Habit, Attitude and Promises to Yourself

John W. Scott's book Step-by-Step Basketball Fundamentals (Prentice Hall, 1989) contains wisdom that can be applied beyond the basketball court--and even outside of sports in general. The author of this first passage, quoted on page 142, is unknown:

I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper--or your heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the tasks you do you might just as well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly. 

I am easily managed. You must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons, I will do it automatically.

I am the servant of all great men--and, alas, of all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures.

I am not a machine, but I work with all the precision of a machine, plus the intelligence of a man. You may run me for profit or run me for ruin. It makes no difference to me.

Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will put the world at your feet. Be easy with me and I will destroy you.

Who am I? I am HABIT.

I have always been a fan of wisdom presented in aphoristic form. On pp. 144-145, Scott lists a series of inspirational quotations; here is a sampling:

"To every man comes in his lifetime a special moment when he is tapped on the shoulder and offered a very special job, fitting and unique only to his talents. What a shame and a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for the work."--Winston Churchill

"Blessed are those who dream dreams and are willing to pay the price to make them come true."

"Desire is the conception of talent."--J.W. Scott

"There are three kinds of people: Those who want to make things happen, those who don't know what happened and those who make things happen."

"It's better to shoot for the stars and miss, than aim for the gutter and hit."

"There is no chance, no fate, no destiny that can circumvent, hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul."

"If you perceive a goal, and reach it, you live a dream."--Lou Brock

"Make no small plans, for they have no magic to stir people's souls."--Daniel Burnham

"Each day is like a stitch in your own little pattern. The more time and effort you put into your goals, the stronger your design will be."--J.W. Scott

"The only way to coast is by going downhill!"--Zig Zigglar

"The weak let their thoughts control their actions; the strong make their actions control their thoughts."--Og Mandino

"My life is my message."--Mahatma Gandhi

"Adversity, temptation, depression, and trials come to you when you are doing something right or are about to receive a blessing, calling or victory. Your failure to persist will turn them away."--J.W. Scott

"With ordinary thought and extraordinary persistence, all things are attainable."--Thomas Buxton

"The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement!"

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles he has overcome while trying to succeed."--Booker T. Washington

"It's okay to have butterflies; just make sure they fly in formation!"

"Work is the only fuel the vehicle of success will run on."--J.W. Scott

"A champion doesn't give up; he gets up!"

"The smallest action is better than the greatest intention."

"The most valuable gift you give to another is a good example."

"Growth is the only evidence of life."

"Winners contemplate their desires, not their limitations."

"Desire can rewrite all of your scouting reports."

On p. 146, the chapter titled "Attitude" begins with an epigraph titled "Promise Yourself," written by an anonymous author:

• To be strong so nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
• To make all your friends feel that there is something great within them.
• To look for good in everything and make your optimism come true.
• To think only of the best, to work only for the best, to expect only the best, and never to settle for anything short of the best within yourself.
• To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
• To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
• To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
• To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
• To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

The "Attitude" chapter concludes with a lengthy passage by Sydney J. Harris:

How to Tell a Winner

A loser believes in "fate"; a winner believes that we make our fate by what we do or fail to do.

A loser looks for the easy way to do it; a winner knows that "the easy way" and "the hard way" are both meaningless terms--there are only innumerable wrong ways, and one right way, to achieve a goal.

A loser blames "politics" or "favoritism" for his failure; a winner would rather blame himself than others--but he doesn't waste much time with any kind of blame.

A loser feels cheated if he gives more than he gets; a winner feels that he is simply building up credit for the future.

A loser becomes bitter when he's behind, and careless when he's ahead; a winner keeps his equilibrium no matter which position he happens to find himself in.

A loser smolders with unexpressed resentment at bad treatment, and revenges himself by doing worse; a winner freely expresses resentment at bad treatment, discharges his feelings and then forgets it.

A loser sometimes tries to imitate a winner, but he takes only temporary winners as his models; a winner knows who is worth learning from and who is only a sham success.

