Checkmate Key Negotiation Strategies From the World of Chess with Ernest Levert Jr.

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Negotiate Anything is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 3 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm Kwame Christian and I'm the director of the American Negotiation Institute. We're growing and I want to introduce you to our new team members and new trainers. This will help to give you new diverse perspectives on negotiation and conflict resolution. That's why I'm excited to let you know that Shane Martin, our head of sales and partnerships, is going to serve as co host of the show from time to time. We are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, before we get into the episode, I want to remind you that our team conducts negotiation and conflict resolution trainings in the United States and abroad. Our trainings will give you the practical skills you need to resolve conflict, negotiate, lead, and persuade with confidence. Click the link in the description below to learn how we can help to make your difficult conversations easier. And now let's get to the show. Ernest, thanks for joining us today.

Hey, man, it's good to be here. It's a long time coming. I'm excited to finally get a chance to talk it up with you on air. Let's do this.

Yeah, man, long time coming. I'm excited for this. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Yeah, so I work with the Royal Oak Initiative, that ROI is the name of a chess based mentoring organization that was given to me by Spirit about eight years ago. So we use the game of chess to explore wisdom and to protect, heal, and build community. It all started back when you and I met, back when I played you when I was in high school. It really started as a mentoring organization and a way to connect people from different walks of different backgrounds. We connect mentally and we get to it and have some fun in the process.

Absolutely. And listen, listeners, my friend Ernest here is very modest. Okay, so let's actually tell the story about how we officially met. So I'm good friends with Ernest's sister, Chantal. Shout out to Chantal. I'm sure she's going to listen to this episode, too. And so my friend David Pickens and I, who's now a mechanical engineer, we're nerds. We like to play chess. And I know the listeners know this. You know, I've played over 19,000 games on chess.com. so I fancy myself to be a good player. And I played. I was playing with David and were going back and forth. And then Chantal says, hey, my baby brother's coming to Ohio State next year. You should play him. He plays chess. We're like, oh, yeah, let's get him. And so what ended up happening was we were playing online Yahoo. Chess back in the day, and Ernest beat both me and David at the same time. At the same time. And then we're like, you know what? That was horrible. But at least we're going to be bigger and stronger than him. Then he comes and he's like, in better shape than both of us. We're like, what is. Who is this guy? So, yes, Ernest is a mastermind and a great leader in the community, and he's using chess in a really dynamic way to build community. So can you go a little bit deeper into the Royal Oak Initiative, like what the outcomes are and how you're going about it?

Yeah, for sure. So thank you for sharing the. The details of the story and reliving that painful moment for yourself. That was cool. That was the beginning of our really cool friendship and brotherhood. But, yeah, so the Royal Oak Initiative, man, it's really just here to fill a gap in the culture of chess. I'll say there's a lot of folk who would love to play and who maybe play on the sideline, they play at home. But we want to bring community together. It's really a form of community organizing and social justice, organizing through the game. And so a few of the main things that we do is we help activate and stand up chess clubs. That's the basics is bringing folk together, make sure people have a chance to play. A lot of folks play with their uncle or their granddad or their auntie or their cousin, But a lot of chess players have a hard time finding other players to connect with. And that was one of the problems we saw in the community. There was a lot of isolation. And so we wanted to make sure that every school, library and recreation center in central Ohio had a chess club. So we're working on that. We also want to bridge the gap between competitive and casual chess players via tournaments. Kwame mentioned that I grew up playing a little bit of chess. I started playing in about fourth grade, I think the story goes. I picked up a book at a book fair, read it, and came home. And my dad, he played chess as well. We played a little bit. He stopped playing me once I beat him. A lot of parents do that. We played a couple times since then, but he got me a software program on chess, so I got a little decent. This was before the Internet. Well, it was at the beginning of the Internet, I'll say that. And yeah, so I grew up playing, but I didn't know about tournaments. I didn't know that I was from Dallas. And the University of Texas at Dallas gives full ride scholarships for chess. Right. At A and M gives scholarships for chess. There's a lot of colleges that have scholarships for chess. I didn't even know about it. This was in my backyard, right? And so one of my goals is to bridge the gap between competitive and casual chess players so that we can raise the stakes and raise the profile of, of competitive and casual chess merging. So, yeah, the Royal Oak Chess League. We also do something I'm really excited about, which is the Royal Oak Chess Academy broken specifically into our citizenship, our stewardship, and our leadership academy. Those are our pillars. And the citizenship academy is just about community organizing, community building through the game of chess. So we teach kids how to start their own chess clubs. And then they also will learn a little bit of project management, where they develop their own culture projects. The group last year had a chance to design their own sweatshirts. They did the whole keep calm and play chess shirts. They put a QR code on the side. They had our ROI chant on the back. And they got to get those when they graduated. One group designed a mural, one group did some custom shoes. You know, they just whatever elements of culture that they like, they added a chess theme to it. And so it's just a reminder to them that they are the creators of culture, not just the consumers of culture. In a world that just wants them to buy, buy, buy things like they can always. Everything that we see was created and that they're creative as well. So those are the three major elements. And then everything else falls under the Royal Oak Chess experience, which is we just like to have fun. We were at a restaurant here locally in Columbus a week or two ago and there was karaoke going on. You know, most people think of chess as this super long. Like we're playing six hour games and it's very quiet and focused and very cerebral. And I'm like, yeah, there is that version, but there's also other versions too. Like a lot of people know the New York style where you're smacking clocks and talking trash and pieces are flying and man, it's really exciting. But I've never really seen chess and karaoke in the same spot. That was really really cool. You know, so, yeah, those are. Those are elements of what we do is just bringing folks together into a space where certain personalities are going to mingle and bond. Right? Like, there's a certain. I would say there's a certain personalities. There's a certain disposition of folk that are attracted to chess, and you get those people in the same space, and it's powerful. It's like putting a bunch of ingredients into a mixing bowl, and it's just an explosion.

