How often have you heard the phrase, “art imitates life?” How often has art imitated life in your existential environment? Moreover, have you ever manipulated the manifestation of this concept? Truly successful professionals’ live life on purpose and have a pseudo methodical approach to everything. In fact, strategy is a part of their everyday lives. Art imitating life could presumably be summed up for this group of professionals in a single art form, Chess.
The game of Chess requires immense strategic prowess. Think of the Chess board as the office and the game pieces as your colleagues. Each game piece has its own cubicle or office space. Each piece has a title and a job description. They may only operate within the parameters of their intrinsic level of empowerment. For example, the Queen is positioned beside the King or, for the purposes of this article, the CEO. The Queen may move in any direction and in as many spaces as she deems necessary to protect the King. While the King may move in any direction that he deems necessary, he must be more calculative and therefore may only move one space at a time. The object of the game is to capture the King. Once the King is out of commission, the game is over. Thus, all game pieces have a role to play in protecting the mission and strategy of “the business” and the “CEO”.
For those who are not familiar with the game, allow me to present the theory of “art imitating life” in layman’s terms. In the game of Chess, you must know the functionality of each game piece. You need to have a complete understanding of how the game is played. You also must know your own winning strategy and be cognizant of your opponent’s game plan. Continually remove the emphasis on yourself, in order to look at the big picture. Anticipate the opponent’s moves and prepare for his or her response to yours. In this imitation of live, if you are not strategic, you will find yourself in check mate – game over.