S3 Ep. 216 Life Lessons from the Chessboard: Navigating Challenges and Embracing Growth

Speaker 1: Hi. Before I do anything, I will start with those lines, because it means a lot to me Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good everything. How are you all doing? Yes, I will always ask that question, not rhetorically now, but asking because I do care. Yes, did I leave? I told you I was going to come back. Did I ever leave? Yeah, we're back. Well, I know you're wondering what are we doing with chessboard today? Hold on, hold that thought there. I need to finish this, then I come to you. Chessboard, chessboard, mm-hmm. Chessboard. I guess you're wondering what is he doing today? Well, you will know very soon. And this is how it works for me. I always love to bring out messages, clues, from observing my environment. So let me tell you the story behind why I'm sitting here in this same position and with a chessboard. The other day, I was privileged to sit with a chess master. You guessed right Chunde Onokoya. A great inspiration he is to our country and to our I mean, this generation. I was privileged to sit with him and, amazing, I learned a lot from him and I told myself I'm going to come over here on the show to share this with you my learning, what I learned from it and how I think we should, yes, approach life. There's a lot. First of all, I ask myself is life a game? Is life a game? Or do we gamify life to make it interesting? Like you go, you go after life, you go after living like a game . There's this pleasure you're deriving and all of that you go after life, you go after living like a game. There's this pleasure you're deriving and all of that. Well, these are questions. First of all, when you look at the chess board, you have the pieces and you have the board. I want to begin from the board. Now, looking at the chess board , you're going to see, first of all, what will catch your attention, apart from the pieces . Now we'll get to naming them the draft, the, what I call it, the checkered boxes, the boxes you have on the chessboard it will catch your attention. And if you look at the way they are patterned plain, dark, plain, dark, plain, dark a careful look at it what comes to my mind is two things. One you see a hierarchy. There is a hierarchy. Yep, there is a hierarchy. Then the next thing you're going to see there is we all are somewhat standing in a box, because I always hear people tell, you know, motivational speakers and what have you? In solving a problem, you have to think out of the box. But come to think of it, do we really get rid of the box? Because when you move from one box to the other, you are creating another box. You understand, when you think out of a particular box, you find yourself in another box. So you keep on boxing every day , you keep on boxing every moment, you keep on boxing in solving problems. You know, like what I call it a Russian doll, keep opening. You see, it's just moving that way and that's what I notice on the board. So first, all there's a hierarchy, there are hierarchies to things in life. You move from one level to the other. It could be from one complexity to the other. Another thing I notice again is when you look at the horizontal and vertical axis on the board. On one hand you have numbers and on the other you have alphabets. You have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 . You have A, b, c, d, e, f, g, h , row-wise and column-wise, as the case may be. And I looked at it closely and what came to my mind there was values, alpha, numeric. You know William Shakespeare. In one of his sayings. He said life is a stage, the world is a stage and all the players have their time, like men, women. We come in and we go out. But again, when you look at the stage, what I see there? Values, alpha numeric values. I've come to see that two things drive people. Yes, two kinds of values, I must say that the intrinsic and the extrinsic. So you see seven people who are driven with the what's in for me, how much you see. Then you have other people who are driven by recognition. That's it. So when you look at the board, what you see there is alphanumeric values. We are driven by it. And again you come to see that on the board of life, for you to move you need to have your bearing, your coordinates. Ask anybody, mathematically speaking, if you want to move from point A to point B and you don't have a value, mathematically speaking, I think your direction will be misplaced. So when you look at it again, that's what I see on the chessboard Numbers alpha, alphanumeric. Every language has a bit of alphanumeric values, every relationship has this alpha numeric value. So anywhere you go, you see it. You might be oblivious of it. It is there and I think. And again, if you look at the chest, I mean the numbering, why eight, why not nine, why not seven? I asked myself why. And you know what I realized Eight. I'm not going into numerology now, but from what I understand, eight is like a repetition or a new beginning. If you look at the musical scoring and all of that, the musical notes Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do Do is a repetition. Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do, that's the eighth a repetition. So you get to seven and you start all over again. You get to seven, you start all over again, you get to seven, you start all over again. So you see that pattern. That's what you see on the chessboard. Okay, now let us go to the pieces now. For, for those of us who are used to chess, I am not a master . I'm only telling you. I sat with a master and we had this conversation and it was amazing and I decided to bring it on the show. So, first of all, what you see, let us start with the first line. They are called the pawn. Mm-hmm, the pawn. Now we have it's called. I remember in school we used to call this the castle, or. It was hard to understand. Is that the castle or the rook? We have the castle, the rook, we have the knight, the horse head, the knight. Then we have the bishop, the bishop, then we have the queen. We will come to their value, the queen. Then we have the king. Now the the beautiful thing is the queen and the king. To their right and to their left you have the same, what I call it personnel, because to the right you have the castle, the rook, you have the knight and you have the bishop, then you have the king, the queen, and to the other. Now I ask myself this question why are they called all of these names? Now, I ask myself this question why are they called all of these names? Now, allow me to give you my interpretation from my observation. For any kingdom to stand, there must be a king, and the strength of every king is the queen. You could say she's very powerful. We'll get to that. It's the queen. Now, to the outward, what I say, periphery of the kingdom, you have the castle or the rook, which serves as, in my opinion, protection. So you see, when you're planning, when you're building, first of all, even commonsensically, you will see that we start with walling ourselves, building a wall. Then after that you have the knight, the knight in shining world. Then after that you have the knight, the knight in shining armor. The knight is for defense, physical fight and skills. You know, you come up with all of those you understand to protect your kingdom. Then you have the bishop. Now I ask myself what does the bishop do? The spiritual? Yes, the bishop stands as the spiritual defense and you see, he is the closest to the king and the queen, you see, closest to the king and the queen, you see. So your spiritual barricade and , so to say, you have that spiritual force. We live from inside out and not from outside in yep. So if your inside is troubled, your outside will just cave in. But if your inside is fortified , no matter what happened on the outside, you always project in. A man is a spirit who dwells in a body and he has a soul. Let me not take it too far. So that's what I saw there. And so each of them have their functions. They, they walk in that. You know. Hierarchy, like I said, they are very hierarchical. There's no breaking of ranks. Now, when you look at it, who is the most important piece in any kingdom? It's the king. In a game of chess. The minute the king is captured , the game is over. Oh yes, the game is over. The minute the king is captured , the game is over. So the king, undeniably, we can infer, is the most important piece on the board, but it is not the most significant, if you understand what I mean by that. The most significant is the queen. The queen is so powerful in the game of chess, so even in the game of life. The feminine essence, he said male and female, created he them and he said he gave them power. Uh-huh, so the womb of the world lies with the female. If you understand what I mean by that. Very powerful, all right, now let's go to the value. Each of those pieces on the board has a value attached to them. So, like I said, is life a game ? But for us to enjoy life, we gamify life sometimes to enjoy life, we gamify life sometimes to enjoy life. Now, the pawn. They are indispensable, they can be done away with. But I'll tell you something along the line. The journey of the pawn on the chessboard is so interesting. They have a value of one. The castle has a value of three , the knight three. The bishop five. The king does not have a value per se infinite, if you understand what I mean by that. You know the queen nine points, as it were. So now the game of chess is all about movement. Life is all about movement. Life is all about mobility. But sometimes we tend to confuse mobility with activity. You know, sometimes we think, when you are going up about doing so much and all that, you think you are. No, that's not the case. But there must be a form of movement, because the earth is always moving. The earth is always moving. So now the pawn can move, and one step, just take one step forward. But the game of chess also tells us it can move two steps. So that's the pawn If you have another pawn. This way now I was explaining to my kids and I was trying to let them know that, the way I see it, the game of chess tells me that you really don't have an enemy, you only have an opponent. What does that mean? Are they not the same thing? Am I thinking they are not? Your opponent brings out the best in you. If you don't have anybody to spar with, you may not know your strength. So now, these two pawns standing at each other's face, this cannot dislodge this pawn, the black cannot dislodge the white. According to the rule, it can only be dislodged diagonally. So you see, that's it. That's how it works. I'm not here to teach you how to play chess, but I'm only explaining it what life is like. So it moves two steps. It can move one step. It can move maximally two steps . Now, when you look at the rook, or the castle as we call it, the castle can only move in linear form, like straight line, this way or this way, across the board, vertically or horizontally, as the case may be , across the board, vertically or horizontally, as the case may be, across the board. That's how this moves. The knight is one amazing piece on the board. The movement of the knight is an L shape. It can go one, two to the left, one two to the left, one two to the right, and this piece has a unique function on the board. It is the only piece on the chess board that can jump across mm-hmm, any let me use the word entity on the board, and it can also go backwards. This tells me. 9th