A Life Lesson I learned From…

Naked Leader Week 1166 – Monday 16 March 2026

Time to read: 64 Seconds

A Life Lesson I Learned From…

Chess

Most people analyse the games they lose.

“What mistake did I make?” “How did I mess that up?”

I did that.

Result: I simply proved to myself how many mistakes I was capable of making.

Not exactly confidence building.

Then I came across advice from Bobby Fischer. Study the games you win.

Find out what you did right – understand why it worked.

Repeat it. So, I did that – my rating went from 1100 to 1203 on chess.com.

Not world champion. But proof the principle works.

Exception:

If you hang your queen in three moves…you probably should look at that as well.

Applied to Your Organisation

When a project fails we ask:

What went wrong? Who approved this? How did we miss it?

Results: Blame culture; Lower morale; More caution next time

Do this instead: Study, analyse and celebrate the projects that succeed.

Ask:

What did we do right? Who made it happen? What should we repeat?

Results: More successful projects; Better outcomes; Higher ambition.

Exception:

If the project is mission critical – safety, legal, patient impact, national infrastructure etc of course analyse failure properly.

Just don’t make failure analysis your management philosophy.

Applied to You

When something goes wrong we replay it in our heads – Again., and again, and again:

Each time reliving it as if it was happening anew every time

Do this instead: Keep a Happy Book

Every day write down something you did well: A good decision; A kind act; Something you handled better than last time.

Your brain slowly starts scanning the world for what works.

Exception:

If you hurt someone — apologise, learn, move forward

The Overall Lessons I learned

Yes – learn from mistakes

But the real acceleration in life, teams and organisations comes from studying success.

Find what works and do more of it.

One Last Thought

Most people study failure.

The very best study success.

One makes you cautious.

The other makes you brilliant.

Choose carefully.

With my love and best wishes to you

David

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