A Lesson From Bridge: By trying hard things we learn and grow.

My morning started with a 6:30 a.m. call with my bridge coach, Morton.? On the days I have bridge calls, I usually get up an hour early to wake up my mind.

We began our coaching session with a particularly complex hand, analyzing the potential moves, and weighing my chances. We spend an hour and a half on this problem, and by the end, I am feeling pretty confident.

Turns out, that hand was only a level three out of five. Morten said complex hands start getting easy after you’ve seen it a few times at the bridge table.? But for me, the real-life bridge hand moves too fast. If I struggle during practice, how will I fare in the in-person competition?

After my 90-minute session with Morten, I played another two hours of online bridge with my local bridge coach and partner Debbie.?

After just having worked hard to learn an intricate bridge technique, I thought I would now be super focused.? But I stumbled on the very first hand with Debbie.

Next, I had a three-hour Zoom call with the Finance Committee of Mathematical Science and Research Institute (SLMath).? It’s a prestigious institute producing most Field Medalists (often called the Nobel Prize of Mathematics). Most of the board members on the call are sharp mathematicians, and I struggle to fit in with these great minds.?Math is not where I shine.

The previous night I spent a few hours digesting the pre-read material of the call, with fifteen attachments and many spreadsheets and bar charts, till I dozed off. The next day, one hour into the meeting, I was still grappling with it. Everyone else did not seem to be having much of a problem.

By the end of the day, I was mentally exhausted and feeling self-conscious thoughts creeping around the edges of my mind.

This is why I play bridge.

The long-term benefits of bridge are well known but those who play, but may seem abstract to those on the outside looking in.? What makes bridge –which is often called the toughest mind game – interesting and addictive is its competitive nature every step of the way and because like the stock market, it’s impossible to predict how the 52 cards will be divided among four players.

Bridge requires concentration, tolerance for risk, and incredible amounts of resilience.

More often than not, you lose.

At every bridge table, there is someone more clever than you.

No matter how often you practice or prepare, there will always be a trick you did not anticipate.

And yet, we continue sidling up to the table, dealing the cards, and trying again.

My experience at the bridge table is what keeps me coming to that SLMath Board table. I will be challenged. There will be people who are smarter, quicker, and more clever than me. I will need to prepare, and even still, I may struggle. The resilience I have gained by playing bridge has become my superpower.

At that finance committee meeting, there was an important issue on the table: the institute has an eight-figure endowment which has produced good investment returns, yet we were discussing short-term cash issues amounting to only a couple of hundred thousand dollars.?

Although I felt like the least capable person at that table, I summoned the courage to ask a pertinent question: “What is the problem that we are trying to solve?” That simple question helped the experts think not just of how to answer my question, but also of possible solutions.? I was happy that I was hyper-focused (because I had to be to keep up) and was able to articulate my confusion, which also helped move the meeting along.

Bridge requires you to rise to the occasion again and again and again. And just like in bridge, I am ready to do so in all areas of my life.

I am always ready for the next hand.