Yeah. Oh, that's great. That is great. And so, listeners, with this episode, this is going to be a really fun episode. And like I said, Ernest and I have been talking about this for a very long time. And so we, in different ways, have been able to use the principles and philosophies that we've found in chess and through our experience and what we've learned through chess in our life, in business, in relationships, in negotiation, in communication. And so what we want to do in this conversation is just have an open dialogue about the various ways that we've been able to use chess in our life, those chess principles and philosophies to be successful and to find stability and order in a chaotic world. And so let's just start from the beginning. When we talk about chess principles applied to life. What does that even mean?

Yeah, man. So it's really interesting. When I am teaching or in guiding someone through the game of chess, I say there's really four levels of learning, right? One is you got to learn the rules. You can't even get to the metaphors till you know the rules. Which is really funny when people start throwing chess cliches out, and I'm like, have you played chess before? Right? So the first thing you learn are the rules, and then you learn the principles. So one of the opening principles is control the center. We always talk about having. I call it dynamic balance, right? That life is always going to throw you off. It's like riding a surfboard. Your goal is to stay in the center of the surfboard, but the waves are constantly tossing you back and forth. So in the game of chess, one of the things you have to do is really, well, at least in the beginning, is strive to control the center of the board, because that's where all the action is. And what that gut does is allows you to pivot very quickly, whether you're going king side to the left side of the board, depending on which side you're playing with, or you go into the right side of the board. So when you control the center, I always Explain. It's like being the goalie in a soccer, In a soccer goal is that you don't know which way the ball is going. And you got to be able to go both ways. If you're too far off balance, you're not going to be able to adjust quickly. Like that is one of the values and one of the opening principles, another one that's really simple. I was going to explain a little bit about my story is you need to use all your pieces as quickly as possible, right. One of the first mistakes people make is they only use their queen or they only use their horsey, their knight. Right. Or they're just pushing wing pawns, which means they're pushing pawns to the edge. So one of the challenges we do is in the early games, we say you need to touch all of your pieces at least one time. Right. And I just think about that principle applied to my life, that I've had a very zigzag career path, right. It's very unorthodox, very non traditional, and I'm so grateful for it. It can create challenges at times. But for those who don't know me, I studied biomedical engineering at the Ohio State University. That's where Kwame and I got connected. And then out of engineering, I just realized that wasn't really my passion. I didn't put a lot of thought into it. I finished because I didn't at that time, I didn't allow myself to be. To feel like a quitter. So I dragged myself across that finish line and got that degree, but then got out of school, pivoted into financial services, spent five years doing some financial coaching, which was really interesting, but also picked. I was working on commission, so I picked up some sales skills. I did a lot of self development, and then I pivoted into youth workforce development. Right. So there's a lot of pieces I'm picking up along the way. And now in my life, I'm able to use all these pieces at the same time. One of the principles, the last principle I'll mention now is the idea of a coordinated attack. Right. It's so beautiful stringing all the pieces together. I actually enjoy when I'm playing, people taking. Well, depending on who I'm playing, if I'm playing Kwame, I'm keeping queens on the board. But you know, I'll take a queen off the board. For those who don't know, the queen is the most powerful piece. And I say the power, power in chess, all it has to do with options. The more options you have, the more powerful you are. In the game of chess, the queen has access to the most squares because it can move as far as it wants in any direction. But I like taking the queens off the board and figuring out how to coordinate attacks, or what I like to call the dance or plays is with knights and bishops and rooks. Because you have to learn to work together. You have to use all your pieces. You can't rely on your gift. For those who have seen Enkanto, spoiler alert. Enkanto is a super, really cool movie where you learn how to work together. You don't have to just rely on one power piece all the time, you know, so those are examples of principles in play, you know. And Kwame, it would be interesting. We talked a little bit about this is what do you do when your principles conflict? What do you do when you're not sure what to do?

