Are you ready to carry your online chess class to new heights? Or maybe you currently teach in person, and need advice on your transition to the virtual space.
Elliot Neff has formed one of the most successful and impactful online chess companies to date. He’ll be joining us live on the Lifelong Educators Show to discuss:
Neff is transforming the world of online chess and impacting students’ lives for the better. Tune in as he teaches you to do the same.
Are you ready to carry your online chess class to new heights? Or maybe you currently teach in person, and need advice on your transition to the virtual space.
Elliot Neff has formed one of the most successful and impactful online chess companies to date. He’ll be joining us live on the Lifelong Educators Show to discuss:
Neff is transforming the world of online chess and impacting students’ lives for the better. Tune in as he teaches you to do the same.
Welcome everybody to a Thanksgiving edition of lifelong educators show. If you are celebrating Thanksgiving happy early Thanksgiving to you, joined by my cohost Dalton Tamir from Israel, Delton. Hello? Hello. All right. And we have our guest Elliot, NEF, and Elliot. I'm going to go back to my notes because I want to read the episode title. Cause we worked on this for awhile. The king of engaging in difference, making online chess courses, Elliot NEF.
Elliott Neff:Hello, Elliot. Thank you, Josh. And so it's a pleasure to be on the show today. Excited to share from my experience to help anybody else in whatever sphere they are in, as long as they want to make a difference in kids' lives. Nice. Tell
Joshua Chernikoff:us where you are joining
Elliott Neff:us from. So today I'm joining from the middle of the United States, Sioux falls, South Dakota, or shall we say the center Northern center port, spent most of my life in Washington state, but moved out here recently, but this year and excited to control the center, you know, in the game of chess. They say that controlling the center is one of the most strategic moves you can make. So since I used to live in the corner, I decided to do it's about time to follow my own advice. And so we've moved to the center. Okay.
Joshua Chernikoff:You are a man of, of ways of doing things and pivoting, which we'll get into. I also. want to kind of read the bio that we wrote for you because I actually think it, it really encapsulates who you are. Elliot Neff worked in the real estate world before turning his passion into reality and moving into the chest. He spent time in a chest supply store and later put 16 years of hard work into a nonprofit that funded children's chess lessons for families who could not otherwise afford the experience. Throughout this time, Neff was perfecting his own game two. He earned the title of national master and finished a world chess champion. In a draw, which we will come back to. He played
Elliott Neff:115
Joshua Chernikoff:opponents simultaneously to raise funds. The boys and girls clubs that king or king county you chess program. He wrote his own book and also. A movie came out of some work. He has done, which we'll go over Neff, eventually found his perfect fit in the
Elliott Neff:online chess world by founding chess for kids, one of the top internet chess companies in existence today,
Joshua Chernikoff:his lessons have reached millions and his work is far from finished. His chest TC teachings and inclusion of life lessons throughout each match are sure to affect the next generation. For the better. Usually I would do that stuff kind of off the top of my head, but I really wanted to hit all those important points. You've done a lot and we know you're a tad above 40, right. Cause we read the 40, under 40. So we know you're a tad above 40, but talk about all that you've done up to this point and give us. One nugget that just sticks out for you with the most
Elliott Neff:important, well, thank you, Joshua. We really do appreciate that. And I do want to clarify just one aspect of that is I did not play in the world chess championships, but I did compete against one of the world champions when he was world champion Vishy and not in a simultaneous exhibition. So he was playing a group of players at the same time. I was one of those groups and was able to hold him to a draw after three and a half hours. Nice. that's, that's what I consider. One of my biggest wins was holding off the world champion. And so just to clarify that I am a national master in the game of chess, put in those hours and hours of practice. And I would say from just one key aspect, you can look at all the things that appear as successes. And it's easy to see that, and it's easy to think it's an overnight success, right? And it's just circumstance or Providence or something or something luck people would say, but it's not. Outcomes come from habits and developing healthy habits was a key to this. I became a master as a teenager through a commitment to the effort and from age 12 to age 16 I was putting in a minimum of four hours a day, studying the game of chess and training and practicing. I can remember one Saturday as a 14 year old, I put in 14 hours at the books. Why? Because I committed to the habit and apply the life lesson that we teach today, which is simply you can win in chess and life. You can draw either side and win. And what else happened? How many of you can lose. Yes. You can learn losing is simply a mindset and the faster a person embraces the learning, the faster they can grow. And that was a mindset I learned early on. In fact, I love to say fail is simply an acronym which stands for first attempt in learning. So that mindset is something that anyone can learn to apply. And some of the things that I was able to accomplish is not because I was some genius or some great person. I believe God gave me some unique abilities and then applying discipline and healthy habits and mindsets of success is essential for making progress in these areas.
