The rules of life of Mikhail Botvinnik - an outstanding chess player, engineer and scientist

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

By chance, success comes only in fairy tales. In reality, this is the result of a person's actions, his character and life position. In this article, we will learn the principles of success from the famous Soviet chess player Mikhail Botvinnik.

A more complete biography of Mikhail Botvinnik is in "", and we are more interested in the principles of life that set him apart from the rest and allowed him to become such an extraordinary and successful person.

You need to work both with your head and with your hands

Botvinnik believed that physical labor and the ability to work with hands are absolutely necessary for a harmoniously developed personality. Words did not disagree with deeds: he always served all the equipment that he had at home himself. And there was a lot of it because of Mikhail's love for technical innovations that he brought from foreign trips.

A chess player must have another profession

As a chess player, Mikhail Botvinnik did not live in poverty. Already at the age of 25, he had a black GAZ-A (this is 1935) and a paper for a free gas station in Moscow, which was signed by Joseph Stalin.

Nevertheless, Mikhail graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, worked for more than 50 years at the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, became a Doctor of Science, developed, among other things, asynchronized turbine generators that worked at power plants in the USSR.

Children don't need early education

Today children go to school almost from the age of five. It is increasingly said that such a practice negatively affects the physical and mental development of the child. Mikhail Botvinnik was also opposed to early education for children.

He himself first sat down at the chessboard at the age of 12. When his daughter Olga was six years old, with the words "It's too early, you will have time yet" forbade her to learn to read. Later training did not prevent Mikhail himself from reaching heights in intellectual activity, nor Olga Mikhailovna from becoming a candidate of technical sciences, an employee of the O. Yu. Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth.

Don't do it if you can't do well

Everything that Botvinnik undertook was at least good at him, but mostly excellent. This was not due to some kind of luck or natural talent. His credo is to do everything well, no matter how difficult it is. And if there is no such possibility, then do not get down to business at all.

That is why Mikhail ended his career as a performing chess player at the age of 58 with the words: “At my age you cannot play a beautiful game, but I don’t want to just slap pieces on the board”. He remained true to his words until his death, which happened 25 years later.

Such an amazing person was the great chess player, engineer and scientist Mikhail Botvinnik. Of course, these are not all the principles that contributed to such a rich and vibrant life. But don't they make him stand out from other famous people?