Re Framing Mistakes
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to Next Level Chess podcast. I'm Grandmaster Noël Studer and I help chess players train deliberately with what I call the Simplified Chess Improvement System. Deliberate chess players live by three rules. Do what matters, do it well and do it consistently. If you're tired of training randomly and want to follow a simple, proven system, this podcast is for you.

So today I wanna make an argument that making mistakes is not something you should avoid. But actually something you should welcome and do more of, because that is the best way to learn. [00:01:00] And I've really realized that not only in chess, but also in other parts of life. For example, when I say that I speak Italian with my wife, Alessia, people are pretty impressed.

It's just like, how did you learn Italian? The matter of a fact is I speak five languages fluently and most of the learning hasn't occurred in school where I learned basics, the grammar, and so on, but actually by talking and by making a lot of mistakes. And some of these languages I speak a little bit less well because I had more school and less trying out in the real world just talking.

So back in school I really hated speaking Spanish. So, I took Spanish class because I thought, well, actually, I had a feeling back then that I wouldn't go to university. So when I went to high school I was like, what can I take that will be useful in my life? And I thought learning another [00:02:00] language, certainly not something bad in Switzerland.

Just for context, I grew up in the German part of Switzerland, so I spoke German already. You then learn French very quickly and you also learn English forcefully. So you have three languages as a Swiss. Growing up in the German part, you speak German at home and in school obviously, then you learn French and English as well.

So I thought, let's pack another language and let's speak Spanish as well. And in the Spanish class there was this kind of atmosphere of, oh, when you make a mistake, I'll shame you. We had this kind of teacher that was like looking at us weirdly when we would mispronounce something. Or when we made a mistake in general, and there always was this feeling, Hey, how could you mess this up?

So in Spanish class I spoke very little, and so for quite some time, Spanish was my worst language. Then for school, I had to go three weeks to Spain and my Spanish improved drastically because, well, I had to [00:03:00] speak. And Spanish people aren't shaming you when you pronounce something wrong, but they try to help you and they appreciate that you trying at least to speak Spanish.

So that was a big change in my language learning. And then, a few years later, I met Alessia. Alessia and I met in India in 2016 at the World Championship. And Alessia's English was pretty bad because, well, she had the same problem. She was in Italy, south of Italy, a lot of grammar, a lot of teaching in English, but not really speaking.

So her English was pretty bad. I didn't really speak much Italian. But I spoke Spanish and French, so that's like a combination that gets close to Italian. So how did we understand each other? I just told her, Hey, speak Italian with me. I'll be able to understand what you're saying and I'll try to speak whatever mix of Spanish and what I perceive to be Italian.

And then we could [00:04:00] understand each other. Another note for non-Swiss people, which I guess nearly everyone listening to this, Switzerland is a weird country because we have four official languages actually, and three of those are pretty big. So we have German biggest language, then we have French, and then we have 8 to 10% of Italian speaking.

So. First language is Italian for those. So as a Swiss person, you get in touch with Italian a little bit. You hear Italian from time to time, but it's not like I spoke it very well at this moment. But then I went to visit Alessia for the first time, so we had a long distance relationship. Went to the south of Italy, and already before going there she told me, Hey, my family and my friends, they don't really speak English, so I was forced to just speak Italian, and this was amazing for my language learning.

Now, first, I didn't enjoy it that much because my pronunciation was off. Sometimes I would just say a Spanish [00:05:00] word and they were like, what are you talking about? But more often, people were pretty happy that I tried to talk Italian, and when I made mistakes, sometimes they laughed, sometimes they corrected me, and it would first hurt a little bit my ego, but then I remembered how I learned Spanish. Well, it wasn't by sitting in a classroom and trying to do everything perfect, but it was by trying to speak and getting corrected by people. 

So basically what Alessia and I did and what I did with her family as well, is I tried to speak a mix of Spanish and Italian, and then I would just pick up new words. They would say me, oh no "pregunta", what does that mean? And I wanted to explain them that this means question in Spanish. So they said, oh yeah, is the word in Italian.