Dotan Tamir:But. And you had to correct us about the world championship, but you did not correct Josh about playing against what was it? 150.
Elliott Neff:So, so yeah, let's talk about that. A second. Here is as a, as a master in chest, you have a training. ability which can appear absolutely amazing. Now grandmasters will do Simons. They'll play in groups at a time. Right? And so this one time I was putting on a fundraiser with the boys and girls clubs of king county, Seattle, Washington, and we wanted to raise funds and do something special for them. So what I said is I will play all comers, however many come at the same time. And every person who participates has an opportunity to donate funds towards the boys and girls clubs. So we had the executive director come out, a good friend of mine. we had, you know, lots of students come out at the end of the day. I ended up playing one hundred and fifteen one, one, five games at the same time. And there is a video that's been published about this event and people are always like, so how did you, do you know, how did you score? And so it may look impressive. You know, I did end up winning 111 of those games. With four draws and no losses, including against a few masters who were in there as well as many lower level students and players. Well, part of it is of course chess ability. The other half of it though is simply outlasting your opponent. That whole event lasted eight hours with one five minute break. So I'm walking around for eight hours and you imagine if you're a player there, you've figured out your move and now you need to wait until I play 114 other moves. So by the time I get to your game, maybe you've forgotten the move you're going to play. So there are a few aspects to that, which make it fun, exciting. It was a blast doing, and it was so cool to be able to raise funds and awareness for the mission of boys and girls clubs, kinks. Calvin lions was the executive director, still a great friend, shout out to him. He's moved on to additional work, impacting youth as he always has a great connection there. So thanks for bringing that up. It's a, it's a good memory and I love to do it. I think we've
Joshua Chernikoff:already begun to go down a really important road for our listeners who might be enrichment providers or might be education entrepreneurs or whatever they're they're doing in that store. You talked about. The Elliot NEF version of fail. You talked about outlasting, you talked about moves slash pivoting. And in the end, I think you really talked about having fun
Elliott Neff:and you kind of have to have that attitude potentially on a
Joshua Chernikoff:daily basis. When you're running your own business, true or false?
Elliott Neff:Definitely true. I would say that as an entrepreneur, running a business and I would like to make a case, no matter which business, however, I could be incorrect, because anytime you say all you're in a dangerous territory. My perception, my belief is that in order to succeed as an entrepreneur, you have to have a mindset. Of positive outcome of expectation of having fun of enjoying what you're doing. Otherwise, don't do it. In fact, what I do today, making a difference in the lives of kids locally, nationally, a little bit globally is, is so rewarding that I feel I have not had a job in over 20 years now. And another mindset I like to put in place. There is I see the glass as always half full. It's it's, it's never how empty it is. It's how much progress we've made. You know, many times people can say, well, I want to achieve this, but look at how far away I am. I can't get there in chest turns. It's like, I want to get to this rating. Look how far away I am. In business, I want to achieve this goal. Ah, that's so far away. Well, I learned something really key from a strategic coach. Shout out to Dan Sullivan, the founder of the amazing mindsets at strategic coach. And he made this simple observation which I feel is so profound that I have used it ever since. And that is simply. Instead of looking at that goal, which is like looking at the horizon and going, oh no, it's so far away. How am I ever going to get there now? Just, do a 180 turn around and look at where you came from. Look at the progress you have made. And suddenly you're going to be filled with energy to see the progress and now take the next steps forward. And once again, turn around and look at the new progress. In fact, I like to say, can you imagine if some of our school systems considered changing how they scored things? to this kind of mindset you see when a student gets a grade that says here's what you all did wrong. Versus imagine if they got a grade that said here's where you all did, right. Congratulations. What are you going to accomplish next? Can you imagine the difference in mindset? I don't know what would happen, but I would love to see the experiment.