Does your company invest in professional development training? If you believe that your team would benefit from a negotiation workshop, all you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form, and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely customizable, and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're especially useful in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing, and contract management. Our calendar is filling up quickly, and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year if you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description to learn more. And now back to the show. Yeah, and so this, this is great because one of the things we were talking about off camera was in chess, when I don't know what to do, when I'm not quite sure what the move is like in the middle game. I always used to struggle in the middle game because it wasn't always clear where their opportunity was. What I would do is I would rely on the fundamental chess principles. Like you said, let's just cover those three, control the sender, use all your pieces, use a coordinated attack. Right. And so I'd try to. I'd castle early, protect my king, try to move the rooks to the center, advance my center pawns, and. And try to control the center. I don't know where the opportunity is, but I know that if I'm in the right position, I'll be able to take advantage of the opportunity when it comes, you know? And the thing is, I find a lot of similarities in that principle, especially when it comes to negotiation and life in general, right? Because in life we don't always know where the next opportunity is going to come. We don't know. And for the majority of us, when we think about where we are right now, if we look back 10 years, for the majority of us, we wouldn't be able to pinpoint where we were going. But if we're doing a good job of controlling the sender and making sure that we're constantly in a good position, then we can take advantage of those openings when it comes. Now, when it comes to negotiation, when we think about controlling the sender, it means making sure that you understand what it is that you need to have. You need to control those key issues, right? Not just what are the things that we need to have, but what are the things that need to be discussed. Like, it shows how important it is to set the agenda and make sure that you're having the conversation and sequencing the conversation in a way that makes sure that you're actually addressing these key issues. Right. And again, you're not always sure what's going to happen in a difficult conversation. You don't always know which direction it's going to go. But if you rely on foundational principles like the Compassionate Curiosity Framework, for example, acknowledging and validating, validating emotions, getting curious with compassion, using joint problem solving and cycling through that, staying curious, asking a lot of open ended questions and things like that, you're going to find yourself in a better position and you'll be able to take advantage of the opportunities in the conversations when they present themselves.

