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Hello everyone. Welcome to today's Five-Minute Leader.
Today, I want to talk about the difference between hearing about mistakes versus actually making mistakes. I draw a lot of parallels here between chess and business. I play a lot of chess and have been teaching my daughter how to play. I’ve been obsessed with it for many years.
When you're learning something like chess, there's a big difference between following somebody else's game—reviewing an old game, seeing the mistakes they made, and trying to learn from them based on observation—versus actually making those mistakes yourself.
For example, I can watch someone play a game, notice their blunder, and try to learn from it. That’s one way to learn. But there’s a far more effective way: actually playing a game yourself.
When I used to live in the Bay Area, I played in chess tournaments every Monday. I would play one game as part of an ongoing tournament. When you make mistakes on the chessboard, when you're invested in it, when your adrenaline is going, and you're present in that moment, those mistakes stick with you. You feel the consequences of those mistakes, and you learn from them.
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