Dotan Tamir:Listen, I, and Josh described a few, A few important miles, if you important pieces in the picture that is Elliot. I think what I really relate to is the fact that you're combining, doing something that you're very passionate about with doing it. With a business from a business point of view, you know, it's a, it's a for-profit business, right? And, and you are building the business here and doing, and being an educator. And, those three things not always connect. it's, it's quite a rare to find somebody that can really connect. And I really relate to that because of the. I think what I've been doing for the past 13, 14 years myself. And I think that creates that motivation that you're talking about of adding that optimistic optimism that you have, is, is a key for sure. Do you also surround yourself by people that are like that, that are like minded that are, that are, kind of taking the same path. Do you have some kind of a group that I can join?
Elliott Neff:That's it? That's a great question. Don't tie. And I would say it is essential to surround yourself with like-minded individuals, right? With those who you can learn to grow from, and those who can challenge. you So that you can learn and grow from each other because just like in a chess game you know, how there are all these different chess pieces and which piece do you consider the most valuable? Most people would know, Hey, probably the. queen Right. You talking as the chess players, but the queen is the most powerful. And then the pawn is the smallest and it doesn't do that much. It feels weak. And then the Knight and the Bishop are in between. Well, here's the thing. If you tried to play a chess game and you said, because the queen is most valuable, therefore I'm gonna play with just my queen. The most powerful you will lose against an opponent that uses the whole team Because the team of unique abilities working together provide strength. So from a mindset standpoint and surrounding yourself with the right mindset, I like to be surrounded with people who have a growth mindset, who look at opportunity, who look at win draw, learn who look at these mindsets and yet have greatly different capabilities and talents, because that is how we create a great team. It ties into one of the life skills we teach students, which is simply better together Value difference. Don't try to make everybody the same. We are different and celebrate it and then figure out how the addition and the multiplication factor of those differences can create something. Absolutely. amazing Now at chess for life. Yes, we do create our platforms, you know, with Facebook and LinkedIn in different areas to share these mindsets of success freely, as far as we can, because we want to see every kid and the world in general, to embrace this kind of an approach instead of a small or a, a scarcity mindset, we would rather see the abundance mindset where when, when, when. Is truly possible. It's not a world of win-lose In other words, if I grow our business and we achieve a lot more students coming and helping a lot more, it's not that we took those away from anybody. No, it means more kids in this world have more opportunity.
Joshua Chernikoff:So at the root. of it And we've, talked about this Elliott Dotan, and I have talked about this and all of us have known this before we got in this little club of three is abundance is abundance. There's an abundance of kids. There's an abundance of knowledge. And we have. according to John Danner, one of the investors that Dotan and I follow, this world came at us five years, probably earlier than we expected in terms of the opportunity to learn online. And the pandemic helped with that. But we are now in a place where, there are kids to be reached globally. And so talk about. Please Elliot your goal now, which has, has been a little bit of a pivot, you know, because you had your in-person, opportunities that were taking place on a daily, weekly basis, several thousand kids in Washington state, who knows what will happen there, but you have made the move and are following it with online chess, correct?
