SECTION HEAD
WHAT THE QUEEN OF CHESS CAN
TEACH YOU ABOUT BEING SUCCESSFUL
By Siimon Reynolds
I
n 2014 the greatest female chess
player in history decided to retire.
Judit Polgar has beaten the
finest male Grandmasters of the
modern era, including Kasparov,
Karpov, Anand and today’s world
number one, Magnus Carlsen.
She is so good, she rarely even
bothered entering the women’s
chess championships, preferring to
duke it out with the men because
it was more fun. She has been the
sole female in the men’s top 100
for an astonishing two decades.
She even broke the record set
by Bobby Fisher to become the
youngest Grandmaster in history.
She is, quite simply, a chess
genius. But it’s how she became
so great that is the tale most
worth telling. Because every one
of us could learn a lot from it, no
matter what field we aspire to be
successful in.
You see, Judit didn’t reach the very
top of her world by natural talent.
She was part of extraordinary
experiment carried out by her
father, Laszlo. Although it is
commonly believed that Chess
Grandmaster’s are born not made,
Laszlo believed that he could train
anyone to become a Grandmaster.
So he advertised for a woman
to partner with him with the aim
of having children that he could
train to play chess. Incredibly, he
found someone and 3 sisters were
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January 2016
born. Laszlo then went about the
task of teaching them everything
he knew about the game, and
designing training methods that
would constantly enhance their
skill levels.
Here are the results. Incredibly,
all three became Grandmasters.
And Judit became the best female
player the world has ever known.
What’s the lesson from this
astounding story?
I think it’s the following. Don’t
rely on your natural talents –
they matter far less than society
believes. You can learn virtually
anything. Especially in the
business arena. If you’re scared
of doing sales calls, you can learn
how to do it well and even learn to
enjoy it. If you’re bad at business
financials, you can learn to handle
them excellently too. If you’re
chronically disorganized that’s not
a genetic trait. You can study time
management and end up a world
class productivity expert.
There are virtually no skills you
cannot acquire, particularly
business skills.
But the Judit Polgar story also
shows that great skill only comes
after three elements are added:
a) great effort, b) many years
of practice and c) aiming high.
Without these three components
our skill levels would still improve,
but not to the point of mastery.
As authors Daniel Coyle, David
Shank and Geoff Colvin have each
shown with their meticulously
researched books on high
performance, there is a path to
greatness and it sure ain’t about
innate talent.
It’s about constant learning, huge
aspiration and putting in the hours
under an excellent teacher.