Yeah, for sure, man. And I think it's really been pretty cool, especially early. Early Covid is I got really into, you know, a lot of people got really into online chess and I did a lot of chess puzzles. I would use chess puzzles as a mindfulness tool. In the morning, I would do a chess puzzle. When I woke up, I would do three to five, just kind of test to see where my brain was at. Some days I'd wake up and my brain was moving really quick and I'd figure out the answer quickly. Some days I wouldn't. And so the days that I wasn't moving swiftly, the days I didn't know what to do. To your point, I. A framework kind of came to me and I said, always focus on the mvp, right? Always focus on the most valuable piece or the most valuable player. And the MVP just stands for material vulnerabilities and position. Right. Anytime I'd come up to a new problem, I'd come up To a new puzzle, first thing I would do is take the count. I would just observe, right? What is the material count, which piece, which team is ahead in material? Because when you're playing behind, and I would imagine this applies negotiation. When you're playing ahead, when you have more power, when you have more options, you play differently than when you're playing behind. You're maybe playing a little bit on defense or you're playing with lower assets, you're not coming to the table with as much. You need to know what the count is, right? Because that affects your strategy. The V is vulnerability, right? Kwame, you talk about the middle game. The principles you all discuss will get you through the opening. But the middle game, the principles are different, right? Knights before bishops doesn't help you in the middle game. That's where you got to look at rooks on open lines and you want to pass. Pawns must be pushed, but the timing of that, because pawns can't move backwards. So if you push too early, it's all bad. So vulnerabilities for me, was just identifying weaknesses. And I'm still wrestling with how this applies to life. But I like to transition that into opportunities is you have to look. You got to go through a framework of evaluating what are your greatest opportunities. And I always start with the most valuable opportunity first, which is the king. You know, we don't say kill, even though checkmate means kill the king in ancient, it's original language. But I like to say, is there any way I can tag the king first? And I look at all the ways to check the king, and then I say, is there any way I can tag the queen? And I look at all the ways to trap the queen, and then I just go rook. I go bishop, I go knight. I have a framework, a mental framework where I go check, check, check. And it helps me when I get lost and feel confused in the midst of the chaos, right? Especially when emotions start to kick in. Man, having a framework to fall back on is so important, right? Having a checklist to fall back on is so important, and it changes the way I enter. Even in my life, high stake conversations where I'm like, man, I'm really overwhelmed. I'm talking, I'm at the table with somebody who has what I want. This is awesome. Don't lose your stuff, Ernest. Don't lose yourself, right? Fall back on your checklist. And then the P stands for position, which often is a pawn move, right? Is there any way I can just increase my position? It may not be a Dramatic move. Everyone wants the queen sacrifice. Everyone wants the Greek gift. Like, no, no, no. It might be a quiet move. This quiet move might be the winning move right now. Right. And so for me, having that framework, going into difficult situations, going into problem solving situations, an example of chess applied to my life and the mindfulness practice has been really helpful for me as well. Where people are like, ernest, it's okay. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm not. I'm not coming at myself. I'm not. I'm not denigrating myself right now. I'm just aware of what it's like for me to not be aware. I just know what it's like to not feel present in a situation. And because I've been able to train myself quickly, it's a lot easier to recover. I think recovery is the key.

I love everything that you said, but especially when you're talking about that systematic approach to solving problems, because some days you might wake up, you just look at it, you figure it out. Other days it's not as easy. But if you get in the habit of going through this systematic approach, that's going to be helpful. And one of the things that's helpful for me is using a systematic approach for preparation, which gives me an opportunity to talk about the free negotiation guides. I always find a way, Ernest. Always find a way. So if you go to americannegotiationinstitute.com guide, you can get access to all of our free negotiation guides. Business negotiation, conflict resolution, salary negotiation, whatever it happens to be. And it helps you to systematically prepare for the conversations, because I still use these when I have a big negotiation myself to this day, because I'm not going to leave my preparation up to chance. I'm going to make sure that I'm hitting all of these points and then same with these difficult conversations. Even though I have a lot of experience, I'm going to go through and follow the steps to make sure that I'm approaching this in a systematic way, that I'm not missing other things. Because when you're emotional, we have to. We have to realize there's a difference between facts and feelings. But in the moment, they feel exactly the same. And so you might think you're making the best decision in the moment, when in reality it's your emotionality pushing you in one direction, and you don't realize it until you've cooled down, you know? And so I don't want to leave my success up to chance in these difficult conversations or in my games. Of chess, right? And I think it's really important to make sure that you. You create a process and trust the process too. And so tell me this. With these. The methodology that you went through, is that something that you learned, something that you created, or kind of like a mix of both?

I don't recall being taught that. I mean, definitely this idea of counting material, that's a pretty classic approach, right? You need to. And for those who aren't aware, when you're learning chess, it's important to know when to make an exchange or not. One of the examples, I always ask people, I say, would you pay $100 for a bag of skittles? And most people are like, absolutely not. I was like, man, I did that one time. I didn't know about overdraft fees. And I just kept. I bought three bags of Skittles, and I got hit with $30 overdraft fees every time, right? Like, you have to know when to make an exchange and when not to buy someone that's valuable. And so in the game of chess, when you're learning, when you're starting off, people say that a queen is worth one pawn, right? A rook is worth five pawns. Knights and bishops are worth three pawns. And then a pawn is worth a pawn. And that just helps you kind of map out how to make decisions when you're making exchange. Like, just because you can doesn't mean you should. That's one of the most powerful principles that I've ever taken from. From chess. It's just because you can doesn't mean you should. And you have to know when to engage and when not to engage.