tells me that in life, there's room for overtaking. You can jump across. Yeah, in life, you can jump across. In life, you can jump across you can overtake. It also tells me there's nothing wrong in retreating in a tactical formation. A wise man once said he who fights and runs away leaves to fight another day. So sometimes it doesn't make any sense. You know that you're spent, you've given so much and you're still. You don't have anything to prove, just retreat the bishop. How does the bishop move? The bishop moves in diagonal fashion. This way and this way the black can only walk on the white line . So to say, the white can only walk on. Yes, as it stands what you are seeing there. So it moves diagonally. The king can move in all directions, but one step. The queen can move anyhow, diagonally, hexagonally, linearly, so she can move. So imagine your mom. Imagine the feminine essence. Imagine the women around us. You know, they multitask a lot. They can think A mom. A mother can be breastfeeding and thinking how to prepare dinner, how to do that, how to do this and all of that. So that's the function, and somehow they are wired for it. They are wired for it. Yes, so that's the essence. You know, when I sat with Chundio Nokoya and he was explaining all of this, I just saw life, be it in the corporate , be it in personal, be it in private, you can see chess, you can see game playing out. So, guys, that's what I came to do on the show today to let you in that you can actually win in this game of life. If you pay close attention to this game called chess I know there are so many games out there and all of that, but this helps you in your thinking, processing, team building, activity, just name it you can actually win and that's what this game has revealed to me and I. You know this is what we do on the show bring value. We bring such amazing thoughts, conversations, thought-provoking, to let you pause and ponder. First of all, you must remember you are not in competition with anybody. Nah, you don't have an enemy, you only have an opponent, and the opponent helps you to bring out the best in you. You are on a stage. Never you forget that A time will come the curtain will roll by and you have to leave the stage. On that stage there are coordinates, they carry alphanumeric values that you must embrace. Like I want to go to the north, I want to go to the south. You know, you come to hear things like 60 degrees to the north or northeast, southwest. There must be a coordinate. You can't just run off. You must have your bearing, so to say. So, you know your bearing and you begin to like navigate. That's what this game has shown me. You have to navigate and again, you have to understand that you are so much. Now I told you something about the pawn. The pawn is about the pawn. The pawn is about the smallest. It is the smallest piece on the chessboard, but it has this unique feature it can travel on the chess board. And the rule is, if this pawn travels on this chess board and gets to the other end of the board or the opponent's side, like maybe dislodges the rook and whatever it is called, it has been promoted. So it can become a very significant piece on the board. It can be a rook, it can be a knight, it can be a bishop, but it is always preferred to be promoted to the queen. So your life is not insignificant, you know you think your life is insignificant . Those baby, you know you think your life is insignificant, those baby steps you're taking like nobody's noticing. Hello, relax, I was told from the good book. Promotion does not come from the East or the West, it comes from him, yes, from God himself. So when you travel on the journey of life you've had so many, you know battles. Each battle promotes you. Each battle takes you one step closer, each battle takes you until you get to that point where you are now so significant I don't want to use the word powerful, significant that your success cannot be denied, like English would say, cannot but be recognized. So you've been promoted. So this is what I have to tell you Keep working, keep working. Johnny Walker, liverpool will tell us, you will never walk alone. Keep working. Martin Luther King Jr said if you can't fly, please run. If you can't run, please crawl. If you can't crawl, just move. Whatever you do, don't stop, keep moving, because a rolling stone, god, has no mass. That's how you get there. You may feel nobody's paying attention to you. You may feel no, the camera is not on you, the lights are not on you. But do you know what is on you? Divinity, the most insignificant, can sleep in a prison and wake up in a palace as a prime minister. You know the story I'm talking about. So that is a game of chess, and that's what I've just came to do on the show with you today. I hope you got something. I hope you got something, I hope you learned something and I yes, it's a promise we always come here to create value, to give you value, to help you. All right, guys, let me not bore you. Let me go get ready for another game I'm going to share with you. All right, before I go, I have to do this. Please, please, please, go ahead. Subscribe to our channel, our YouTube channel. Yeah, we're there. We have wholesome content for you. You can follow us on all our social media handles IG, that's Instagram. Linkedin what again? Instagram, linkedin what again? Facebook TikTok yes, the ban did not affect us. The US President, donald Trump, is on our side, so go ahead, we have a lot there for you. I'm excited yes, I am. Each time I come into this space, knowing that you're there gives me this joy. Where am I going? I'm only going back, not to do some good work, so I come back and share with you till I come your way again. My name is a Macri and my crease away.