The ticking mind bomb.

The type of conversations you have on the outside is a reflection of the conversations you have with yourself.

If you have been set goals you cannot achieve, if you are not taught how to reach your goal, if you are sent to represent the Country without proper training and support and then expect or is expected to perform, then eventually your "self" talk becomes like this. Here.

So there is a big difference between confidence and a defence of the ego. It may look the same and to some sound the same but it is not the same. The defence of the ego is usually characterised by belligerence, intimidation, manipulation, lies etc. This is simply because their mind is unable to accept the truth. There is no confidence in their reasoning so they need to resort to deflection, misdirection.

This is the actual cause of stress. Not hard work.

We see this every time we play chess. At a certain level of stress all minds break down with the evidence of scrambled reasoning, memory loss etc.

For you cannot lie to yourself. You know when you haven't done the training. You know deep down when you are not good enough, when you are insufficiently prepared.

And so we will bring that mindset to the tournaments and the pressures will mount and then the mind bomb explodes.

We know this and yet we do this to our own players. We intimidate them, their parents and we use rejection to send them messages. And so over the years more and more fears are added till they also cannot despite having more "technical", more knowledge over time.

I submit that this is the major reason why we do not have a GM. Too much fear instead of insufficient technical. Our players are injected with so much fear that they start to breakdown in yearly increments . Haven't we seen that? Are we not seeing that right before our very eyes?

And yet we want to bury our heads and deny the overwhelming evidence gathered over 30plus long years. But at the same time we want them to perform great feats. We want that GM. But we keep injecting more and more fears into them. Is it a wonder they start to break down as they get older? Stop this and the GM will come.

Note: We expect this from our opponents. Intimidation etc. In fact that is not a problem. That can even be incorporated into the mind games. So the damage do not come from there. The damage only comes when the sabotage comes from within. Think on it.

Confidence can only be bought by achievement. And we see real confidence in real humility. Here.