Play your first UgLy game

Six years ago, I put together the last money to pay the salaries of my small team and to order my first mic, camera, and a few more equipment to start recording courses.

They arrived. I recorded the first videos. Deleted them.
Then again, recorded and deleted. That’s how awful they were.

I was struggling. I would walk in the room, talk to myself, motivate myself and re-record from scratch.
And then you know already what was next.
Yeah, I would delete everything I made.

One of the problems was my poor English.
I often needed to write texts in my native language, translate them into English and learn new texts.

I’m not talking about the “freeze” moment.
When you think you’ll do great, but once you click the “record” button, you freeze.

Then one day, I made a video that I didn’t delete. It was decent. Then recorded another. Then another, that I didn’t delete.
Then I had the 1st course ready.

Still awful.
I can’t watch it.

But then I made the 2nd course, the 3rd... Putting into action the Kazien and the CoGro (Constant growth) mentality. The courses became better and better.
After six years, I’m proud of my courses (especially recent ones), and I feel great seeing thousands of 5+ star reviews, many unbelievable comments, and success stories...

But looking back, everything started with that 1st step. With making that 1st ugly course... With taking that most difficult step. The 1st one.

It’s not easy. I have to confess I delayed it. I was secretly hoping that the microphone will arrive broken. For a few days, I tried to find excuses not to record.

But luckily my WHY was strong enough to throw everything away and take the first BRAVE, but UgLy step.
In my BlunderProof course, I mentioned this idea, that your first 1,000 chess games are the worst. Play and lose them as fast as you can.

The same is true in everything we start with.
This is not a motivational article.
But if it inspires you to take your first step, make something ugly and play your first ugly game, I’ll be happy.

P. S. Sorry for the grammatical mistakes you might have noticed.
Usually, I edit my articles with our editors and bestseller author James Altucher.
This time I didn’t. So you can see how much I still have to learn, my original writing with mistakes, and the CoGro mindset in action.
6 years ago, I didn’t know the word “mindset.”

And to compare the quality of our courses:

Benko Gambit is my first course.
Saving Lost Positions is the latest (the 52nd )

Last sentence:
It’s a good idea, sometimes to go back to your first game, first creation, first steps... And see how ugly they were and realize how far you’ve gone...
Love,
GM Avetik
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P.S. If you’re not a ChessMood student yet, I have three gifts for you:

1. Opening Principles- The fundamentals and beyond in detail
2. My 10 best games
3. GM Gabuzyan’s 10 best games

You can watch all three courses for free, by creating a basic account here. (Takes a few seconds)