0:02

Hey, everybody, welcome to the Healthy, Wealthy, and Smart podcast. I

0:05

am your host, Dr. Karen Litzy, owner of Karen Litzy Physical Therapy,

0:09

located in New York City. And on today's podcast,

0:14

we are going to be talking to an international chess

0:18

grandmaster, which is perfect timing as I'm kind

0:22

of wanting to learn how to play chess. So I'm really happy

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to welcome to the show analyst, commentator, and

0:29

MC, motivational speaker, author, DVD producer,

0:33

app developer, and Hall of Fame inductee, international

0:38

grandmaster, Maurice Ashley. Welcome to

0:42

Thank you so much for having me, Karen. And mentioning that I'm a

0:45

DVD producer, what is that? I was back in the old

0:49

days, but hey, definitely

0:54

Yes, absolutely. Hey, listen, you are putting

0:58

out great content into the world, so it needs to

1:02

be told. Now, before we get going,

1:06

can you give the definitions to the

1:15

That's always a super hard question, but first

1:19

of all, Grandmaster is the highest title you can

1:22

get in chess that is conferred on you by the International Chess

1:26

Federation. You get the title by accomplishing

1:30

in battle, in tournament play, what is required

1:35

for the Federation to say, okay, that guy's

1:38

good enough. That lady's good enough. You deserve to be a grandmaster. And

1:43

it's pretty much the people you play against who are

1:46

already established players. You have to do well against them. But I like

1:49

to explain it using basketball, which is my favorite sport.

1:53

Go Knicks. The point

1:56

is, let's think about if you had to become an all-star. Right?

2:01

And somebody said, okay, the way you're going to become an all-star is you're

2:04

going to have to play one-on-one against LeBron James,

2:07

Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Luka Doncic, Djokovic,

2:12

and the rest of the gang. Ten of them line up in front of you and

2:15

they say, if you can play against these 10 and

2:18

you get five out of 10, you beat five of them, then

2:22

you're going to be an all-star. Well, against that group, you're actually going to be one of

2:25

the best players in the league, period. Megastar,

2:29

but that's how we do it in chess. Calculate it based on

2:33

just how good the opposition is. And maybe if

2:36

you had to play against the benchwarmers in the

2:40

pros, now instead of getting five, you might have to get

2:43

seven wins or eight wins to prove yourself. So there's a

2:46

really rigorous mathematical formula that I'm not going to try to

2:49

explain to your listeners because they'd fall asleep and leave. But

2:57

Got it. Yeah, that was, you kind of beat me to the punch because I was going to say, is it

3:00

kind of like a point system? Like, do you have to

3:04

get so many, accumulate so many points and then

3:07

you become a grandmaster? And do you get that by playing really good

3:11

Rating matters, like the numerical rating. But

3:15

what matters most is beating the top players. Got

3:18

it. Or holding your own against other grandmasters and

3:22

international masters, internationally ranked players. You've got to

3:25

be able to go in that group of gangsters and prove yourself. There

3:31

And once you're a grandmaster and you beat another grandmaster, shouldn't

3:36

That's not how it works. Oh, that's not how it works. That's not how it works. I mean, think

3:40

about it again with a sports analogy. If

3:44

a tennis player beats another tennis player, a pro beats a pro, they don't become a

3:51

Cool, cool. Now, when

3:56

and how were you introduced to chess? How old were you? When

4:00

When I was about eight or nine years old, I'm from the Island of Jamaica. I

4:04

was born there. I watched my brother play

4:07

with his friends and I learned the basic rules there, but

4:12

I wasn't any good. We played a lot of games and chess happened to be one

4:15

of them. It wasn't until I went to Brooklyn Technical High School

4:18

in Brooklyn. Ooh, smart, smart. When I came to the

4:23

US, I was 12 years old. I went to Brooklyn Tech when I was 14 and

4:27

I saw a friend of mine playing. a classmate, and

4:31

I remember that I knew how to play, I knew the rules, and

4:34

I was always a smart kid, so I won

4:38

a lot against other people at pretty much any board

4:41

game I played. I played my friend, and he completely demolished

4:45

me. It wasn't even close, it was just like, duh, checkmate, you're

4:49

an idiot. And I didn't understand why that was, but

4:52

then something really special happened. I was in the library, And

4:57

I saw on the bookshelf a book on chess. And

5:01

it's as though some kind of magical

5:05

fairy genie just put a chess book in front of

5:08

me. Because I had no idea that there were books on chess. So I checked the

5:11

book out of the library solely so I could crush my friend. I

5:15

read the book, saw these weird figures and

5:18

strategies and funny names, these Soviet names

5:22

and old grandmasters and all that. learned everything,

5:27

went back to play my friend, and he crushed me

5:30

again. And it turns out that he had read that book and a

5:33

bunch of other books. But that started it very competitive.

