Brian Johnson uses his son Emerson's chess tournament to show how to bounce back from a bad round. After a loss, Emerson followed their family protocol: process the loss, learn from it, and get back to work. The lesson: dominate your protocol and use setbacks as fuel.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In our last plus one we chatted about what to do after you go off the rails a bit and pay the price for your mediocrity. Here's the pro drop to shame, use the data as antifragile fuel to get better and get back on track. Now let's go back about a week to Emerson's last big tournament at the Austin Grandmaster Chess Academy. On our drive out, we did our thing. I quizzed him on what he wants and how he plans to get it. He wants to be a good person and he wants to be a chess grandmaster. Awesome. Big goals for the win. Now these tournaments are incredible for a number of reasons, including the fact that the kids he plays against are really good. Some of the best in the country. I got goosebumps typing that as Emerson entered the tournament number 71 in the country for 12 year olds. He played against three kids better than him and he went 3:1. And that performance was enough to effectively bump him up from number 71 in the country to number 52. Yes, I am a proud and fascinated dad, marveling at his passion for the game and commitment to consistently training and then showing up with competitive greatness. But that's not quite what I want to chat about today. This is his third match of the day, was one of his all time best. It was against a higher rated ranked kid who is really, really good and they were playing on a top board so I could watch the game via live stream on my phone. Now when he's on a top board, that's live stream and I watch the game on my main phone, then enter each move into chess.com on my bat phone which immediately tells me whether it was a good move, a great move or a bad move. Then the engine tells you the odds of who will win. It's fascinating to see. As I told Mommy, my heart skips a beat every time he moves and right before I enter it into the system to see if it was a good move. Now these kids are playing one great move after another. And to be clear, great moves are very rare. Usually the system tells you it was a good move or a best move or a miss or a blunder. But these guys were crushing it. Emerson would make a great move, bam. Then the other kid would make a great move, bam. Back and forth, great move after great move. It was awesome and I was sweating just watching it. True story. Then Emerson made a mistake and the engine said he was almost certainly gonna lose the game. But he held in there. And he made a comeback when the other kid made a big mistake and Emerson wound up winning. It was incredible. Then they had a quick turnaround between the third and the fourth match of the day. Now, we did what we always do. A quick 1, 2, 3 of the match, a quick bite to eat, then a quick workout, a 33 burpees, and some sprints. Then he was back at it. Now, in that fourth and final match of the day, the kid he just played lost really quickly. I asked Emerson why he thinks that was. He astutely pointed out that he lost that match quickly, probably because he was still thinking about his prior match and was bummed about it and not focusing. I said, I think that's exactly right. Then I asked him what he thought the kid did after that tough match. Emerson said he wasn't sure, but it probably wasn't helpful. I asked him what he would have done after that match if he lost. He paused for a moment, and then I answered for him. I said, we would have done the exact same thing we do and every match. Now, that might not sound like a big deal, but it was one of those moments when you could feel that he really. Goosebumps. Got it. And that's today's plus one Spotlight where it belongs on you. What do you do after a tough match or tough day or tough whatever? It's not possible for me to say this with any more intensity. I highly recommend you dominate your protocol. Remember, the worse we feel, the more committed we are to our protocols. If there was one thing I wish I could directly implant into your brain, it's this. When you inevitably get knocked around by life and. Or go off the rails a bit, make it a game to see how fast you can get back on track. Remember, as my Yoda says, and we've adapted for our heroic purposes, speed is a force. And there is no greater creative act in the universe than the speed with which you can reconnect to your best self after you lose that connection. That's today's plus one. Here's to using all of life's challenges as fuel for our antifragile growth all day, every day, especially today.