Exactly. And I think to that point, well, let's. Let's talk about material, because I think this is something that is really underappreciated in negotiation until you find yourself on the wrong end of it. And it's power, it's leverage. And the thing is, if you give. Get two chess players who are, let's say, at the exact same level, one person makes one mistake, gives up a pawn, and now they're down one pawn in the early stages of the game, you know, it's a problem. It doesn't feel like a big problem. But until you start trading pieces, right? I see your queen, I could. We could trade queens. I'm trading. I'll trade. I'll trade the knights, I'll trade the rooks, and I will trade. And now we're down. Let's just take that all the way down to the end of the game. Now it is your king against my king and a pawn. And all you need to do, you just simply need to be minimally competent. And then you turn that pawn into a queen, and then the g. The end game becomes very simple. Right. And so when it comes to negotiation, when it comes to communication, there's always going to be a party that has a little bit more leverage, a little bit more power. You have to understand that dynamic because it will change the way that you play the game. So I can be. I could just sit there and focus on maintaining position, cruising to an easy finish. I don't need to take any risks. If I'm up one piece, you know, if I'm up one or two pawns is a pretty easy finish. Right. But if I realize, oh, I'm on the other side, I'm down, oh, my approach needs to be very different. You know, I have to change my strategy. I might not want to, but the circumstances may dictate that I have to. Right. And so taking the time to take inventory of your position and then the material that's in play, too, that's going to be important. And it goes back to another thing that you said, options. The. The person who has the best options usually is the person who has the leverage. If you don't have many options, you don't have much power. Right. And so I was just talking to Shane about this too. Whenever we're negotiating, we want to position ourselves to a place where we have the most options. We don't know which option is the best one, but I know probabilistically, if I have more options, one of them is probably going to be better, you know, So I again example of how we can use those principles, even though we're not exactly sure where things are going to go.

Yeah. The other thing that that reminds me of is two things that we. Three things we can probably get to maybe with time. One is the psychology of chess, which is so fascinating. And then two are gambits. Right. For those who have been walking the planet in the last two years, have probably heard of the queen's gambit and how that just made this entire wave across the chess world and Netflix and whatnot. But people often are like, what is a gambit? You know, a gambit is a temporary sacrifice. So to Kwame's point, you may be playing somebody who is going to sacrifice material early, make it look like they're playing down a material, but really what they're trying to do is set you up for the Okie doke on the back end. It is a temporary sacrifice. And so for me, I think these have to go hand in hand with the. With the psychology of chess. Right. It's how do you know when someone is making a blunder or someone is making a gambit? How do you know when someone is trying to trick you or trying to gift you? And I think that is so important in high stakes conversations and high stakes negotiations, because when you got two really solid players at the table, they're pulling every trick out of the book. Now you have to go in with, you know, assuming positive intent and assuming that they. They want what's best for. For themselves and you. But sometimes they don't care. And sometimes they're going to make it look like they're. They're going to be vulnerable, and you're going to lean in a little bit too far, you're gonna reveal a little bit too much, you're gonna give up a little bit too much of your power, and then they got you. Right? So I just wanted. I just thought that was so interesting when you're saying this idea of playing down a material, I'm like, someone might go down a material intentionally to make themselves look weak, you know, and then you're trapped. You're in too far.

Exactly.

Yeah, man.

And, you know, it's funny though, one of the things that is really exciting about chess, that draws a lot of people to it, is the fact that we. There are no secrets, per se, because we look at the board and we all know what each person has. It's not like poker. I don't know which cards you have. No, I know exactly what you have. Right. And so we start off equal. Now. White has the advantage. They play first, and there's a slightly higher winning percentage, statistically speaking. But if you play multiple games, you know, that evens out because you switch. But that set aside. But in negotiation, one of the things that's interesting and just life in general is that there is no perfect information. I don't. There's a lot that I don't know. No matter how much research I do, no matter how open you are, there's still going to be a lot that I don't know. And what I found in my experience negotiating myself, my experience hosting this podcast and listening to hundreds of negotiators and then seeing some of the best in action, that I've realized that the thing that people fear the most in negotiation is the bully. The person who just overwhelms you, the difficult person, the person who is openly Machiavellian, but The best negotiators are the ones who seem like they are the least dangerous. The ones who are your friends who smile in your face, then take your lunch, and you like them for it. You know, like, that's the dangerous position. So to your point, you don't know when it's a gambit.

