I stopped checking my numbers for 6 months
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[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome back to Next Level Chess Podcast. I'm your host, Grandmaster Noël Studer. And today, I wanna talk about a challenge that I set myself six months ago and update you on how things have been going. So long-term listeners might recall an episode that I titled How Much Can You Improve In Six Months?

And the main point really was that usually short-term result focus is holding us back. We get discouraged, and then we don't put in the action. And the premise of this podcast episode was, for six months, I wanted to not get influenced by short-term results, but just I had an outline, I had an [00:01:00] idea, a plan of what action I wanted to put into this chess coaching business, and then to see what happens.

What happens if for six months I'm not obsessively checking numbers? Now, I did still check numbers, but I tried to not get influenced by numbers for decisions that I'm taking. So here is how it went.

First, I wanna talk about how it felt because I believe this is so important both for me but also for you guys at home working on your chess.

Because the main difference was really the difference that I felt in the intentionality. The thing is, as I mentioned already, I still was in contact with numbers. It's very hard to completely eliminate numbers, especially if, like me, you're running a business alone. At the end of the day, you also have to do accounting. That's just numbers.

So I didn't completely nailed it in a sense that I never, ever checked numbers when I didn't have to. But when I did check numbers and [00:02:00] when I shortly got a little bit discouraged, what helped me was this intentionality, and it was way easier or I was way quicker to get out of this feeling of like, "Oh my God, I'm not happy with that result. Maybe I should change something short term."

And really the biggest example for this is YouTube for me. I started posting in August last year, and I already knew it a bit because Alessia, my wife, is posting for much longer on YouTube. But the thing is, when you log into YouTube dashboard, really the first thing they want you to see is a performance of the last video. It's really in your face. If you have never seen it, probably you can just Google it and somebody will have shared a screenshot of it.

And for the last six months, actually and these videos, by the way, just so you understand, the performance is rated on your last 10 videos. So based on your last 10 videos, how is this most recent video doing?[00:03:00] 

And so when your channel is not growing or not growing as much, then these results are negative or red. And that's what happened basically always for the last six months. I also put a little bit less effort into YouTube than just at the very start. And so this last video performance was often covered in red arrows.

Less views, red arrow. Worse click-through rate, red arrow. Less minutes watched, red arrow. So everything was red, red, red. And even just glancing at it before uploading a video on YouTube, it usually made me feel very bad.

And the thing is, what happens then in my brain is like, not only am I feeling bad, but I wanna do something against it. And now the long-term solution, well, I know. I have a plan, I wanna execute it. That's fine. But the problem is the brain quickly comes up with short-term solutions. You could have clickbait videos. You could do a video that is very contrarian or trying to go [00:04:00] viral, trying to talk about drama. Like, all these things that might push the channel short term to get more views, but that's not the direction I wanna go.

And so when I had this frustration, and then the temptation came up, that's where the challenge really helped me to just say, "Okay, that was my challenge. Calm down. We know what's happening. I understand what's happening. Let's just focus on doing the actual thing I wanted to do by going on YouTube, and then stick to the long-term plan."

And thinking about it, I thought this is really how I've experienced, for example, meditation as well. Because for many, I believe, not only for me, but when you get into meditation, you have this idea of, oh, I should not have a thought. My mind should be completely still. But then I learned that it's not about that, but it's actually about realizing when my brain goes somewhere else and then bringing back the attention to, for example, [00:05:00] my breathing.

So with a challenge like that, with results, also for you guys, for your chess, right, it's not about never being afflicted by losing a game, never feeling a negative feeling because of rating, because maybe it's not going as quickly as you hoped for. But it's about realizing that and then still going back to, what's my long-term plan? How can I execute it today?

And that's where last week's episode actually comes also in, because that was about not negotiating. So when you have a plan and when you know, okay, this is good long term, even if a result isn't great, then you still stick to that plan. You don't negotiate. You just go do the stuff that you said you wanna do, and that's really helping building up this consistency of long-term effort.

But there was really one thing that stood out in these six months, and I'm very happy that I did that challenge because I really believe I couldn't have done it, or for sure it would have taken much longer [00:06:00] without that challenge. And that one thing is launching Real Chess Training.

Now, you've probably heard about it. It's my membership where I send out six positions every single week to members, and then I give a solution video alongside. And for a long time, I was excited about this way to train. And I knew, okay, this is what pushed me, and this is what really can help students get better.

I was lucky to work with so many famous coaches, so many good coaches, and basically all of them did that.