5:37

My family is uber competitive. I have a three time world champion

5:41

kickboxer as a brother and a six time world champion boxer

5:45

as a sister. Oh, my gosh. We are a very competitive

5:49

family. I did not take that lying down. Eventually, I

5:53

read every book I could get my hands on and beat my friend. And

5:59

Got it. And, you know, I'm kind of asking for a friend. Are

6:07

answer is no. My father really

6:11

picked up the game again in his late

6:14

60s and 70s. Now I got a pretty smart dad. But

6:18

still, I mean, that's a bit on the older side. And he

6:22

was playing a lot more than me at that point in his life.

6:25

So no, you're never too old to learn. And if

6:32

Thank goodness. OK, so a lot of people that

6:36

tune in, a lot of our listeners, they're health care professionals, they're entrepreneurs. And

6:41

there's got to be lessons that you have learned over

6:45

the years playing chess and playing amongst the

6:48

best of the best that you can impart to our listeners. So,

6:52

you know, what advice do you have

6:56

for those who, you know, might be might

7:02

be struggling to kind of find their way, might be

7:06

struggling making those big decisions, right? Because chess

7:09

is all about making, I think, very

7:13

thoughtful decision-making, right? So what advice

7:16

do you have for people if we were to take what you've learned

7:22

Well, that's what my book, Move by Move, is about. So first

7:25

of all, go get my book out in stores, Move

7:29

by Move. You can also get it on Amazon. And

7:32

it's called Life Lessons On and Off the Chessboard for a reason. They're the

7:36

lessons that I really felt

7:39

were the most important lessons I wanted to put down in the book because chess

7:43

imparts tons of lessons. I mean, it's absolutely outrageous

7:48

how much this game is like a

7:51

discipline masking as a game. You

7:54

just learn so much from playing. You learn so much from learning about the world and the

7:58

strategies and everything. But there are

8:01

some ideas that jump out at me. And one

8:04

of them that I think is maybe the most critical relative

8:08

to what you were talking about is how

8:12

much the destination gets

8:17

its value from the journey. You

8:22

know, a lot of us kind of want the thing. Like, I'm

8:25

going after that thing, whether it's business or it's personal.

8:30

You're going after that thing. And you're struggling. You're

8:34

having difficulties. You can't figure it out. The resources

8:38

are challenged. You face obstacles in the way. But

8:42

the destination you're after really

8:45

is only as valuable as that journey you took, because

8:50

Those things are teaching you so much about

8:53

yourself, about life, about how to

8:57

become successful, that by overcoming

9:01

those obstacles, by improving yourself, by

9:06

absorbing those lessons, you get to that next

9:09

level. And then when

9:13

you arrive, you're like, wow. You

9:17

don't just think, oh, I got the thing, you think, I

9:20

learned, I became another being entirely. And

9:24

that's the biggest thing I think I've taken away from chess. There's

9:29

a number of other things, like I said, but that one, it matters

9:33

so much in terms of your resilience, your

9:37

dedication, your stick-to-itiveness, your hard

9:41

work. your willingness to face disappointment, your

9:44

ability to do so, your ability to not let success

9:47

get to your head, and just be grateful. And

9:51

I think that move by move, piece

9:54

by piece, that's what chess teaches the

9:58

most. It's that the long game only matters based

10:05

And do you have like an example in your life where

10:09

maybe you were at that point like, oh man, I just want to

10:12

get to whatever it is. And you said, okay,

10:16

hold on. I need to take a step back. Where am I right now?

10:19

And where do I have to move? Like, are there, can you think of like an

10:23

example that you took that and

10:28

Well, I'll give you a really big example of

10:32

that, one of the biggest examples ever that happened to me. I

10:35

was playing in a tournament in Bermuda. It

10:38

was against a player, Michael Betzel, the grandmaster from Germany.

