5 Lessons to Win in Chess can help you Win in Life

I was watching a motivational speech by the legendary movie star – Shahrukh Khan, directed to students at a college. The speech focused on a gift he received from his father on his 10th birthday – a used chess board and how the lessons learnt playing chess shaped his future and sculpted his journey to finally emerge as the global movie icon, with a following larger than the population of many nations of the world.

I have paraphrased these lessons in this article.  These lessons might seem obvious, but I have seen many of these lessons often forgotten often, leading to pitfalls, mishaps and sub-optimal outcomes. I hope that these lessons are reminders for you, as you navigate the chess board of your life with a goal of victory- however you define it for yourself.

1.       Every move has a consequence:  Often in chess, particularly initially in the game, we don’t think deeply while making a move. Our thought process is that this is just the beginning, I can always strategize later, based upon the moves of my opponent. Similarly in life, the beginning of a new relationship, a new job, a new neighborhood, it is the honeymoon period. We are seduced by the newness of the situation. Who cares about setting new ground rules, new sets of habits, new vision to shape your actions? They are just boring options, compared to the excitement and seduction of newness. Many games are lost because of mistakes in the first move. Any new relationship or situation requires time to set your intentions. This needs to be followed by clarity of expectations and communication of ground rules and mutual agreement on these expectations followed by commitment to move forward. This simple miss can cause a lot of heart-aches and challenges down the line. Another example of this rule is in daily commitment to personal habits for long term goals like health, career success, wealth, etc. Adherence to these daily rules on any given day might not seem important, but being casual regarding the daily disciplines can cause casualty of your long term goals.

2.        The coordinated movement of all chess pieces are required for victory: Just as the game of chess requires coordinated movements across different chess pieces, the game of life is not a game that can be won as a lone ranger. The world can’t run without gazillions of micro and macro agreements of co-operation between individuals, families, organizations or nations. During my experience leading large teams, the success of the team, was largely predicated by the clarity of communication, alignment on the vision and commitment of the team. One additional element that I tried to create within my leadership was opportunity to have fun with each other while working hard together. As leaders, we need to notch up our communication skills, empathy, ability for foster trusted relationships, and creativity in designing innovative solutions.

3.       To move forward, sometimes you have to move couple of steps backward: In the game of chess your victory is determined by your ability to capture the opponent’s king, while saving your king. There are no points for number of forward moves compared to the number of backward moves. Similarly in life, your aim is to achieve your carefully chosen objective. To achieve your goal, you can’t have all moves in the forward direction. You’d have to pivot often and sometimes go back to the drawing board and start afresh.

4.       Sometimes you have to sacrifice the queen to win the game: The queen is the most prized asset in the game of chess. It is versatile, powerful and its presence gives you immense advantage. In life, queen represents your most valuable possessions or assets. Sometimes, your path requires you to let go of your most valuable possessions in order to achieve a higher level in your uphill climb of your life. Your clarity and conviction on this point can make or mar your success. Picasso was famous for destroying his paintings that did not meet his expectations.

5.       Take care of the pawns: By taking care of the pawns and making them move in a coordinated fashion, you can orchestrate your victory in chess.  Though all individuals are equal in the eyes of the law, but we see hierarchy in organizations and society. The CEOs of the world, create policies and processes, but the execution of the plans on the ground are carried out by individual contributors who are lower in hierarchy. These individuals need to be taken care of to ensure that they feel respected and valued in the organization. If these individuals just follow orders without using their brains and their initiative, it can lead to catastrophic failures.

Whether it is the game of chess or the game of life, you have to understand the rules and practice them on a daily basis to improve. Diligent preparation, practice and performance is the only way to shoot for being the Grand Master of your own life!