Episode 80 - What Triggers You
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[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome back to Next Level Chess podcast. Today I want to talk about triggers. I believe everybody has mental triggers that throws us off our best possible game, and to just realize what these triggers are. And then to do something with them can be so beneficial because it's not only going to happen in chess, but it's going to happen in work and other areas of your life.

So I want to talk about my personal trigger and then talk about what I try to do learning from this.

If you're new here, I'm grandmaster Noël Studer, and this is my Solo chess Improvement Podcast where I talk about improving your chess the right way, consistently, long-term improvement while [00:01:00] focusing on doing the right things and having a positive mindset. Let's jump right in. 

So I'm very proud of my mental game in general. I believe it helps me learn quicker and perform under pressure. Both it was in chess when I was active, but I feel like my mental game has gotten even much, much stronger after finishing my career. Now I can use it in business. I can use it in any sport I try to improve, any skill I try to learn.

But last weekend playing paddle, I got triggered and I realized really what is one of my biggest leaks.

So for those that don't know, paddle is basically a smaller tennis that is played two against two and you have glass walls behind you so you can kind of hit the floor than the last wall and then play on. So it's a little bit easier than tennis. It's very, very fun. Highly recommend trying it out.

So I was playing a match with a friend of mine against two opponents. [00:02:00] And it was a very even match. Very fun. I love when everybody's roughly on the same level, really makes the game fun. And they won the first set. We won the second set and there were like 25 minutes left. And this, how this works is you are playing over an app and you can write if it's competitive and when it's competitive it's basically like a rated online game in chess or like a rated game in chess. So it was competitive. So whoever wins will win some rating. Whoever loses, loses some rating. And what usually happens is in one and a half hours, which you play, you sometimes don't finish a whole match.

But you just put in whatever result you had. You put in all the scores and maybe the last set was like four, two. That's it. But these opponents somehow didn't like that because they said, oh no. What do we do if we don't have a clear winner? Because, according to them, if you are like even five zero up in the last set, the set goes to six.

If you're five zero up the, the app counts as a draw. And they were upset by this and we started feeling, oh, they, [00:03:00] they really are here just to win. They really care a lot about their rating. And when I feel this, I'll talk about the exact trigger later on, but when I feel this, I get a little bit nervous already, but we were kind of confused.

We just said, well, why don't we just put in whatever result is there? What is the reason to do anything else in that? They basically wanted to do that whoever is up, so if it, if someone is four, three up, we would round it up and do six four and then they would win the set and well, surprisingly it was their turn to serve, which means that if everything goes normal, they will always be a game up.

It will be like 1, 0, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2. And so if everything goes normal, they will likely be one game up. And so they would win the set and I don't know, try to trick us into winning without being ahead or I dunno, it was very weird, but I felt a little bit irritated and we go to play this third set.

And I start realizing from the beginning, they [00:04:00] are super nervous, they're super hectic. They want to play as fast as possible. Sometimes you have these people, they want to finish the whole set, the last set, they start playing fast. And what annoys me even more is when we serve, they tell us, Hey, play faster, do this, do that.

And so I get a little bit more agitated and then the third thing happens, and then I just completely get thrown off my game. So what happens is that especially one player starts to serve really illegally. So the whole point in paddle is if you would serve, like in tennis, it would be way too easy.

We just make the point all the time. So you can only serve, you can only hit the ball below your hip. Now, this is very kind of vague. It's hard to say because you don't know exactly where the hip bone is. It's not that clear. Sometimes you have people that serve like in the gray area and this guy was serving in the gray area for the whole match, but now not lasted.

It's like clear red, it's like clearly not allowed serve. But with the frustration building up, I feel like, ah, if I [00:05:00] say something, it sounds like I don't want to lose or whatever. So I just don't say anything and get even more nervous. And then my partner is serving and hits a perfect serve. Legal.

Everything is nice, makes a point. And they are calling it out. It's a very important point. I'm getting really upset by this, but as I want to go away from conflict, I just say, okay, whatever, we'll repeat it. And we end up losing this set. And what annoys me is not losing, but this whole time, so we lost the set, I think six one.

This whole time, I didn't enjoy a second of it. And what we'll talk about soon is like, because I got so triggered, because I played so badly, I really played badly and that's it. I made their behavior more likely in the future. I reinforced bad behavior and I just got annoyed at myself, at the situation, at everything.

So let's try to unwrap why this is so important and why this matters for chess as well. So what I realize is that my biggest [00:06:00] trigger that I've identified in many different situations is fairness. Fairness can be very subjective. What I find unfair maybe is totally normal to someone else.

When I feel unfairly treated and when I feel that someone is just there to win instead of having a good game and just trying to have fun, everyone together, even though it's rated who the hell cares about that rating. Paddle rating, it doesn't do anything. It's on an app. It doesn't help you in any shape or form. There's no prize for winning. Nothing at all.

