Brian Johnson watches his son Emerson practice chess for an hour daily, using timers and coach rules to slow down and think deeper. The story shows how honoring small commitments builds integrity, and Johnson asks listeners to identify what their heroic self would actually do.
Questions this episode answers
Day 75.
chesstempo.com.
Calculation: Grandmaster Preparation.
One hour per day.
30 minutes per session (tracked with a chess clock).
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. As we've discussed many, many times, Emerson's passion for chess has given us an extraordinary opportunity to connect on both the all boys trips and on these heroic ideas you and I are talking about every day. Now, as we've also discussed, Emerson recently took his game to the next level after losing to a tiny little nine year old boy who happens to be one of the best nine year old players in the country. Now, one of the things I most admire about Emerson is the speed with which he turns a loss into a learning win. After that loss to a tactically superior kid, he knew it was time for him to focus on doing what his coach had been encouraging to do for months. Slowing down and solving puzzles. Now, a little more context setting for today's one. Then we'll get to work. So. So Emerson is Now on day 75 of doing one hour of puzzles on a site called chesstempo.com check it out if you want to improve your chess game along with maybe 60 days of 30 minutes of puzzle work in a book called Calculation Grandmaster Preparation. Now, for the puzzles in the book, he sets the pieces up on the board on his desk and then tries to figure out what a grandmaster would have done or should have done in that situation. It's amazing to watch him do the online and offline puzzles. Target, swipe. Watch Emerson play chess. Note, I've hit that target 220 times. Now. For the online puzzles, he's not allowed to move until he's thought about the right move for at least three minutes, which is part of how he and his coach are working on slowing him down. So he has deep calculation skills to go with his speed as a force and intuitive skills. Now I'm doing deep work. The other day when Emerson busts into my office, Kramer style, with all the enthusiasm I so love, he says, daddy, if Nick and I have already gone through a puzzle, do I have to go through all of it again or can I just quickly look at it and then go to the next one? And before I can answer, he Kramers out of my office. As he tells me, oh, shoot, I forgot to stop my timer. Now I got tears in my eyes typing that. And I got tears in my eyes when he told me that. Here's a little more context. Chess Tempo automatically calculates how long he's tried solving puzzles for the day. He hits an hour every single day. For the puzzle book work, he needs to track his time by himself. And he does that by using the chess clock we have that we set to 30 minutes. He starts it when the 30 minutes is up. He's done. So apparently Emerson left that 30 minute clock running when he came in to ask me the question. And he was so committed to making sure he did all 30 minutes of pure training that he raced out of my office to stop the clock from ticking while we discussed his question. Again, I got tears in my eyes typing that again. Now, when he came back into the office, I told him that it's fine if he quickly reviews a puzzle he and his coach have already gone through to make sure he gets it. Then I got down on my knee so I could look him in the eye and I told him that I wanted him to listen closely to what I was going to say. Then I told him how much I admired the fact that he raced out of my office to stop the clock to make sure he was honoring his commitment of doing 30 minutes of solid training. Then I said, you know who you would have been cheating if you let the clock run and didn't do the things you said you would do. He thought about it for a moment as he crunched up, scrunched up his face, and he said, who? And I said, you'd be cheating yourself. And he said with the innocence of a preciously and precociously wise little boy, why would I ever cheat myself? And once again, I got tears typing that. And that, my dear heroic friend, is today's plus one. Who are you at your best? What specifically does that best, most heroic version of you do to show up as your best? You can give us all you've got. Know thyself, then don't cheat yourself. Do what you say you will do all day, every day, especially today.
