Human Potential, The Polgar Sisters, Part II
Intro
In my last piece, I called you into action by showing you the heights of human achievement. In this segment, I will show you commitment to the pursuit of human potential.
So, when someone is committed to pushing his or her limits, what does it look like?
Does it mean spending exhaustive hours every day practicing? Does it mean spending every waking moment obsessing about the pursuit? Does it mean sacrificing everything else for one cause?
No.
The answer reflects MetaLearning’s core philosophy. Here are the tenants:
1. Establish an explicit goal with many waymarkers
2. Practice deliberate practice and education
3. Rehearse dream-setting
4. Create a system/ecosystem
5. Become self-accountability
6. Define your system of values = define yourself,
I won’t be going over all these elements in this piece; I will do so over the course of this series.
The Premise
I think the story of the Polgar sisters clearly demonstrates some of the qualities above. Judit, Susan, and Sofia Polgar represent some of the highest-ranking female chess players in history. They reached peak ELO rankings of #1, #9, and #42 respectively. More importantly, they represent the manifestation of finely tuned deliberate practice over talent.
The sisters begin their story with their father László looking for dates; he wanted to find a wife who shared his vision of raising progeny who would disapprove the belief that geniuses inherited the capacity from their parents. He wanted to demonstrate that genius can be taught. Now, of course, the idea put off many women. Klara, his future wife, was intrigued by the idea. He later married the Ukrainian language teacher.
Deliberate Practice and Education
Routine
To prepare for fatherhood, he studied the biographies of 400 great historical figures from Einstein to Socrates. The couple had three children, and they decided to homeschool them in the manner that represented the aggregate of those great historical figures. They learned core subjects like science and social studies. His father also taught them computing, psychology, morality, and humor. In fact, the students dedicated 20 minutes every hour to “joke-making.” The girls also got enough physical activity with 20 minutes of ping pong in the morning and 1 hour of gymnastics at the end of the day. Klara taught the kids Esperanto, German, Russian, and English.
The bulk of study and practice was focused on chess. The father chose chess because it was field that was easily measured by wins, losses, tournament points, and ELO ratings. In other words, it was objective. You can measure progress.
Philosophy and Child Development
The children did not see chess as a forced chore. His father made sure that studying and practicing chess was more like a game. Learning became a game.
He cultivated a curiosity for the art of chess in all his daughters. When one is a toddler, a person is naturally curious about everything. He gave them a chessboard, bought them beginner friendly chess books, and took them to the local chess club. Klara and László praised and rewarded their daughters for their work and achievements. It worked so well, that Susan stayed up past midnight messing with the chess pieces in the bathroom. He told Susan to go back to bed, but she replied, “I can’t! The pieces won’t leave me alone!”
Choice Architecture
László knew that one’s environment heavily influences one’s actions. Put candy and only candy in a pantry, and most likely the occupants of the household will become diabetic. Offer other healthier snacks like apples and nuts and make it easily accessible on the kitchen island, and the family is more likely to eat healthier. Better yet, remove the candy.
He did the same with his kids: he created a small kingdom of chess. The Polgar’s apartment became a library for chess books and manuals. More impressively, the family collected and cataloged an index of official chess matches that rivaled the secret archives of the Soviet Union.
If Mr. Polgar started raising his children today, I could imagine the kids taking virtual lessons mixed with chess streaming, playing life-sized chess pieces, and talking to outside experts on topics such as sports psychology and nutrition. In fact, many of the world’s best players work on areas like diet to maximize their performance.
Deconstruction and Reflection
During the development of his children’s chess careers, he made sure they deliberately deconstructed the elements of chess like mathematics subdivides into Algebra into quadratics. Areas like chess would be refined through games like pawn wars. In this game, Susan, Sofia, and Judit played against each other or against a coach using only pawns. The first person to reach the back row wins. This game isolated the skill of moving pawns down a chess board. After rounds of activities such as this, the dad made sure his daughters would reflect on their performance. Thus, the student would gain as much as possible from each session.
As his girls became better, the games or activities became more complex and diverse. He would vary the activities or make them up, so that the girls did not acclimatize to the practice. He wanted repetition but did not want them to become repetitive. Or at least, that’s my interpretation of his intent. I do know that he wanted the learning to reflect of real-world situations.
It wasn’t long before his daughters beat-up middle-aged men at the chess clubs in Budapest.
Conclusion
Now, I don’t want to make it sound like the three sisters had an unhappy childhood. In their own words, they were happy. Later in life, they had the choice to go their own way. One did. Sofia later pursued an art career.
I wanted their story to illuminate how one should practice and develop in the pursuit of the very best. In the end, all three sisters said their success in chess was determined by their efforts.
In that spirit, I want to ask you, “What will your effort be?”