A loser is afraid to acknowledge his defects; a winner is aware that his defects are part of the same central system as his assets, and while he tries to minimize their effect, he never denies their influence. 

A loser prides himself on his "independence" when he is merely being contrary and prides himself on his "teamwork" when he is merely being conformist; a winner knows which decisions are worth an independent stand, and which should be gone along with.

A loser is envious of winners and contemptuous of other losers; a winner judges others only by how well they live up to their own capacities, by some external scale of worldly success, and can have more respect for a capable shoeshine boy than for a crash opportunist.

A loser leans on those stronger than himself, and takes out his frustrations on those weaker than himself; a winner leans on himself, and does not feel imposed upon when he is leaned on.

A loser thinks there are rules for winning and losing: a winner knows that every rule in the book can be broken, except one--be who you are, and become what you were meant to be, which is the only winning game in the world.

Chess as Art, Chess as Violent Sport

Grandmaster Lubomir Kavalek, a two-time U.S. Champion who once ranked among the top 10 players in the world, used to write a weekly chess column for the Washington Post but now his writing is regularly published by the Huffington Post. His most recent column begins with a famous quote from artist (and chess player) Marcel Duchamp: "While all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists."

GM Kavalek notes that the fourth World Chess Champion, Alexander Alekhine, also saw a connection between chess and art: "To me, chess is not a game; it is art," Alekhine declared.

With all due respect to Alekhine, these categories are not mutually exclusive; chess is both an art and a violent sport. Later in his column, GM Kavalek offers a vivid description of chess' brutal nature--and its tremendous allure:

It doesn't hurt your body, but your brain, your ego. Instead of concussions chess players suffer humiliation after a terrible loss. They start to question their confidence, doubting the worthiness of what they do. But in the end, they collect themselves and go back to the chessboard. And some of them may remember Alekhine's words: "I consider chess an art and accept all the responsibilities that art places upon its devotees."

Here are two other notable Alekhine quotes that fit in with GM Kavalek's exploration of the dual themes of chess as art/chess as violent sport:

"For success I consider three factors are necessary: firstly, an awareness of my own strengths and weaknesses; secondly, an accurate understanding of my opponent's strengths and weaknesses; thirdly, a higher aim than momentary satisfaction. I see this aim as being scientific and artistic achievements, which place the game of chess on a par with other arts."

"During a Chess competition a Chessmaster should be a combination of a beast of prey and a monk."

Achieving chess mastery involves much more than simply acquiring basic technical knowledge about how to play; a master must have an artistic sense, a great fighting spirit and very stable nerves in order to withstand the highs and lows that inevitably occur in a chess game and in a chess tournament. Chess is highly respected as both an art and a sport in many cultures, though Americans often dismiss chess' artistic value and scoff at the notion of chess as sport.

Basketball, chess and boxing share fascinating similarities in terms of preparation, intensity and skill development but some people insist that chess is not a sport because it lacks the obvious physical component inherent in basketball, boxing and other activities that are universally considered to be sports. This way of thinking ignores two important points: (1) there is a physical component to chess in terms of energy exertion and mental/physical/emotional stress and duress; (2) it has not always been the case that sport is defined exclusively as an activity involving a certain amount of physical movement. Rune Vik-Hansen asserts that the idea of chess as sport should not be summarily rejected:

Claiming chess "is just a game," because it is rule based, and therefore unworthy of undue attention, is a tautology and explains nothing. Mind you, the activity we call life may also be perceived to be a game with rules and recipes. When asking if chess is a sport or athletics, what we're really asking is if chess players perform, and more so, in the physical sense of the word...Despite agreeing in newspapers' commentary fields that games and activities like chess, bridge, archery, dart, shooting etc., involve performance of some kind, still, the physical aspect seems to saturate contemporary understanding of what a sporting or athletic performance is. In a country obsessed with countables and quantifiables--what cannot be measured does not exist--we may ask if not the accent on the physical excludes the possibility for a finer perception of what "performance" or "achievement" might be. Few doubt mental gladiators perform, but what, where and how?  Is "blood, sweat and tears" (Johan Kaggestad, Norwegian athletics coach and TV commentator) or "motion" (1500-meter runner, Henrik Ingebrigtsen) the only criterion in a sporting or athletic performance or achievement?