Elliott Neff:Absolutely. A great point. So as we all know, the world has gone through a paradigm. In the last couple of years due to the COVID response. And that paradigm shift does not go back. It's like stretching the elastic band extremely far. It never will go back to its original shape and size. And the world has experienced this in the form of technology acceptance among groups that before were closed minded. Or felt it was impossible to do. And I say this, for example, from the sake of many times, school districts would have budgets that were so tight and so difficult to invest into the great investments necessary to bring technology forward at a rapid pace. And at the same time, it's easy. If you've had that in the education space or different spaces for 20, 30 years, how hard is it? It is to change a habit, right? Or you mindset yet what we see district. In the first six to nine months after the COVID shutdowns occurred, suddenly people who you would never think would be using technology are becoming adept at working with technology and zoom and online meetings and such. And so all of that laid the groundwork for an exponential growth in opportunities. And that is where the abundance and the positive side of it looks. You could look at everything that happened. We had to shut down 18,000 square feet of physical space, where kids were coming to us. You can say, look what we've lost. We chose to look at what are we gaining? So we're gaining a new capability and a new opportunity. How can we leverage this in order to further our core mission of teaching life skills through the game of chess and empowering a million students per week. That is what we set out to do. And within the first six weeks of that shutdown, we innovated what would normally have taken us probably three to five years. So we pivoted extremely fast, pretty all resources into doing that. And since then we've refined it further. And so we don't see ourselves going back to being exclusively in-person centers. Now we have this new capability, which means that students who otherwise could not come to one of our locations to get the benefit of life, lesson, training, and chess, they now can participate. Thanks to that virtual world. Now it doesn't mean that we would never do physical centers. No. At the right time in-person experience is something key and here's where we don't look at it. Just like, okay, what's the best business choice? No. How do we further. And to develop life lessons through the game of chess, chess itself teaches what complex problem solving skills, patience for thought calculations, strategic thinking. Many of these aspects that ties into educational concepts in classrooms. It helps with early learning math pre-algebra concepts. There's so many aspects from preschools that we partnered with headstart through colleges. But what about the EEQ site? What about the social emotional development, and we are doing what we can and making great steps forward in bringing these mindsets in three virtual environments. Get, imagine a kid sitting down at a chess board in person shaking hands with his opponent or her opponent, and going through that in-person experience of win, draw and learn. It's powerful. And so we anticipate that by going through the online space, we will be able to empower many more kids. Like we are now in 37 and growing states in the U S in multiple countries and multiple provinces, you know, different parts of the world. And at the same time, they will be able to gain that EEQ side as well by attending tournaments and competitions. So it's continually evolving. We're talking today and in six months, there's probably going to be a new aspect of it that has been. And move forward and it's super exciting to see the possibilities. I traveled to Africa at one point in order to help some youth that come from a slum, they're using the game of chess. That was a lot of time and resources with technology. You can be there by clicking a button.
Dotan Tamir:Yeah, you either kind of person that wakes up in the morning and say, I'm gonna change the world. and by, by teaching chess, but if you're not cheating, taking chess, you're really changing the world. So. before the pandemic, when people were not, when kids were not really adapted to doing all that kind of meeting people from other places, through the screen, it, you, you, it, it, it was also kind of a. Hard to think, how am I really going to do that? Because in order to impact millions of kids, you start thinking, oh, so I think millions of different people to go and travel and take a plane and take a go-to places and all those devices and all those. That was, way more, much harder to, to accomplish before this. I remember in 2017, at big idea, we were, doing the first virtual. afterschool program for kids with special needs, with a split, with a, in partnership with a nonprofit here in Israel. And, there were three kids in the group with an instructor online after school using Google needs or something like that. But the kids had no idea. So the instructor before the session began, the instructor had to go physically to all the houses. All those kids and make sure that they are able to click and log in and we use a camera, you know, and I'm talking four years ago, that the world has changed so dramatically. And I think it's much easier. It's much easier to change the world now.
Elliott Neff:Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, I'd like to add to that. That pre the COVID shutdown we already were working on. How do you accomplish a million youth a week? It's hard enough to find good chess players. It's even harder to find a good chess player who understands education and working with children. So how in the world are you going to scale to a million youth? And the way that we address that problem is we turned it on its head. We see. The children are already being taught by educators. They're already educators who care about kids in there and how to work with them. Let's figure a way if we could to simply train the. And provide them with the tools that allow them to bring the benefits of chess to their students. And we did, and we built technologies and different things, but the challenge as you were alluding to is pre COVID, it would be like, okay, we want to get this here, but we don't have devices and kids don't use them and teachers so use them that is gone. That that barrier is 100. Removed. So this is,
Joshua Chernikoff:this is an important, very important point. I think Totara that we have to pause for a second, because we have spoken to a lot of enrichment providers who recognize that there's an online opportunity. Also know that that their world has been in-person. And they're worried about taking that first step, or they haven't figured out how to take that first. And so talk about first. Otani not everybody has to be, or can be Elliot, NEF,
Elliott Neff:and second of
Joshua Chernikoff:all, how much can we use and can they use the train, the trainer, you know, because think about sports, right? We we've struggled with getting sports providers to go online, but if, if they're reaching into the school, And finding the teachers who are into this, do you think that's a way for them to potentially get and grow in the online
Elliott Neff:space?
