Just about every error has a technical and psychological component: get good at discovering those connections

In chess you might find a good move. Then you might find a better move. But take your time. Find the best move.

The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.

I tend not to dwell on the parallels between chess and business, chess and the martial arts, or any two things for that matter, because the truth is that all pursuits are connected if we gain an eye for the thematic links.

Not only do we have to be good at waiting, we have to love it. Because waiting is not waiting, it is life.

Growth only really comes at the point of resis­tance, but that is the moment that we tend to stop. Because it hurts... pushing our lim­its, is a mus­cle that can be cul­ti­vated like any other - incrementally.

I have never considered myself a prodigy. Others have used that term, but I never bought in to it.