Magnus Carlsen gave very nice talk at Milken Institute’s Global Conference 2017. Tickets to the event cost from $12,000 to $50,000 which is fantastic if you wanted me not to show up.
Carlsen is the best of the best in Chess and very different compared to a lot of other chess players when it comes to work – two small quotes that are work related:
“What kind of talent I had when I was really young was that I was able to concentrate on something for a really long time. My interest didn’t really wane…That’s been my main advantage. I’ve never been the one to grasp things the quickest, but I never stopped learning as soon and I became interested in a subject.”
“I would want to be a role model. As you talk about an athlete who wakes up at seven every day, then you have two training sessions…for me, it’s not like that. I definitely think about chess all the time. I work at chess every day but it’s not like I have a routine. It’s always been based on inspiration for me. Fortunately, I haven’t run out of inspiration yet…Sometimes I play better when I haven’t slept that much, because you kind of play more creative.”
This statements are recurring pattern among high achievers in basically every discipline. Hard work ( not very structured for Carlsen but still hard work ) and dedication that is basically what you need to succeed – forget about the talend it is irrelevant.
Two great books on the topic that i highly recomend:
More about Carlsen talk can be found at Chess.com: Carlsen At Milken Institute: ‘I Don’t Presume To Know Much At All’
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