So you.

You are most vulnerable when you feel the safest. Because when you think about trust, trust is a positive bias. I'm not thinking through whether or not I trust you, Earnest. I just do. I feel that. And so people could leverage that. And so the best negotiators are the ones who can create trust, make you feel safe, make you feel comfortable sharing a lot of information. Knowledge is power. I create an information asymmetry in my favorite. I know more than you, and you don't realize there's a discrepancy. I use that small material advantage and I move forward. Right. Or I use that in order to get you to adjust your position in a way that might make me seem vulnerable in the moment, but in fact, I just moved you in a position where you're actually more vulnerable in the long term. But because people don't take the time and think a few moves in advance and think it through, they fall in for a gambit and they don't even realize it.

Yeah, man. And that's where I think it comes all the way back to this idea of controlling the center, or what I like just pivot and say is staying centered is refining your center of gravity. Right. People oftentimes say that chess and jiu jitsu have a lot in common. Right? So that's why I always, like, cringe a little bit when people say that the light pieces have the advantage when they play chess. And I'm like, well, if you're in jiu jitsu, you want them to make the first move, and you just help them go wherever they're going faster, right? So I always love playing with the dark pieces. But what I was going to say earlier was just this idea that even when you are thrown off position or you're thrown off center, or someone gets there first, because sometimes, like you said, there's things you can't control. Thanks to the codification of the rules of chess in the 18th, 1870s, 1880s, when White did start moving first, it changed the way the game was played. Because back in the day, white didn't start moving first until the 19th century. Before that, some of the most famous games of chess had black moving first. Right. The Immortal Game, one of the most famous Games of chess, black was moving first, right? So the whole. Everything changed. The French added the rule where you can move two pawns forward and then added en passant, like man. To see how the game changed, the people had to adjust. Now, in today's day and age, whenever the rules are more set in place, the principles are more set in place. Now it's just a matter of knowing how to adjust when you're in new positions. And that's one of the basic values and principles I wanted to make sure. We emphasize was this idea of knowing your pieces, that each piece is powerful in different positions. A lot of times people say that the bishop is powerful in opening games versus a knight is powerful in closed games. When things are compact, it's the difference between playing in an open or fighting in an open field with a broad sword versus fighting in the forest with bows and arrows, right? Like where you have to duck between trees and, you know, think about all your. All your different action movies, right? And that's one of my favorite lessons in leadership to drive home is this value and diversity, right? Because people always say, like, it's just like checkers. And I'm like, absolutely not. Wash your mouth out. Don't say that to me. The only thing they have in common is the board, right? And the checkers board is black and red. But the main difference for me is that all the pieces on a chessboard are different. And we have to learn to value that. We have to learn to take inventory of the strengths and weaknesses of each piece so pawns can't move backwards. What does that mean? Pawns are used to set the structure of the entire game. Pawns determine whether the game is open or closed. That your whole strategy might be queening a pawn because one pawn got through and became passed, which means there's no other pawns that can stop it. Or that bishops, again, are better in open games or they belong on the long diagonals. Fianchettoing or Fido Chettoing. Your bishop is really important. And what. That, for me, is very important. It comes back to when you. And I would imagine anytime you enter a tough conversation, you need to know who you're talking to. You need to know what is important to that person. You need to know what drives that person. You need to know. And as much as possible, like Kwame said, like you said, there's. There's not. You're not always gonna have perfect information. You're not gonna know everything about that person's journey. But I think it's as important as Much as possible to get into the mind of the. Of the other player, as much as you are already caught up in your own mind, right? When I. When I sit down at the chessboard, I tell people, like, don't play. Don't play the person, play the board. Right? Which is.

It's.

