He advises kids to look at the game at that time and stop and look at every square (64 in number) and walk away /step away for few seconds from the board . Come back after few minutes and you have a new board!!
Circle your calendar for every 15th or every year or every 5 years and check to see what is happening with personal,professional and community goals.
More like the proverbial interview qs- Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
If you circle next 15th or next 5 years and sit and understand where you are with respect to your goals it will enable you to understand every square - personal,professional and community. Also walk away - step away from life and looks outside in.
I am not talking vacation . I am saying relook at life as though you were born yesterday and this was someone else's life. We are always good at advising other people so advise yourself as though you are your friend (Not my idea - some research I read)
7. Don't Lose and it's ok to be beaten down
In Chess you can win or draw - that shows you are good. You can get beaten down.
By this I mean the other person was good/better than you. (Surprise!)
I think that is ok.
The worst is to lose - this is where you were careless and didn't play your best and lost.
This is the trap to avoid.
Being responsible has been mentioned in lots of books as 'response- able' which means you choose your response to everything that happens.
This part comes after you have given your best.
This is where the Bhagavat Gita advises
"Invest in process and not in outcome!"
How is this different from what we know?
Hindus were not advocating 6 sigma or Kaizen or some process stuff (thanks to Toyota!) but to do everything you do well and leave the rest to .. fill up God/Krishna/Alla/Jesus/Moses.. Atheist and Agnostics I don't know what you will fill up here but you are sure to understand my point!
It means doing everything to maintain your body/mind,keeping clear goals and reminding your selves of your goals,smiling and laughing while executing and responding to changes.
In the entire process of chess and Life don't forget to
Smile and Laugh
Losers are forgotten. Second places are forgotten.
Winners are forgotten and First places don't matter!
It's just a game
Keep playing
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran
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