Dotan Tamir:I think what, what Elliot is doing is basically using, a skill and a game in the past. To make a difference in a person's lives and help them grow. And this, you can take chess and replace chess with many other things, right. And they'll do different things and they'll take you to different directions, but you can take it to coding and you can take it to different arts and you can even teach the Terry Neri, and, and, and medicine and other things. And you can do all of that online today. Still there is a, there is a gap. A lot of the gap was filled in the last year and a half, but there's still a gap and we still need to think what still needs to be developed and brought to the world in order to grow this list, this list of skills that kids can learn. And. Changed their life. I'm not sure about sports. I think it depends. you know, it really depends, but what, but to your point, teachers are the core, the instructors, the educators are the core. Am I read a lot of articles saying that content is not the kingdom. But even the queen content is con was the king. I have to show some, some relations to check. I think content was the king, but with kids, You know, content is, it was never really the king. It was always the educator and people that are trying to, people that are thinking that, oh, now when it's digital, just give the kid some content and it will work. That's fine. Enough kids need a role model than then need an educator that need someone to be, to give them this personal touch. And this is the challenge because you still need good teachers. You still need good educators. And. I'll direct that question to you Elliott What do you think about that? Because I know you came up with this idea of they're already educators out there, but is this still a barrier? Is there still a limit based on the quality and quantity of educators?
Elliott Neff:well thank you Dotan for bringing up that question because not all educators are the same, right. Just because you've completed a course in teaching or something doesn't mean you've developed the skill of engaging. a classroom or a group of students. And there are so many aspects to this that there are all star educators and they're educators, and it is fascinating to see to me what matters is not so much the person, although the person is who's going to deliver of course, and do this. is the way it's delivered in a manner that the student finds it fun and engaging. And if you think about it, if you teach something too complex, it is confusing. You don't have fun and engagement. If you teach something too simple, it's not engaging. It's not challenging. So This question, I think is a key one is how do you take this forward? And to the point of saying sports in an online world, potentially, I want to, I want to make it a quick little point on this. I think what's essential is asking the right question. If we ask the question, is it feasible? That's like a yes or no. Instead, what if we said Assuming it was feasible, what would be necessary to make it fun and engaging for students? So now we open up the ideas and we can test and we can do that. And I do know some companies that have made some pretty amazing steps forward with bringing the value of sports education. Into homes, even in areas that they had no physical presence before. So there are things that could be done, love to see it. And I want to take a moment to, and say to a time what you've done with some of the work with, for example, You know, the power of something. There is you take out one of the barriers of success of someone with an idea, with a talent, with an ability that they want to share to students. You see, you mentioned how an educator as I am an entrepreneur, right. And a chess master, right. All came together. Well, when you're an entrepreneur and you're building a business, you need the ability to build it. Well, if you've got the right tools, You don't have to create everything from scratch. And when I saw some of the power of some of the tools that you have done, and I applaud you for that, right? You're solving those issues that may likely and will empower many other people with great value to be able to focus upon fun and engagement versus the backend logistics. So hats off to how you're not only doing the education yourself, you're making it easier for others to make, enrichment training. in a variety of states so much more powerful.
Dotan Tamir:Thank you so much. And Thanksgiving is tomorrow, right? So it's the right time to say, to say thank you for everything. Yeah.
Elliott Neff:I was wondering how you were going to react to that.
Dotan Tamir:I have, it just, you know, it, gave me another question to ask, so Josh, I know it might be a question that you are going to ask, but I'll ask it anyway. So Elliot, you mentioning how click two is really given a tool and, and kind of solving. The headaches that, those intrepreneurs may have that blocks them from thinking from, from creating, from imagining what else needs to be. Right. So what, what else it in, and I'm sure the answer is it's a lot. and we, we still don't know the full answer, but from what you are experiencing right now, and I know you are mentoring, many great people, that are in this space and you hear from them what they're struggling with, what they need, other tools to, to, to take their ideas for what, what are we still missing that need to be.