So I am just step by step, learn more things. And up to now, this is now nearly nine years later I married Alessia, and Alessia and I are still speaking Italian, mostly at home. We [00:06:00] mostly speak Italian, sometimes English, and she now also picked up German. So we have all the options, but Italian was the one that stuck with us.

And still, I'm not speaking perfect Italian, by no means, but I can understand everything. I watch Italian tv, sometimes I count in Italian, sometimes I think in Italian. And it's just an amazing way of learning when you're forced to make mistakes, when you're not trying to be perfect. Because what I see with many other people that try to learn languages is that they try to be perfect before they try it out in the real world.

So you're reading a book, you're doing the vocabulary, and unless you're a hundred percent sure that you can say this phrased the right way, you don't say it. And that's where improvement really stagnates. If we are afraid of making mistakes, it's super difficult to get going and to improve something.

And actually, thinking back to my other language learning, [00:07:00] one of the main reasons why I was pretty good at French and English as well, again, wasn't the school, but it was because when I was in the Swiss national team, youth national team of the chess, nearly everyone from the German part would speak English to the French part.

So basically the German part of Switzerland doesn't really like the French part and the French part doesn't like the Swiss part, the German part. So we have this kind of weird rivalry going on. People meet from the different parts of Switzerland. They just say, okay, let's talk in English, or let's not talk at all.

Let's just be all the French speaking guys together, all the German speaking guys together. And I try to always build a bridge and always try to speak French with the French people from the French part of Switzerland. So I just got so much more reps in than everybody else. And then on international tournaments, I would just try my best to talk English, and that's why my English was also pretty good.

So I just tried it out more [00:08:00] often than other people and that's why I ended up speaking it better now with my English. It's also funny that I work in English and when you listen to this podcast, if you're a native English speaker, probably you've realized I've made already plenty of mistakes I imagine, right?

But well, I can work in English, right? Isn't that what counts? So the most important thing to me when I think about languages is like, what is the practical use of a language? It's mostly communicating. And now in English, being able to transfer a message. And it seems like I'm able to do that. So I'm asking myself, well, should I avoid mistakes?

Should I have perfect grammar? I couldn't care less, honestly. And now this is a chess podcast, so why am I talking so much about languages? I think the same mindset you can bring into chess, and it actually explains why, especially adult improvers sometimes struggle a lot in chess. So I would say, [00:09:00] what does that mindset, how can we explain that mindset and say,

if you're willing to look stupid for the sake of growth, you can improve way quicker than others. So I repeat that. If you're willing to look stupid in this moment for the sake of learning something of growth, then you can improve way quicker than everybody else that tries to look smart in the moment.

And so they need to have much more knowledge before they actually try something out. So in chess, how does does that look? Well, chess is a super difficult game, and chess gets tied to intelligence a lot. So, good chess player means you're smart, bad at chess or bad moves at chess as means you're not smart. Obviously that's absolutely not true, but that's something that is quite a lot in our society, at least when I present myself as a grandmaster, the most often response I get, oh, you must be a genius, right?

It's not, oh, you must have [00:10:00] trained a lot. You must have spent a lot of time, and no, you're just a genius. And if somebody tried chess and is bad at it, you're dumb. And that's just how society sometimes sees chess players. And so what does that do? That means that because we identify so much with our chess mistakes or chess playing abilities in this very moment, it's very hard for us to make mistakes.

So many, many, many, especially children fear this less. They have a little bit less a problem. Also, when I grew up playing chess, I wasn't fearing mistakes that much. I was like, okay, let's just play right. But the older you get, the more you tie what you're doing in chess right now to your intelligence, the harder it is to make mistakes.

And if you relate to that, that really slows down your chess improvement progress. So the secret would be that you just do your best and you try to learn from [00:11:00] your mistakes. But what happens, what I see a lot with adult improvers is that they stop trying, or they try to stop making mistakes.

So the goal of a game is to avoid making stupid mistakes. I even see that in lessons from time to time, right? That I'll ask, what would you play here? And my student will just not say anything. When I ask again, I say, well, I have this idea, but I don't want it to sound stupid, or I don't want to disappoint you with my answer.