10:42

And I knew that if I won that game, I'd accumulated enough wins before

10:46

in the tournament, and I knew if I won that game, mathematically, I would

10:51

achieve what I needed to achieve, and I would be given the grandmaster

10:54

title. And of course, I had been chasing this title for years. And

10:58

I had failed many times. I'm

11:01

playing him, I have a big decision to make, and I screw it

11:05

up, and I lose the game. I'm

11:08

completely devastated. I walk away from the board, and

11:12

standing there is another grandmaster, Alexander

11:16

Shabalov. And Shabalov knew

11:20

the moment where I had messed up. And he came

11:23

over to me to console me, and he said to me these

11:27

words. No, don't worry. In

11:31

order to become a grandmaster, you

11:34

must first be a grandmaster. And

11:39

that was like some Yoda stuff, you know, like, what? And

11:42

then as I absorbed what he was saying, I realized

11:46

exactly what he meant. And that was, you don't

11:51

become the thing by chasing it. by

11:56

trying to get the points, by playing scared in the moment because

11:59

you're just trying to get that thing. You first have

12:02

to be everything that that thing is. You have to

12:07

study to that level. You have to inspect yourself, the

12:10

kind of introspection that allows you to understand what

12:15

it is that you really want, how it is that pressure

12:19

affects you, what happens when there's

12:22

that critical moment and you have to make a decision and you have to stay

12:26

cool under that kind of intense

12:30

pressure. And I got it.

12:34

It's like, I have to go do

12:38

everything, live the grandmaster life,

12:42

study the way I need to, just do everything so that when I come to

12:45

the board, I'm already a grandmaster. I'm just proving it at the board, right?

12:50

I'm not becoming one by, ooh, winning the game. No,

12:54

it's kind of when you think about passing the bar, people

12:58

study for the test. You're supposed to get as

13:02

much knowledge as you need so you can just pass this test. No.

13:07

I want to know that you know your stuff so well that when you think, what test,

13:10

I'm going to kill that test, because I'm that thing already. And

13:14

that's the kind of path you have to work towards. And so that

13:18

process made me revisit my training techniques. I mean, his

13:21

words made me revisit my training techniques. made me really

13:25

understand or try to better understand who I was. So

13:29

when the moment came again, which it did a year later

13:33

against an international master from Romania, Adrian

13:37

Negulescu, in New York City of all places, I had

13:40

this tournament, I had to win that game. And when that same thing

13:43

happened again, that moment when I had to make a decision, I

13:47

confidently made the decision that needed to be made. and

13:51

ended up winning the game. And there it

13:55

was. And I didn't become a grandmaster because

13:59

Right. It's kind of like, you know, you make this mistake and

14:03

then you can kind of work backwards from that

14:07

to build yourself back up so that the next time you

14:10

go into battle, quote unquote, you're like, I

14:14

have lived this. It's

14:18

not quote-unquote, it's battle. It's battle, yeah. It's battle.

14:22

You're like, I have lived this, I've done this, I know the

14:25

ins and outs, I understand my mistakes, I've learned from them, and

14:29

now I'm, like you said, I am the grandmaster, like

14:34

And you know, that's another lesson that I talk about in the book, which

14:38

is embracing mistakes. We

14:42

chess players are very

14:45

much sticklers for studying

14:50

our mistakes. A lot of people make a

14:53

mistake, they want to forget it. It happened. Don't

14:56

harp on it. Please, I don't want to talk about it. I'm

15:00

not going to do it again. That's it. That's not how you

15:03

deal with mistakes. You look it straight in the face and

15:07

say, what happened here? Why did I go wrong? And

15:10

I don't want to know that I went wrong, or maybe I didn't understand

15:13

a little bit from knowledge base. I want to know why me, me

15:17

personally, why I made this mistake. Because a

15:20

lot of times, mistakes not just only come in pairs, they

15:24

come in multiples. There's a pattern. to what's going on.

15:27

And so if you're careful enough to remember the mistakes that

15:31

you make and document them, that's what we chess players do. We document

15:35

our mistakes. Okay, that mistake happened in

15:38

this situation. Let me keep that in mind. Because usually it's going

15:41

to happen again. And when you see it again, you say, oh, this thing happened

15:45

to me again. And it's situational. It's not like it's the move

15:48

that you played. It's the mindset that you had. And

15:52

that's the thing that's harder to break, is that mindset. Because

15:56

usually, like Mike Tyson says, everyone has a plan until

15:59

they've been punched in the mouth. Usually, you will

16:04

revert to your normal behavior

16:09

when you're under pressure. You'll just

16:13

instantly go to that comfortable place.

16:17

This is what you do when you're under pressure. That's just how human

16:20

beings are wired. And so they find it very difficult to do even the

16:23

new thing that they learned, that they have to behave differently. But as

16:26

soon as you hit them in the face, OK, I got to

16:29

do what I always do here, which you already know is wrong.