Elliott Neff:No, that's a deep question. And, and, I'm, there's no way I would say I've got the perfect answer, but my response in this space is a, again, a little bit of a mindset or as everything does it all boils back down to a chest analogy. You see everything is chest. So the one, the one I'd like to use here. Yes. I like to tell people the reason I'm a master at chess is because simply I play chess backwards. Many people think that chess is you have to be able to calculate and really memorize and move forward. Well, the trouble with all of that is in the first three moves of a chess game, right? Three moves for each side. Do you have any idea how many unique possible positions are there? I'll save you the. Approximately 9 million. And if you just go for moves into a chess game for, for each side, the number of possible positions explodes to 280 billion. It's not about memorization. So how do you achieve in chest very shortly? I think about what the advantages and disadvantages and then what is a reasonable goal? And then how do I get my pieces towards that goal? And therefore what move now Well most efficiently move me towards that goal. So that's a simple way of describing how I think in chess Now take that application to the question you asked about what is missing for educators and enrichment programs in this new space that we're in with the COVID response and the explosion in technological capabilities. That's made the global world very connected So what is missing the question again, ask the right question and then the answers may become easy. So I would encourage every entrepreneur who's navigating this and environment to ask this primary question, imagining yourself, 5 10 years down the road. What is the role? Of in-person versus virtual. What is your focus? Is it a hybrid model to best achieve your goal? Is it a virtual only model to achieve your goal? Is it a temporarily virtual because you're only going to do in-person and if that was your response, I would say I would strongly encourage you to say what aspect of virtual status Because the world is now so connected. I don't believe anybody can afford to ignore this new capability or they'll be left behind. It's just almost like saying you're going to have a business without a webpage this days Right. That's an, almost an unthinkable concept. It's not a nice to have. It's just a bottom line. Must have. So what aspect are you going to do in the virtual space? And what does that look like for you? Is it a combination for us, right? We can do virtual classes now with premium classes, kids going through their achievement charts, graduating level by level, we've got students who've won national championships, state championships. We don't say a lot about that because we want to focus on life achievement, but we can do it. And kids can now go through these levels anywhere in the world. Whereas before you had to come to one of our physical centers to do that experience. And so that's a great benefit of that. Will we go back to in person centers at the right time, we will empower that in-person experience because we believe there's an aspect of EQ development that is so much better in person. Does It mean we have to do all that. No there's collaborations. What if there's other organizations we partner with to deliver this? Who's your partner, perhaps, to collaborate on filling the void? Just like we mentioned about Clickto that could be filling a backend. void maybe there's a front-end piece So I'm not really giving you an answer so much as an idea of a way of thinking, the kind of thinking I took myself at Chess4Life even in the first few months of March, April and may of 2020, it was what does the future look like? It will involve some aspect of hybrid in-person and virtual. So
Joshua Chernikoff:on the. Thanksgiving edition of lifelong educators. Does it go back to abundance and gratitude and just being thankful for the opportunity that maybe your business made it through the pandemic, maybe lost some of your business, but you've recognized an opportunity in the online space. And I'm going to go out on a limb here because we're all in a very thankful mood and, and I will volunteer myself and Darton and. That any of us here in this community that we've created would be happy to extend a hand to anybody who's listening now or in the future that whatever you need help with, especially in the online space, we're here to help any, any,
Elliott Neff:any arguments there. I love to help. We love to help. And what matters to me is helping those who are trying to do. If somebody comes and says, I just want to increase our profits. And you know, my goal is this dollar figure. It is not energizing to me, but if somebody says I am on this mission to accomplish this, and here's why this is important to help other people to improve things, to do these elements, I'm highly energized. And I was helped by so many individuals over the years from being a teenage entrepreneur all the way up to today. One of my mentors gave me some advice and shout out to Andy Catterall. If he listens to this, he's now moved to England where he was originally from. He gave me a bit of advice that stuck with me over the years, and I think it's perfect for the time of Thanksgiving. He said always have one hand up and one hand down. Always have the hand up or someone is helping you and feeding and speaking into your life from their vast experience, wisdom, and always be helping someone. And I think if we all took that to heart, I am so grateful for what I believe God has blessed us with with the unique abilities. We each have the opportunity to do good to help others. And I do believe it comes down to an attitude of Greg. being thankful and grateful for what we have and at the same time, striving to use what we have to help others and bless others. And so this is a great time of year to reflect and to talk about these things. And absolutely, I, you know, if people have questions, clarifications, comments reach out and, you know, I just, because I've said it doesn't make it true. That's the beauty of chess too. You test ideas on the board, right? But these are, these are the things I believe, and I'm always learning and always growing until I join the conversation and love to hear from anyone who has a question or a comment, or would just like to share some ideas. Or play against,
Dotan Tamir:you know, you, you said something earlier and I just still. Echoes in my mind about the it's like, running a business without the webpage. and, and the world has gone through many transformations. and, and you, you're talking about the web page, the internet transformation, but today, of course, it's, it's vital for any, any business before that it was fun, you know? Businesses worked without having a phone line to call too. But who could imagine that today doesn't really need the phone anymore because people are going to reach you through the internet, but it's like the phone and then the webpage, and now it's basically online services and, and I can any other business, the enrichment and education are our services and they have to move online and, My question to you. So you talking about how you spoke about the educator and about the platform and about how you achieve all that. How has it all been accepted and by the parents and by the kids themselves, what do they think about this transition? How did they react?
