MARKETING AFRICA MAL 18/17 mal 18:17 online | Page 30

when a child is born healthy, it is a
potential genius. Genius equals work
and fortunate circumstances.”
Even before he started there were
some odds stacked against him. First,
he was no great chess player himself
at that time (even though he later
grew to write quite a number of chess
books). Secondly, chess was an area
dominated by men and the popular
belief was that women did not
possess the kind of thinking to make
it in chess. Polger was convinced
he was on to something and he
set himself to it. He created the
fortunate circumstance by devoting
himself to training his daughter and
exposing her to chess-training and
competitions.
Today, the story of Susan Polger
is another testament that indeed
the human mind can be trained to
become a master at anything. Susan
is the first female Chess grandmaster
and she has the brain of a genius.
She is an Olympic and World chess
champion, a chess teacher, coach,
writer, promoter and the head of
the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess
Excellence.
At the age of 15, she became the top-
ranked woman player in the world,
and remained ranked in the top three
for the next 23 years. She was also the
first woman in history to break the
gender barrier by qualifying for the
1986 “Men’s” World Championship.
Her sister, Judit, has an even more
amazing record. She became the
number one rated woman in the
world at the age of 12, and is the
only woman to have won a game
from a reigning world number one
player, and has defeated ten current
or former world champions in either
rapid or classical chess. The third
Polger sister, Sofia, also stunned the
chess world when at the age of 14
she defeated many grandmasters in
a tournament in Rome. Performance
is indeed a function of the
environment we create.
28 MAL 18/17 ISSUE
‘‘ The training
should be relevant
to the needs and
growth trajectory of
the company and not
just a traditional and
academic thing. Too
many team buildings
occur just because
there is a budget
for it. This is why
those team building
sessions never
produce teams.
They all go out in
some resort and
play games over the
weekend but return
to the very same
demons they left in
the office when they
get back.’’
Many attempt to change their results
by changing their actions but a deeper
understanding is to find out what
environment inspires the actions
and then change the environment.
What causes drivers of commercial
passenger vehicles particularly in
some parts of Africa to drive the way
they do? What causes different people
groups to have clusters of similar
behavioural patterns? If we can find
out the cause, then the effects will be
a natural progression.
I believe that every single person on
earth was born to be a top performer.
The challenge is that many have not
disciplined their minds and created
the environment required for top
performance. No matter what level
you are, you must see yourself as a
top performer. It must happen in
the mind before it happens outside.
Call yourself a genius. You were born
a genius. You are a walking genius.
People may not know it and you may
not know it yourself but you are and
the acceptance that you are is the first
step in making it a tangible reality.
With training, discipline and focus,
anyone can become the top performer
that they were born to be. There can
be no excuse for mediocrity. Anyone
who stays mediocre has done so out
of choice. Any person who is open to
training, disciplined and ready to grow
can achieve anything they want to
achieve.
There must be no room in any
winning team for those who are not
ready to learn and change. These are
people with finality thinking, which
is the thinking that says that, ‘this is
how I am and there is nothing that
I or anyone can do about it.’ That is
nothing more than a combination of
arrogance and ignorance oozing out.
People with this kind of thinking
should immediately be eased out of
the team. They do not belong in an
army of performers and they stand a
high risk of becoming cancerous by
spreading limitation and negativity to
the rest of the team.
A lot of thinkers and psychologists
around the world are agreed about the
fact that what happens to us as people
is not as important as our reaction or
response to what happens to us. In
effect, we are not victims of the things
that happen to us but rather victims
of our decisions in the midst of the
circumstances.
Most people at one time or the other
have done a test that measures our
intelligence quotient (IQ) be it at
some interview or just for fun online.
These tests measure how well you are
able to perform based on some pre-set
parameters. They test your ability to
logically interpret sequences.