16:34

So we have to get deep into the weeds of

16:37

our emotion, mindset, history, trauma,

16:42

everything that makes us repeat bad behavior. And

16:47

only by facing it, do you overcome it. And

16:51

so for us, as I said, one of the big lessons of

16:54

chess is you've got to embrace your mistakes. You've got to own

17:00

Right. And that's how our brains work, right? Our brains are

17:03

always going to want to do the path

17:07

of least resistance. So we're always going to want to go back to something you

17:10

know, something you're comfortable with, something you did in the past, even though

17:14

it may give you the same result

17:22

That's our brains are absolutely wired. We're lazy. We want to sit on

17:25

the sofa, right? Like that's, we just want to relax. We

17:30

don't want hard solutions. We want the easiest solution

17:34

to the problem. And that's not how life works. I mean, especially

17:37

stuff that's been ingrained in you for decades. you're

17:40

going to have to face the hard path. But again, as

17:44

I said, any destination can only be valued

17:48

by the journey to that point. So just

17:51

because it's hard, it's great that it's hard because you're going to be amazing

17:55

when you come out on the other side. And yes, we

17:59

are lazy. We're always looking

18:02

for that shortcut. And one example I

18:05

use in the book has to do with winning. When

18:09

you see a team, you might see, I'll use basketball again. When

18:14

a team's up 20 points. you often find

18:17

that the players start to check out, you know, like, eh, this

18:21

is easy. We can relax. We're going to cruise. We're

18:24

going to try to dribble the clock down. You know, just get

18:30

Slow the game down. And you do nothing. They stop doing

18:33

what it took for them to be blasting this team in

18:36

the first place. Right. And it's just fascinating to

18:40

watch game after game, how often

18:44

professionals be playing millions of dollars will relax

18:48

when they have a lead as though the lead is safe. And

18:52

as a chess player, I understand I cannot take my foot off the gas. I

18:56

know that I have to keep absolutely focused because

18:59

one false slip and this player is a grandmaster sitting

19:03

across the board from me. is going to come back. And I'm

19:06

going to feel much worse when they suddenly switch the game

19:09

around, and I'm no longer winning, and I'm going to chase the win. And

19:13

then that's the other thing, because now I want to go back to doing what I was doing. But,

19:16

oh, sorry, momentum shifted, and it's a bit different now.

19:20

And then you make the bad move, and then you're losing all of a sudden. So

19:25

that demands focus. And

19:28

a lot of times, it's very difficult to focus, maintain focus,

19:33

when you're successful. very difficult

19:36

to stay hungry. I'll substitute the word hunger, the

19:42

word focus for hunger. Very difficult to stay

19:45

focused slash hungry when you're successful. It's like, yeah, I'm doing

19:49

this, I'm just gonna keep doing this. Instead of keeping

19:52

that foot on the gas and really understanding you could

19:56

lose your gains or you don't get any

19:59

more gains because you just got complacent. And so that's a

20:03

thing that we try to train ourselves for when we're playing chess,

20:06

to try to stay focused all the way throughout. It's very difficult during a chess game because

20:09

we don't have a coach. In basketball, the coach will go, time out! Get

20:13

your rear end back on this chair. Let's talk about this because you're

20:16

screwing it up. But you need to build that into your life. Somebody

20:20

who could be like, yo, stop what you're doing. Let's

20:27

Yeah, and that was actually my next question was going to ask about

20:30

how you can kind of maintain focus and motivation these

20:34

challenging times. So you definitely segued

20:39

into that beautifully. So how do

20:43

you have any techniques or any tips or

20:46

tricks that you use to help keep you focused and keep you motivated

20:50

so that, you know, you're not the team running out the shot clock while

20:57

You know, it's extremely difficult. And yes, I do have, when

21:02

I was playing at the height of my career, I would do

21:06

things like practice meditation, right?

21:09

I took a martial art called Aikido for different reasons, not

21:13

only for that, but also because the art uses

21:16

the opponent's energy. It's not martial, if

21:20

you will. You're not kicking and punching, you're actually throwing after somebody

21:23

kicks and punches. I had to learn

21:27

that on the chessboard because I was always hyper-aggressive. I had all that Jamaican

21:30

Brooklyn in me where you just go, I'll go kill him, right? And

21:34

I thought that was the way to do it, but it didn't work at the highest level. They

21:37

took your aggression and used it against you. So when

21:40

I realized that, the bell went off and I

21:43

said, I need to get this physically in my being, this concept in

21:48

my body. I need to believe in it instead of trying to be even more

21:51

aggressive. And that's when I studied Aikido and that

21:54

really transformed. the whole direction of my style. But

21:59

it also, while I was taking Aikido, there was a lot of meditation exercises

22:02

that were along with that. And that helped me to focus

22:06

in the moment. The secret about focus is that you

22:10

will always lose focus. Always. But you can

22:16

That's the key. And that takes paying attention to your

22:19

inner state because you'll be in the middle of a chess game

22:23

and all of a sudden you're thinking, so what am I having for dinner later? Oh, the Knicks play later.