Elliott Neff:That's another big question, because there's been a lot of, I hope I asked the right. So, so in terms of the online space, we've had many, many students and parents say to us, thank you for shifting making this possible. And that was in the first few months, right? When, instead of losing the opportunity to continue this, we provided something that was fun and engaging, could be done at home and continued there. Preparation to succeed wherever they go. We've had many people during that first year, especially if you reached out to them, say so when the COVID shutdowns are gone, can you keep this online? We don't have to fight traffic to come. We can do this from home. This is so convenient. We love this, the convenience factor. And we found that people who might not otherwise have thought about doing this came to realize. The requirement of doing this, that there was benefit in considering it. So it has been very well received at the same time. Others are like, no, I can't. I have to do stuff in person. Well, I think that mindset shifted over the length of time. The shutdowns occurred to where we have to do this online. And once you try it, you start to experience that, oh, this actually there is good with. You see, I think it's a little bit of that inertia or the fear of the unknown of just getting over that, that fear factor. It's try it, see it. And then you experience, it builds your confidence. And so I, I don't see much opposition to it. Now, if you have a choice, am I going to go in-person or am I going to go in and use the online different people are going to have different choices, but there. I believe, always be a time when they're going to say I need online. Imagine the future of education, the future of enrichment, where when a student is under the weather where you don't want that person necessarily with the other students, but they're not so sick, they couldn't do school. Jump into the virtual class. Why get behind stay right with your team. Right. There's so many conveniences or the vehicles or the traffic is bad, especially in Seattle where we had much of that. Right. Why fight the traffic? If you can just go there and then maybe once a month do something in person. So there's there there's so much upside from that. I don't know if I'm directly answering your question or responding to it, but I, I saw several different mindsets of response to this whole. One of them was the embrace the opportunity. Look at what it's going to do. Imagine if this continues and the whole world has grown in technology and capability, imagine what we could do then to make an impact. Then I saw nearly the opposite extreme. How do we survive? How do we buckle down? Wait for this to pass. In fact, the analogy I used with my team in the first. After this shutdown on Curtis, I said, imagine the tidal wave hitting the beach and you have two choices. One of them is be that rock. You Batten the hatches and you are the rock and the wave passes over. And when it's past that, there you are sturdy and strong. Or what, if you could be a surfer who says I'm going to surf this wave and turn it into energy and opportunity. And I said, I choose the surfing,
Joshua Chernikoff:guys, We said we were going to do this show 45 minutes. We're 45 minutes in. I think that we're not going to get kicked off the air. So that's good. I'm going to ask Elliot to tell one last story that ties very much into Thanksgiving. And I would like him to raise his right arm and grab what is over his right shoulder. And tell the story of going to Africa and everything that you've done. I don't
Elliott Neff:know what the rest of
Joshua Chernikoff:football now I don't want to hear about Russell Wilson. I want to hear about this. I think this is a wonderful story to end our show.
