What Did YOU Do?: That Led to YOUR Last Heroic Win? (Heroic +1 #1,902)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In our last plus one we talked about Emerson's turnaround velocity that led to a sneaky checkmate and a truly epic comeback win. To recap, he played for four hours, made a huge mistake with eight seconds left on his clock, then was able to stay focused on his next move and worked his opponent into a vicious trap that led to an astonishing checkmate. We use that story as a catalyst to challenge ourselves to use our very next glitch as an opportunity to practice our philosophy and get a training rep in as we develop the speed with which we can alchemize our challenges. Quick check in. Did you practice? Remember, Greg Hardin tells us we get 1/10 of a second to feel bad about a mistake, then we must get our minds focused on on what's important. Now I hadn't thought about that until now, but that's precisely about how much time Emerson had to feel bad. Proud dad moment. Now, when Emerson loses a chess match, we immediately 1, 2, 3 it to make sure we turn that loss into a learn which will eventually lead to a win. And when he wins a great match like that, to be clear, that game we discussed was his all time best win. I want to follow Lanny Basham's advice and feast on that win. I want to use that experience to cook a hero bar while strengthening his heroic self image. Remember, as Lanny Basham says in with winning in mind, we will never consistently outperform a poor self image. Therefore, we want to strengthen our self image every chance we get. Now with Emerson, after that match, it went something like this. I said that's like you to never give up, stay strong until the very end and pull out a win from the jaws of defeat. That's like you to quickly alchemize a mistake and focus your energy on the next win immediately. And in this case, as I was looking for things to celebrate from the win that I could connect to how hard and consistently he trains, I realized that's like you to find a beautiful checkmate. Then I asked him how he thinks he got so good at that. Of course his answer and Eleanor's answer to the question of how anyone gets good at anything is an immediate. I practiced. To which I said, yeah, yeah, you practiced. But tell me specifically how you practiced that allowed you to be your best and see that beautiful checkmate when you needed it most. He said, solving chess tempo puzzles. I said, Exactly. You've done 218 days in a row. You've solved an insane number of puzzles. Note I just looked up his stats on chesstempo.com, which again is a website the best, most committed chess players use to solve really hard puzzles. Solving puzzles is one of the most powerful ways to get really good at chess as it helps you slow down and develop your calculation skills, which is one of the ways you cultivate the ability to see several moves ahead, which is one of the ways you go from being pretty good to very good to great. To put it in perspective, over the last 218 days, Emerson has spent a total of 6 days, 5 hours and 5 minutes solving puzzles on Chesstempo.com during that time he has attempted to solve 4,366 puzzles. He's failed 2130 times. He succeeded 2,236 times, a 51.21% success rate and his performance puts him in the top 13% of all chess Tempo users. And I repeat, if there was a leaderboard for most consistency days in a row, I'd be very surprised if he isn't in the top 10 or even number one. Note then we'll get back to the point here. This streak is his number one process and protocol target he's focused on in preparation for next year's national championships, and he'll be at 451 plus days in a row, heroically activated. Now his coach told him another reason he thinks he was able to perform so well under such tight time constraints. He pointed out that his bullet games on Chess.com definitely help. Although Emerson primarily plays 10 minute games on Chess.com he also plays a fair amount of 1 minute bullet games and and 3 minute blitz games, which clearly helped in this situation with time running out. But then I realized one of the other things he does when he's playing is he looks for the most beautiful checkmate in any given situation. And as you know, if you've been following along one of my daily you're a good wingman love target swipes is to watch Emerson play chess. I've hit that target 310 times. Now when I watch him play, sometimes I wonder why he doesn't just checkmate his opponent when he can. I've actually gotten slightly irritated and impatient with him about it a few times. He always says I want to find the prettiest checkmate. Why do it with a queen if I can find a way to do it with a couple of bishops? Now as we went through the that's like youe, I celebrated him for that practice as well and made the connection between his training and and his performance that night. And it was a combination of all of that, along with his ability to stay focused on the next move, the win that allowed him to win that game. And that's today's plus one. Yes, that is a lot about Emerson and chess. And yes, I'm both proud of him as a dad and fascinated by his evolution as a competitor. But ultimately, this plus one isn't about him. It's about you. Think back to your last epic win. Think about that. When was the last time you did something you're really proud of? That's like you to crush it. Now tell me, why were you able to crush it? I want to know exactly what you were doing that led to that masterpiece moment and or masterpiece day and or incredible aura score and or incredible moment with your family and or incredible moment at work and or any and all of the other incredible moments in which you showed up as your heroic best. What did you do that prepared you for and led to that moment of excellence? Pro tip. Do more of that all day, every day, especially today.