22:26

You know, you just start taking all this stuff, but then you go, whoa, whoa,

22:29

whoa, whoa, whoa, get back to the game. And that's the constant

22:34

self-monitoring. But I have to tell you, frankly, the most effective way to

22:37

maintain focus is to have somebody whose job it is

22:40

for you. Like, that's just, that's better than

22:43

you doing it yourself. I'm not saying you should simply, you know,

22:47

abdicate responsibility for your own mental state, but Man,

22:51

if you have someone who's you can turn to who's

22:55

going to give it to you straight and say, Hey, hold on now. You've

22:58

lost at this moment. We need to get it back. And other advice as

23:01

well. That's why chess players have trainers and coaches, somebody who's

23:05

going to give it to you straight that you can trust. they're

23:09

always better. And you know, you can't, you may not

23:12

be able to have just one, maybe two or three if possible, but you

23:15

need a team and you need that team to keep you on

23:19

the straight and narrow, keep you on your toes and be ready to take whatever

23:22

they have to say. Don't, don't start poo pooing. Oh no, no, no, I'm

23:26

not doing that. Listen up. Other people watching sometimes

23:32

Yeah, and so if we were to translate this into the business world, if

23:35

you're a solopreneur or if you're someone who's a small business owner,

23:39

it's really important to have that group of people around you, whether

23:43

it's people that you pay to be around you,

23:46

whether it's peers or mentors, you need those people around

23:50

you to help keep you on your path and to hold

23:53

you accountable. Because otherwise, it's like super

24:00

Absolutely. Trust

24:05

me. I've done it. The wisest advice I've gotten. And

24:09

that's that way, or at least the most memorable one actually didn't come on

24:12

the chess board. It came from an Uber truck. This is a guy who

24:15

managed people all his life, but now he was driving Uber. And

24:19

he said these words to me. He said, everybody needs

24:22

a boss. I don't care if you're a solopreneur, as

24:26

you mentioned, like you're an artist, you're a chess player. It

24:29

sounds like, you know, that's, that's exactly why I became a

24:32

chess player. So I didn't have to have a boss and do a nine to five. But he

24:35

said, everybody needs a boss. Somebody out there that

24:39

holds you accountable. So they're not like a boss boss and they tell

24:42

you what to do and they fire you if you don't do it. No, but they

24:46

hold you accountable. Everybody, even the boss needs

24:50

a boss. Like, somebody or a team that

24:54

holds you accountable. And you've got to build that into your business. And

24:58

actually, you have to finance that as well. You may have to pay this

25:01

person, whoever it is. If you can't get it from your friends, then you're going to have to

25:05

get it from somebody who's willing to do it. And then it's going to randomly show

25:08

up. So that has to be a part of your business expenses. Somebody

25:12

in your corner, consultant, whoever it is, who

25:15

is keeping you accountable and making sure that you're maximizing your

25:20

Yeah, a coach. Everybody needs a coach. Everybody

25:23

needs that person there. Okay. So, you

25:26

know, we spoke about destination and

25:30

the journey, which was great advice. And that's actually advice

25:41

was he called it destination anxiety,

25:45

where you're so anxious just to get to the destination that

25:49

you're not really taking in and understand the

25:52

journey that got you there. You're not learning anything, you're just so focused

25:56

on that. So when you said that, I was like, oh,

25:59

yes, yes, very true. Being

26:03

focused, the importance of

26:07

your mindset and

26:10

meditation in order to keep you moving forward. Now,

26:15

what about when you're in competition, right?

26:19

So You argue that

26:22

in competition, the winner is not the perfect

26:26

performer, but the one who's slightly better than

26:29

the other, right? So how

26:36

Well, in any competition, the point is

26:40

to overcome the other

26:43

person or team, right? So it doesn't

26:47

matter if you make mistakes. It

26:51

just, it just really doesn't matter. I mean, you don't want to make

26:54

large mistakes, but your mistakes just can't

26:57

be worse than your opponent's mistakes, right?

