certain competitive arenas—our working lives, for example—there are seldom weeks in which performance does not matter. Similarly, it is not so difficult to have a beginner’s mind and to be willing to invest in loss when you are truly a beginner, but it is much harder to maintain that humility and openness to learning when people are watching and expecting you to perform. True enough. This was a huge problem for me in my chess career after the movie came out. Psychologically, I didn’t give myself the room to invest in loss.