I think that many people have a deeply ingrained bias against sustained intellectual concentration and against finding value in people who spend a lot of time thinking; that is why people who do well in school and/or express interest in non-mainstream subjects are often ostracized as "nerds." It is not considered normal to think too much or too deeply, so an activity like chess--which takes place in the minds of two competitors before being expressed physically/symbolically by the movement of chess pieces--is viewed with suspicion and even mockery in many quarters. Chess is difficult, chess involves thought and concentration, so it inevitably arouses suspicion among people who would prefer to think as little as possible and who see more value in running, jumping and throwing.

Instead of limiting the definition of sport to only include activities that generate "blood, sweat and tears," any rule-based activity that relies on skill should be considered a sport; some sports are mainly physical activities that include a mental component (such as basketball, boxing, football, etc.), while chess is a sport that is mainly a mainly mental activity that also includes a physical component in terms of energy exertion. It is not accidental that top level chess is dominated by young players; chess is very strenuous and thus energy and physical conditioning often outweigh the value of accumulated experience/wisdom.

World Chess Championship Challenger Boris Gelfand: "You Constantly Have to Pose Threats to Your Opponent"

Veteran Grandmaster Boris Gelfand has maintained a perch near the top of the chess world for two decades but he has never won the ultimate prize, the World Championship. Gelfand's recent victory in the Kazan Candidates Matches earned him the right to face World Champion Viswanathan Anand in a 2012 World Championship match. Gelfand, 43, will be the third oldest challenger in World Championship play since official records have been kept (dating back to the 19th Century); Anand, 41, is also "old" for a top level Grandmaster. While the general public may falsely conceive of chess as a game played by old men in the park, the reality--particularly in the last 15-20 years as computers and the internet have played an increasingly important role in training and preparation--is that elite level chess is predominantly a sport for the young, the healthy and the vigorous; Bobby Fischer set a record by becoming the world's youngest Grandmaster as a 15 year old in 1958, a mark that stood for 33 years but has subsequently been surpassed more than two dozen times as a wave of young players has stormed the citadels of the Game of Kings.

In a recent interview, Gelfand discussed some similarities between chess and soccer, described the necessary mindset for a champion (pay attention LeBron James) and explained why his relatively advanced age has not slowed him down. Here are some highlights from the interview:

1) Gelfand said that chess and soccer are similar because "in soccer, like in chess, you constantly have to pose threats to your opponent." This analogy can be extended across to other sports and even to life itself: it is impossible to win if you are always on the defensive (which should not be confused with suggesting that offense is more important than defense: the best defensive teams generally play an aggressive, attacking defense that makes the opponent uncomfortable and thus forces mistakes). When LeBron James stopped attacking the hoop in the NBA Finals and stopped threatening the Dallas Mavericks the balance of power decisively swung from the Miami Heat to the underdog Mavericsks.

2) Gelfand noted two valuable lessons from watching the Barcelona-Manchester United soccer match:

1. Always remain humble
2. There is always room for improvement--you cannot be satisfied by your performance, even if you win.

James and the Heat were hardly models of humility and after the Heat lost James defiantly said that he could hold his head high; ESPN's Magic Johnson--a five-time NBA champion--rightly noted that the correct message for James to communicate was for James to pledge to work on his game (i.e., not be satisfied) to make sure that he would be better prepared to take advantage of such opportunities in the future.

3) Gelfand rejected the idea that his age is a factor even though so many of his competitors are much younger: "The only thing I feel is that it takes me a little longer to recuperate between games, and perhaps it is a bit more difficult for me to achieve consistency, compared to past years. However, by no means do I feel any decline in my tactical ability. When I play I am in full concentration, a condition I attribute to the healthy life style I lead."