27:01

They have to make the bigger mistakes. So

27:06

you'll see it at every single level. I mean, if you're watching peewee

27:10

league, they're going to do some funny stuff, right? And

27:13

the errors that they make, the other team just has to last

27:18

and make one more run. Then you go up to the high school level.

27:21

You go up to college level. Everybody's still making mistakes.

27:25

You get to the pros. The multimillion-dollar quarterback

27:29

is still throwing stupid interceptions. The

27:33

running back who's supposed to be Heisman Trophy winner or

27:36

the best running back in the league, they're fumbling the ball. Like, what

27:40

is this? You should be perfect. No. Chess players

27:43

aren't perfect either. In business, you're not going to be perfect. I

27:46

don't care what it is. But what does your competition do? What

27:50

is your competition to it? The most important element of

27:53

strategy is the competition. The

27:57

most important element of strategy is your opponent. You

28:01

have to figure out what they're doing. It's like Sun

28:04

Tzu says, you gotta master, know your opponent.

28:08

You gotta know yourself, but you wanna know your opponent because

28:11

that is really where all strategy is

28:15

crafted. Because I don't care what you're doing, if you never

28:18

took into account what your competition is doing, you're gonna wake up

28:21

one day and realize that what you thought was this great invention, they

28:25

did months ago and they're onto the next thing. That

28:30

is what matters, knowing your opponent, and then just being a little bit

28:33

better. And if you can keep being a little bit better than the opponent all the

28:36

time, you could be a lot better if you figure that out, then more

28:39

power to you. But as chess players, we just need to be better. It's

28:43

like winning any sporting event. You

28:47

can win by one, or you can win by 20, or you can win by 40. But

28:50

hey, one is just as good as 40. So it's just being better

28:54

than the competition. That's first and foremost. when

28:58

you're in a competitive environment. In a live environment, you try to

29:01

be better than yourself. That's

29:04

really your goal. But in competition, it's just being

29:10

And have you ever played someone or seen someone

29:14

who just made a, I don't

29:19

want to say monumental, a little say, monumental mistake, and

29:22

they just said, that's it, and they never went back to competition again?

29:28

I'll tell you what's sad. In chess,

29:32

we have a lot of prodigies. These kids are brilliant.

29:35

They're amazing. They caught on to chess so

29:39

easily. They beat all their friends, no problem. But

29:43

then they get up to that next level where they're meeting other

29:47

prodigies, other kids who do the same thing. And

29:50

they started losing. And it's not the same. Their

29:54

parent is no longer saying, look at my genius child. You're

29:58

so smart. Now their parent is saying, it's

30:01

OK. It's all right. You'll get him next time. And

30:06

I've seen so many of those kids just quit.

30:10

I mean, uber-talented kids, like, this

30:15

kid is amazing. And they just, they

30:18

can't take losing. They can't take the mediocre, forget

30:22

making big mistakes. I mean, they had to make mistakes to lose, but

30:25

it's, it was just that next level. You got to work to

30:28

get over that next level, but they literally leave the game and

30:31

who knew how great those kids

30:36

would have been. But that's one of the marks

30:39

of greatness. One of the marks of when I see somebody who's

30:42

gonna become a star player is that they get punched

30:46

in the face, they lose, they get humiliated. They have had a horrible

30:50

game and they show up the next day. And

30:54

when I have a kid like that, I know that kid is, when I was coaching chess,

30:58

my national championship teams, those are the kids I look for. Those

31:02

kids, you beat them and they go, okay, I got it. All right. That's

31:05

all you got. Let's go. We're doing it again. And you hit them again and they go, let's

31:09

do this again. Cause I'm not stopping. I embrace those kids over

31:15

Yeah. It's kind of echoes back to what you said earlier about needing

31:18

to have that resilience in order to keep moving forward. Cause

31:22

if you, you're going to lose, like you said, like you lost, you're

31:28

By definition, you don't become a grandmaster. Unless

31:32

you lose. Without losing thousands of times.

31:35

Right, right. Losing, and I have a

31:39

chapter in my book called, Losing, Because You Will Lose. Losing

31:43

is learning. Nobody likes losing. I'm not sitting there, I

31:47

Wow, that was. You're like, yes, that's just

31:53

No, losing sucks. But

31:57

it's your attitude that matters. When

32:00

you lose, how you frame the loss, what

32:04

you learn from it. If you walk away not learning anything from a loss, I'm

32:08

sorry. You're not

32:12

a true competitor. Because a true competitor will

32:15

take the pain of losing, yes, but take

32:19

the lessons from losing more. And that

32:22

is what keeps you rising to the top. Those

32:26

lessons, especially after a loss, not

32:29

only the lessons you learn, but the mere fact that you showed up

32:32

again is the real indicator, the

32:36

character mattering much more than the intellect.