When I feel this, and because it's subjective, it can happen a lot because I play with other people, it can happen a lot. I realized it in football, for example, I realized it in paddle, I realized it in chess as well. There's many different sports where I realized it. I go into shutdown. I don't wanna search a conflict, so I draw back and I just get more frustrated, more frustrated, and play horrible.

And I don't want to get into a discussion like what is fair, what is not fair, whatever. That's a different thing. [00:07:00] But the problem is that something happens that is outside of my control. I then get nervous. I don't enjoy the game anymore and I play bad. So there's something I have to do.

My first instinct is like, okay, I'll never play with other people again. Or I'll only play with people that I'm sure that aren't unfair. But is this kind of very hard and very limiting. The fun part of this app is that you can book yourself in and play with strangers and have a game most of the time.

So you don't have to find three other people that have time at the same time, but you're just booking in and other people will come. So just excluding everything, not really going to work. We'll talk about chess. Same is like not playing online anymore. It doesn't really work if somebody upsets you.

So what I want to do is to focus on what I can control. If I feel unfairly treated, not really what I can control. But from then on, that will be something that I can control. So I feel the trigger. I realize the trigger. I'm [00:08:00] aware now. And my goal simply for the next time that I'm playing paddle against other people is: I nearly secretly hope that I will get the chance again to feel treated unfairly by my opponents, because I wanna train it.

I wanna train feeling it, and then saying to myself, okay, now it's my task to either speak up if I want to or to just handle this. Because the best way to counteract it if they want so much to win, if they are doing unfair things, in my opinion, to try to win the best way is not letting them win because it reinforces their behavior.

They will do it again. But actually it's just playing my best and beating them. Because if I just keep my calm, there's no effect on me, then why should they do these unfair things again? If it has no effect on the results, the only thing they care about, it won't happen anymore.

And I realized thinking about this is exactly the same that I talk about in chess for my students and for you guys. It's when you feel a trigger, when you feel, for example, you [00:09:00] play online. And there are different things that can happen online, like people are chatting weird stuff or they are trying to run out their time if they are in a lost position or they offer a draw all the time in a completely lost position.

It's like there are many ways that somebody can annoy you a little bit. If you have that similar trigger of fairness or whatever, you could get a little bit triggered. So instead of just saying, okay, I'll never play against these people anymore, it's focusing on what we can do, right?

Once such something like that happens, what am I doing about it? First thing is being aware in the moment. It's easy to be aware afterwards of kind of like, oh, this really upset me, but be aware in the moment during my paddle game, I want to tell myself, okay, this is happening. I'm getting triggered, but I need to focus on what I can control.

Just try to relax and play your best.

Why I don't have a perfect step-by-step, this is what happens when you get triggered, here is how you will never get triggered again or whatever. The purpose of this episode is more [00:10:00] to make you reflect about your own triggers. What is triggering you? I'm pretty sure you will have something doesn't have to be connected to your opponent.

It could be, for example, that you're getting triggered if you realize you made a big mistake. That happens quite often. You can't focus anymore. You're annoyed yourself. You're thinking about the past all the time, and not really resulting in a good game. Probably one mistake leading to another.

Could be something that your opponent does. It could be that you are at home and your phone rings. And you're getting annoyed that you are getting disturbed while playing chess. There's so many things that can happen that you don't have full control over it. Okay with the phone, you can say, I switch it off when I play chess.

But there are so many other things like maybe you have family around and they enter. Yes, you can tell them, but it's not never going to happen again. So our task is to figure out what triggers us and to be aware in the moment and to try to find a way to get back to our A game.

Because especially [00:11:00] with something that our opponent does. The worst case scenario is really, opponent does something we consider unfair. We get triggered, play badly. Opponent wins because that just means the opponent has just exactly achieved what they wanted. So this behavior was reinforced. Instead, we wanna bring our A game, get back, and I managed to do it sometimes in other areas, and it just gives me so much confidence.

If I can say, okay, I got triggered, but I get back to my best. That's just such a boost of confidence because we're not just scared anymore of what could happen to us, but we are confident in our ability. Whatever happens, we can get back to our A game. And this is really the hope for this episode that makes you reflect and makes you get back to this A game, even if something happens that is not ideal.

And just as a small aside, when I was a professional player myself, I really cared a lot about results. Way too much. A lot of [00:12:00] my mindset work and so on is based on my mindset being horrible when I was a professional chess player. And so I can see how I could have irritated some of my opponents through my behavior because I cared so much.

And this kind of awareness as well, seeing that it's not only others, but it could have happened to me, helps me a little bit to go easier on the opponents or make it less emotionally loaded. So this is also something I want to remind myself, okay, this could have been me. Maybe they don't even mean it badly.

This could be subconscious. Doesn't mean that they are trying to cheat on purpose or whatever. And so trying to make it more relatable is also helping me. So whatever could upset you, just think, well, maybe if you're not in your best mood or shape or whatever, maybe you could have done the same thing, and so it's a little bit less emotionally loaded.

Okay, that's it for me for this one.

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