It's good advice in general that if you ignore the psychology of chess, you do need to know who you're playing. But. But whenever you're just evaluating facts versus feelings, when you're looking the facts, you need to play the board, you need to play this situation. You need to know, hey, maybe I need to have my queen in here. Maybe I need to have my rookie here. Maybe I need to have my knight in here. And for me, in community, especially as we're doing some more in the community organizing space, I'm really learning the power of when to send in certain pieces. And not like a battle, not like we're sacrificing pieces, but like, hey, Ernest, you're a little blunt. Like, you're a little direct. This probably isn't the best situation for you to handle, right? Maybe we need to add a little bit of kindness in here. So send someone else in, right? It is just teamwork. And that's one of the coolest things for me, that's actually how we got started was I came with this mentoring curriculum where we would go through each letter in the word leader and tie it to different chess pieces, and we would just unpack the strengths and weaknesses of each piece and how that applies to our life. You know, for example, I just give one, which is the L is long term thinking with the king, that in the game of chess, it's not a materialistic game, which I love, Right. I tell people all the time, you're going, most likely going to stalemate somebody if you take all their pieces, right. Or if you're like Kwame and David and you want to get nine knights on the board like a wild person. Right. You know, in chess, it's impossible to checkmate with two knights and a king on an empty board. So being materialistic actually will backfire on you in chess, and I think it does in life as well. But yeah, I'll pause there and just say, like, that idea of diversifying, knowing the power of each piece in certain positions is really, really important. And that's one of the main lessons we try to drive home when we're working with our youth and when we're connecting with community.

Oh, this is great. So many gems in here, man. So let Me, let me pick out a couple. So jiu jitsu, human chess, as they call it. So I. I don't even think you know this, but I started doing jiu jitsu from time to time. Lots of fun, because I. I love the UFC and I love watching mma. I was at the Ngannou fight a couple weeks ago, but jiu jitsu, they. I think you'd enjoy this. They, instead, they call it in the art of involuntary laundry, sometimes like involuntary yoga. Involuntary yoga. So it's like I'm going to twist your body up in a way that you don't want. And so the thing is, man, it is. It is a humbling thing because you think about material, you think about power and everything and how it's conceptualized just in. In life and in chess. Sometimes jiu jitsu was created for smaller people to take down bigger people in many cases. And so I go in there, I'm feeling kind of, you know, feeling kind of cocky. I work out a lot. I'm not small, like 6, 1 2, 20. Right. And I look at other people, I'm like, oh, you know, you're about 5, 8, 160180. Well, they're weight classes for a reason. I should be able to figure this out. And so really earnest. All it was was me just getting abused by smaller men over and over and over again, you know, and it was. It was super, super humbling. But one of the things that's interesting, because I think in many ways, jiu jitsu is more applicable to life than chess, because there are. There are asymmetries in body types in all those types of things, right? And then also, this is the most fascinating thing, because I brought up chess to one of my. My teachers, and he said, yeah, here's the difference, though, because in chess, you're forced to make a decision. You can't skip a move. I make a move, you make a move. But in jiu jitsu, if I know where you're going, I can anticipate, I can make two, three, four moves before you make a move. I might make a move. You don't even realize I made a move. And that's how it is in life, too. And so we have to remember, it's always your turn in life. In life, it's always your turn. There's always the decision to be made, right? And even if you're setting a strategy and you're being patient, you should be actively patient because you can be building and developing in other ways. Okay, I'm in the Middle of a negotiation or there's a business strategy I'm employing, I can read a book and learn and get better in the meantime. Right. There are other moves that I can be making. The other thing that you talked about was diversity. Really interesting. Because the thing is, yeah, Queen is a great, great piece, but I. If I'm bringing out my. If I see somebody bringing out their queen, fourth move, I'm saying, well, I'm certainly going to win this game. Because you're not good. You don't know when to move your pieces at the right time. Right. Each piece has a specific capability that's really interesting and really powerful that should be brought out in specific times that are specifically and narrowly tailored for that specific skill. And for me, as I'm building this company, we're hiring new people. I'm realizing that if I could hire clones of myself, that wouldn't even be desirable, because there are people that have skills that I don't have. There are people who see things in ways that I don't. I can't even perceive. That's the crazy part. Like Kadian, she's really great at putting things together, structuring things and building the team. And for me, I'm just the visionary that sees things top level. I don't think about the process. I don't think about the structure. I don't think about the position the same way she does. But we complement each other really well in that way. So I think that the piece of diversity is critical. That's really important.