32:40

Yeah. And do you like watch the tapes? Like,

32:44

do they record your chess matches and then you can watch

32:47

them afterwards and kind of see your moves or do you just have to remember it?

32:51

This is totally off topic, but when you said, like, we learn from

32:54

our mistakes because in sports, they'll watch the tapes, right?

32:59

That's not an off topic at all. It's exactly what we do. Look,

33:06

So when you might, you might've seen the queen's gambit, of course.

33:10

And then she's, you know, and they're down. Yeah, exactly.

33:16

We're recording moves. One reason why you record moves in chess

33:19

is so that if something happens in the middle of the game, then the arbiter

33:24

can come over and say, Oh, hold on a minute. Give me your score sheets. And I will

33:27

check based on the moves that you've made. People do some funny stuff in

33:30

competition. Right. So If anybody's doing something untoward or

33:34

the clock malfunctions or something like that, they can look at the score

33:37

sheets. Now they even have people filming the

33:40

game. So now you can even go back to the actual tape to see

33:44

what might happen if somebody made an illegal move or something like that. But

33:48

the history of chess, the reason why we know what Napoleon

33:52

did way back when, and all the great

33:55

players from the past, from the 1800s, the 1900s, and today,

33:59

is because we have a record. And we can look at those games and

34:03

say, this is what this genius, Bobby

34:07

Fischer, did back in 1972 when he defeated Boris

34:11

Faske. We can go over every single one of those games, see

34:14

where the great moves are, see where the mistakes were, and we could do

34:17

that for ourselves. And so yes, when I say we

34:21

analyze our mistakes and we catalog them, yep, that's how we do

34:24

it. Because we have a written record, written documentation, now

34:32

Right, right, right. And when you were saying in case something happens,

34:35

I was thinking like, you were like, if someone does something funny, I was thinking like, oh,

34:39

like an earthquake or like, you know, some sort

34:42

of disaster happens where you are that you could just pick the game

34:49

Stuff has happened in chess tournaments, you know, like all the lights go out, like

34:54

all the lights go out and you're like, whoa, what happened? Or it's

35:02

Sure. And you got to set them back up. Now, usually we remember

35:05

the game well enough that I don't care if you knocked the pieces over. I know exactly where

35:09

everything was. But if somebody, if there's

35:12

any kind of dispute, maybe somebody else

35:16

doesn't have that skill set, then you're able to say, look, it's

35:19

written here on the score sheet. We can just review

35:25

Right, right. Makes perfect sense. I was always wondering what they were writing

35:28

down there. Now I know. All right. So you've

35:32

talked a little bit about the book, Move by Move, life lessons on

35:35

and off the chess board. I want you to talk a little bit

35:39

more about that and where people can find it. And I also want you to talk about the

35:42

life-changing magic of chess, which is a kid's book, which is

35:49

Well, Move by Move, both books, in fact, can be found on

35:53

Amazon. So go check it

35:56

out or wherever bookstores store you like.

