Chess and humility

The Conscious Contrarian
1 min readApr 13, 2024

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There are few games to train in humility like chess.

With most other games you can blame luck or a plethora of other external factors on your inadequacy.

With chess, there is just you and complete information. There is no component of luck and there are no unknowns. In other words, there is little room for excuses.

Blundered a piece? Clearly not your best decision. Gave up a winning position? Hubris was your downfall. Ran out of time? You’ll need to speed up your decision making.

As a result, those with a fixed mindset hate chess. If you don’t truly believe you can improve, you certainly don’t want to be shown the evidence of your ignorance on a regular basis.

However, if you have a growth mindset, there is no greater teacher because there is no game that exhibits your opportunities for growth as clearly and frankly as chess.

Honoré Daumier’s “The Chess Players” (1863)

Credit to my Dad who brought this beautiful game into my life.

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The Conscious Contrarian
The Conscious Contrarian

Written by The Conscious Contrarian

The Conscious Contrarian challenges conventional wisdom to uncover new, more attuned principles and perspectives for navigating the future.

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