So from Yusupov to Dorfman, Ramesh, Aagard, Kasimdzhanov, Ragger, all of these coaches, they made me work on difficult positions where I didn't know was it a tactic or not. So I kind of had that knowledge. But in my brain, what happened? Why did I never launch something like that? Because I was thinking about the results.

Because I was thinking, "Well, nobody will care." Or there was a fear of it. What if nobody cares? Because there is this [00:07:00] feeling in the chess world that if you explicitly say something is going to be difficult, it's going to be much less attractive than everybody that just says, "Well, just buy this and you'll instantly improve," and all of these things.

So the state of it was basically, well, I would love to do this but I don't believe enough people will care about it, so it might not be worth my effort. It might not be worth putting myself out there. And that's where it really helped to be in that period and to realize how I was thinking about it and to say, "Okay, wait a moment. I was saying I wanna focus on what I believe is the right chess training without thinking about the result implications."

And so when just thinking about it this way, I was like, "Okay, I believe this really helps. I believe that, for example, my private students, they would love it. Because they already show up for my training. It would be amazing for them to have such a test." My Simplified Chess Improvement System students might also love it.

So even if it's not that many, the people that [00:08:00] will do this will really improve and really like it. So that was enough to say, "Okay, let's take the plunge." And I remember, on a day I was discussing with a friend. H-His, his name is Dror. He is a writer, not about chess. And Dror always pushes me.

And so what he said is like, "Okay, what if you launched it next month? Like, why do you have to wait so long? Just try it out, see what happens." And so being in this period and being pushed by a friend as well really helped me to just execute what I believe is right without getting lost, wondering what are the results going to be.

And it's so cool because actually my expectations got blown away with how many people actually do the training, signed up for the training, and with how people really love and interact and do the hard work every single week. And that's just so cool as a coach to see that I can create something that [00:09:00] I believe this is really 100% what you should do.

It's hard. I can be honest that it's hard. And people like it.

So let's talk about what this means for you. When we focus too much on results, I believe we don't give ourselves enough time to do the right thing well.

And so focusing on the process means doing what you believe right now to be the right action. When you do this for long enough and you manage to find ways to allow yourself to do it, then you might look back at some point and say, "Oh, I was actually surprised that this exact action was having this result."

Ahead of time, you might think, "Oh my God, will it really be enough if I just do my tactics every day?" Or, "Will it really be enough if I focus really well during a game?" Instead of thinking if it's going to give you the results or getting discouraged by losing one game, that can always happen, you actually stick to doing the [00:10:00] right thing.

And then you look back and you're like, "Oh, that was going really well."

And that's when I just saw in the Simplified Chess Improvement System community, a student called Anthony James sharing his success story. And when you look at the graph, it's looking a little bit like a straight line from, like, 1700 to 2000 in, what is that? He mentions five solid months of this course.

Okay, so, starting at 1700, reaching 2000. That's 300 points. That's really, really amazing. It's a really cool success story. But what you see when you zoom into the graph, you see that there were always days or even weeks where the graph was going down. So hitting, like, a new rating high, then losing, like, 20, 30 points.

And every time you have these dips in a success story, every single dip is a risk of stopping to do the things that matter most, the things that brought you there. Because you're [00:11:00] like, "Oh, no I lost three games in a row. I'm discouraged. I'm not going to do this anymore."

And this is really the danger with these short-term results, and this is what I believe helped me in these six months and helped Anthony probably also. Because it's really important that, when we study chess, and even when it's going well, we keep doing the right thing. When it's going badly, we keep doing the right thing.

So what is the common denominator? Let's just do the plan. Let's just focus on the process and give less weight to results. Especially in the sense of, like, what am I actually going to do with these results? Usually, if you wanna change your long-term action and not change something short-term to say, "Ah, yeah, today...

Yesterday, I lost, so today I need to change something." No, no, no. Let's stick to the plan.

And for those curious, my business also had a very nice six months. Even if the YouTube was showing red numbers, the revenue was going [00:12:00] up nearly three times. Sometimes it's funny how not caring about results, or maybe it's the wrong way to say it, but not changing your actions based on short-term results, is actually helping you getting better results in the long run.

And for those of you wondering, there is a link in the description below the podcast where you can sign up for a free test for Real Chess Training. You don't need a credit card. You just put in your email. You get a six-position test. You can see the solution video. So if you're between 1,500 and 2,000 on chess.com/rapid or FIDE rating, or the equivalent, just click that link in the description. You can then go ahead and do the test yourself. Feel if that's something for you. See if you like the explanations. And if you do, I still believe this is the most important training you will do to really improve your chess.[00:13:00] 

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