36:00

But the life changing magic of chess is

36:04

basically the kids version of move by move. It has a

36:07

lot of illustrations, which I did not do. I'm not that talented, but

36:11

it also has a lot of messages. So it talks about my

36:15

journey as a young boy, my losing to

36:18

my friend, my eventually becoming

36:22

a grandmaster, and it gives just various lessons

36:26

along the way, but also tips of how to play

36:30

to get better. So it's a

36:33

book that I did not decide to write. I should say, it's not

36:36

a book that I thought to write. I was approached, actually, by

36:39

Magic Hat, the publisher. And they have

36:43

a whole life-changing magic series, which includes a

36:46

drummer, a skateboarder, and a baker. And

36:49

yeah, and so I happen to be the chess player in the

36:53

group. And all the books will be published one

36:57

after the other. But when

37:00

it was proposed to me, I just knew it was a great idea and

37:03

I definitely wanted to do it. And it turns out that both publishers,

37:08

the one for Move by Move Chronicle and Magicat for

37:13

Life Changing Magic of Chess, they

37:16

decided to publish the book unbeknownst to

37:19

the other on the exact same day, each book on April

37:23

2nd, which was mind-boggling. Yeah, and I was like, whoa, what

37:26

just happened? I had to go tell each one that this

37:30

had happened. But then they quickly pivoted and said, hey, it's

37:34

two different audiences. The parents will buy the

37:37

adult book for themselves, and they'll buy the kid's book for the kid. So great,

37:41

Yeah, perfect. I think maybe I'll start with the kid's book first, since

37:50

Yes. So I will start I will start with the kids book first and then

37:53

I will move myself up to the adult version. Now,

37:57

aside from the books, what else do you have going

38:01

on? You have something coming up in a couple of days right here

38:06

Yeah, well, I have to say my

38:09

publishers were fantastic about getting the word out, getting

38:13

the buzz out. But one major event taking place is

38:17

an interview with the internet's chess teacher. It's

38:20

an international master named Levi Rosman, who's one of those streamers, who's

38:24

completely blown up. Well, he's going to be the

38:27

host of an interview for the

38:31

kickoff to my book. at St. Joseph's,

38:34

Greenlight Bookstore is the bookstore that's commissioning

38:38

it, but it's happening at St. Joseph's College in

38:41

Brooklyn. And we're going to be having

38:44

a cool time talking about the book, the

38:48

books, chess, the world of chess, and

38:51

taking questions. So it'll be him and myself. We're

38:54

going to have an awesome time. People can check out

38:58

Greenlight Bookstore's events. The

39:03

price of the ticket includes a copy of the book. So

39:06

it really can't be beat. And just like a great evening of chess

39:11

and some personalities in the game and learning

39:14

everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask or just didn't

39:21

It's on April 8th, it's Monday. April 8th.

39:25

I understand that March Madness, the championship game is

39:28

happening after it's over. So you

39:32

can have your nice little intellectual evening and

39:35

then call it to the game itself or

39:39

Good to know. Good to know. And just for all the listeners, we'll have links

39:42

to everything in the show notes. So whatever platform you're listening on now,

39:46

go into the show notes and we'll have links to the book and links to

39:50

Greenlight Bookstore's events. So you can one-click and then if you're

39:53

going to be in the New York City area, you can certainly go. Is it also being streamed

40:00

Perfect. All right. So as we wrap things up,

40:04

what are some of the big takeaways you want the listeners

40:12

Well, I think I mentioned the biggest one, which is that the

40:15

destination is only defined by

40:19

the journey. The journey is the value, gives value. The

40:23

journey gives value to the destination. That's what I

40:26

will say. That's one huge takeaway. I think the

40:30

other is the importance of

40:34

the competition or the importance of the other person. I

40:37

think the best, it's better to say the other person because it's

40:41

not always a competition. Sometimes it's with your spouse, right?

40:44

Your significant other. Sometimes it's with a child, uh,

40:50

you've got to always be in the mind of the other person.

40:54

You're locked in your own mind, you know all the craziness and your own thoughts, great,

40:58

you're really smart. But how smart is the other person? How much respect do

41:02

you need to have for the other person so you can get inside their heads and

41:05

function, craft a strategy much better because

41:11

you've really given thought to how the other person thinks. And

41:15

that's just massive. That's usually the one

41:18

I think I would always say when somebody asked

41:22

me the same question, but you know, both

41:25

of those go together really well. And I

41:30

would also say that complacency is a killer. It's

41:35

just a killer. We're so lazy. We're

41:40

built to be efficient slash lazy. Like that's just,

41:43

this is how we are. Once we figure something out, we just want to do it the

41:47

same way. But change comes when you

41:51

change things up, when you try new things, when

41:55

you get out of your comfort zone, because your

41:58

comfort zone will kill you. And so you've

42:01

got to be looking for new paths all the time

42:05

so that you can become stimulated, and give

42:12

Perfect. Now, where can people find more about you if

42:15

they want to learn more about you or reach out to

42:19

MarisaAshley.com. Really simple. Perfect. MarisaAshley.com.

42:25

Very easy. And now, last question. It's one I ask everyone. And

42:29

knowing where you are now in your life and your career, what

42:36

Relax. Relax.

42:41

You're going to go on a wild ride, dude. It's going to be

42:45

a lot of ups and downs and craziness and, oh, heartache,

42:49

pain. Just take it one

42:52

day at a time. One day at a time, because it's

42:59

Perfect advice and a great way to end our

43:02

conversation today. Maurice, thank you so much for coming on.

43:06

This was great. It's lit a fire under me. I'm going to

43:09

call the chess place tomorrow and make sure that it's not just

43:12

for kids and that they have a lessons for adults too. Otherwise

43:16

that'd be super weird. So thank

43:22

And everyone, thanks so much for listening. Have a great couple of days and