I'm always like, well, why should you be disappointing me? I like the quality of your answer. Doesn't matter. What I mean, disappointed at as a coach is when people don't do their homework. It's when they are unmotivated, when they don't try to focus during lesson when they don't listen. I don't like that stuff, but the whole point of having a coach is that you are making mistake and this coach can understand where these mistakes come from and then teach you.

But sometimes, and I had that also when I [00:12:00] got a little bit older. We have this feeling that we need to impress our coach and we need to be perfect already in the lesson, but that actually defies the whole purpose of a coach. A coach is only good if you make mistakes and you are open about showing these mistakes, and then you can improve out of it. 

So a few ways that I see adult improvers trying to stop making mistakes is that you memorize opening lines. And the whole goal of opening is just to control the whole game. So you're never in an unfamiliar position, you are never in an uncomfortable position, and hopefully you never make a mistake.

Ideal would be just to win out of the opening straight, like just, okay, that's how the book goes. Boom, boom, boom. I win the game. That's amazing. You also spend often too much time studying books. And just the theoretical knowledge is overboarding, while the practical skills, so the actual game playing, making mistakes, learning from them is getting way too short.

[00:13:00] Nearly everybody suffers from that, that we try to look smart in the moment. But the problem is when we look smart in the moment, we don't really improve anything. So it's super important to speak up in lessons, to tell what you are really thinking, to go through your calculation, to be open for making mistakes, both in training and during the game, because that's how you really improve. 

And because chess is so difficult, there is one simple truth you need to accept. Otherwise, it will be super, super painful to try to improve. At chess, you will make a mistake every single time you sit down to play chess. You need to accept that and it's not a problem, it's just an opportunity. And if you are willing to explore new things, test your ideas, both in training and in games, and then you analyze what went wrong, that's super important, right?

Don't just make mistakes and never think about them anymore. Because then you [00:14:00] repeat them. So when you analyze your mistakes, you'll improve faster than anyone stuck in perfectionism. So instead of trying to avoid making mistakes, we need to use them more often. So just like I learned Italian, by just mixing a bad Spanish and making so many mistakes, you should also try to play at your best, but acknowledge that you will make mistakes.

Push yourself to make these mistakes and then learn from them. You will feel stupid. Sometimes you will make blunders. Maybe you will, even in lessons or when you watch a video course and you ask a question, maybe from time to time it will sound like a stupid question. Honestly, if you're giving your best, there shouldn't be any stupid question.

Stupid questions in my opinion is if you could just Google that and in two seconds you would find the solution, that's a pretty stupid question. Like, don't [00:15:00] ask me when did Kasparov get his first World championship title? Just type that into Google or into any AI and you will know it.

But if you are not fully understanding a certain move in a position, then asking is never stupid because maybe you will realize something you know that was wrong with your fundamentals of the game. So ask questions, get corrected, make mistakes because they can be so, so powerful. And the most important thing really here is this difference of in the moment to future growth.

So for myself, I try to tell myself this often. If you look stupid in the moment, you grow more quickly than others. If you always try to look smart, then you can't improve as much.

And I mentioned this already, last but not least, but I just want to repeat it because it's important. In language learning and [00:16:00] in chess, there are things that you never need to get very good at. That's my personal opinion, because there's way too much in this world that we should learn. So what I like to do is to filter for what really matters and to forget about the rest.

Like I could improve my English still, I could write more grammatically correct articles or speak more correct English when I do these podcasts, could probably improve some pronunciation of some words and so on, but when I achieve my goal of being able to get a message across, I don't really see a lot of benefit in learning more about this language.

And in chess, I think it's the same. Once you achieve a certain goal, for example, an opening is bringing you a position you like, you don't need to invest much more time in this, but you can invest more time in things that really make a difference. As in language and in [00:17:00] chess, we also need to keep things practical.

So trying to be perfect for something that will never appear. So having a phrase, being able to say a phrase in French that you'll never use in your whole life, or being able to memorize an opening line that never happens in your whole life. Even if you make mistakes and you improve them, they don't bring any practical value. So just forget about them and focus on what really matters. 

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