Yeah, man. I think that's really funny, the idea of you getting tossed around in the jujitsu. That's hilarious. I think there's also really a lot of value in this idea that you can't skip a turn in chess. And for me, this. You can waste a turn. You can't skip a turn. I really think that ties to this idea of actively being actively patient. Even if you don't know what to do, you have to do something like, you can't skip a day in life. You can waste days, but you can't skip days in your life, and you don't know how long the game is gonna last. Right. You have to make every. Every day matter and every move matter. And the other thing I was gonna say is like, the ace, the asymmetry, that when you come into the world, you know, congenital differences taken into account. Right. Most of us do come into the world very similarly. Right? You're crying, screaming baby. You don't know a whole lot about the world or you can't speak. And then over time, the game begins to unfold, and we just land in the middle game by the time our consciousness really kicks in, right? So there's some things that you can control, some things you can't, you know, because I. And the other thing I was thinking about was that this is that chess is not a perfect metaphor. And I think for folks who always try to pigeonhole it into being one, like, you're losing the. You're losing the picture, which is that this is a training ground to develop your mental processes. Right? Again, to your point earlier about preparation, this is a drill. Like, this is a really good simulation that will give you the skill set to go into a real world situation, you know, And I just. I just think about all the time how being, you know, Kwame, you can relate to this. Being a visionary is that you can see things oftentimes before they happen, right? But that is a skill that has to be developed. You have to practice that. You got to drill and rehearse. You have to. You know, if you're afraid of the bully, then you need to get fine to the most bulliest person in your life and be like, yo, let's practice some. Some negotiation. Let's, let's. You know, I tell people, look, I love. Oh, man, we didn't even talk about that. I said I love losing. Everyone's like, everyone. Cue the gasp. He said he loves losing. I didn't say I like losing. I said I love losing. You don't always like what you love, right? There's some signs with your partner that you don't always like them, because for me, I attribute like to pleasure, right? You don't always get pleasure from the things you love. You may love being in shape, but you may not always like working out, right? You may love feeling rested, but you may not always like sleeping if you have other things you want to do that you'd rather do awake, right? And so I wanted to make sure I drilled home this idea of learning two things from loss. One is making peace with loss, knowing that you are not your wins and your losses, right? That you are valuable just by being there, just by showing up. That's very important for me because that changes the way you move into the learning process, which is, I can learn a lot more from losing than by winning, right? And so kind of this idea, Kwame, I remember one of your early podcasts. You're like, man, I'm just going to go out and negotiate as much as I can. I'm going to get as many nos as possible. And that just, like, I just. That was one of your first episodes. I'm like, man, that's brilliant. Like, if you can go and embrace the losing process, then, number one, it desensitizes you a little bit to losing, and it's just fun. Again, you're like a little kid. You're like, man, what does no mean again? No, it's like a little kid's favorite word, right? And then also, you learn a lot too, right? So I tell people, the best thing you can do is beat me, because then you're gonna be my target until I take you down, Right? Kwame used to beat me pretty handily. Now I think I got the upper hand. My other friend James, he took me out, and I was like, now we go back and forth. We're solid, you know, so one day, maybe we'll get to the. You know, I was thinking earlier about the preparation side of that. The. The best chess players right now, they have to prepare. They're studying hours a day. Like tiny out of wumi. The young man from. From New York, you know, he was saying he puts in six, seven, eight hours a day. This dude is 10 years old. He wants to be the youngest grandmaster. And I'm like, man, I was talking to my. My wife earlier today, my partner, and she's saying, like, man, to get to that level, that's PhD level chess studying. I don't even know if I want a master's. I don't know. I might get a bachelor's degree in chess, but I don't want a master's. You know, it takes a lot of work in preparation to go to the highest levels, and I think that's the same in negotiation.

Absolutely. Oh, man, this was great. This was great. My friend, before you go, I want to give you an opportunity again to let the listeners know about the program, about ROI and how they can get in touch.

Yeah, so the Royal Oak Initiative, ROI for short. You know, that's a shout out to my financial background. It's just this idea. The greatest investment you can make is in the legacy of your community. And so if you want to get in touch with us, our website is t h e r o I chess.org d r o I chess. Shout out to the Ohio State University or follow us on any social media channel.

Love it, Ernest. Really appreciate it, man. Thanks for coming on.

All right, man, let's make moves.

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