Elliott Neff:Thank you. I love to love to share this little bit here. Not sure how many of you have heard of this story, but there was, some years ago, a book came out called the queen of cots way and telling the story of. Young girl in the slum of cots way in Uganda and this little girl named Fiona went to chess club because there was food. There were many days she slept on the street. She was homeless days without food, but she heard about this chess club where there was food. She didn't know how to play, but she went there and if you played chess and learn how to play, then you got some food porridge. So she did, she started to get. Eventually she beat a bullet and she got excited who I can beat a boy. And then she went on to improve rapidly and she became the junior champion of Uganda. And then she qualified to become the youngest ever lady, young lady to represent her country at the world Olympia. There was a book written about the story I heard about the story. We ended up putting on a fundraiser to help support this message. In that slump. And that's how I ended up meeting this young lady and her coach. Well, during that meeting, her coach was out talking to me, the man who led this outreach and long story short, I ended up becoming her chess coach to help her prepare for the world Olympia, did that with just became friends and just helped out because they were doing on the opposite side of the world. What I was trying to do here, instilling mindsets of success, using the game of chess as that. And so we were friends and a few years later, Disney acquired the rights to that book and produced a movie, a live action film, a true story called the queen of. And right before the movie launched, as I traveled over to Africa and helped train this young lady helped support them so that she could go compete with her best foot forward in the Olympian. She did well on both root matches there, and then came to Toronto film festival for the movie. And this was a drum that was given to me in handmade drum from over there, signed by Robert Program and the story has a beautiful, beautiful end Dean. You could say, or shall we say next chapter? Because we had the privilege of being able to help this young girl and a young man from the slum, both get college scholarships here in the U S and both of them Benjamin and Fiona graduated this spring of 2021 with their four year degree. And I'm so pleased to say that Benjamin is thriving and doing he's working on his masters now just got accepted to duke university. And here's a kid who from the slum had a lifelong dream of becoming a neurosurgeon someday. And the dream has suddenly turned into a possibility and he's thriving and moving towards that path. And Fiona, the young girl who the book was written really about her and her coach, she graduated and she has now the latest. Gotten a job at Microsoft posts her first four years getting now like an internship and a trained in a job offer at Microsoft where she can take her background to have some global impact. And so it's just been a beautiful story to see how that has happened. And back to Robert who started this all out there using sports, by the way, soccer and chess to help youth, they have impacted over 4,000 kids in the. And when we talk about hybrid and in person, I'll just put this out there. If people ever want to check out Robert 10 day.com or.org, Robert is on a mission. Ultimately we had received donations, got enough acreage. He has a dream of building this state of the art school that will do education, chess, education for mindsets and computer skills, coding education. This was pre. And they've got the land. They've started classes. They still need to raise funds to ultimately build, build the whole project, but it's amazing to see what's going to happen. and I'm just so thankful for what we've been able to do to help support them, support the many other students and really the thousands of people who cared enough to support outreach. Like. You know, it's easy when we're here in America, especially or not. Shall we say first-world countries to take for granted things that, you know, third world country are not the norm I've been to south America. I've been to Africa and to different places. And it really is. I believe a responsibility of those who have much to use it in a way that benefits others. Happy
Joshua Chernikoff:Thanksgiving, you got the last word Dotan. Bring us, bring us out.
Dotan Tamir:Just beautiful story. Just, so you so fortunate to have this, to have this in your. And your backpack. so yeah, for, for, for great stories like that, for a great impact to the, for the whole world. And I think this was, not the end. Now it's just a teaser for.
Elliott Neff:Yeah.
Joshua Chernikoff:Some of the words that, that we should close out with that I continue to write down are gratitude, attitude, abundance community, and. That's going on, not just to Thanksgiving, but, but every single day for us. And again, that arm is out. I know it's up and down also, but it's out, right. We're happy to help. I'm so happy Thanksgiving to everybody. And Ellie, thank you for joining us and, Dotan let's. let's get outta here. It was a good show.
Elliott Neff:Glad to be here. Thank you for having us on and happy Thanksgiving to you and to everyone listening, wherever you are in the world. We have a lot to be grateful.
Dotan Tamir:And happy Hanukkah.
Elliott Neff:Cheers everybody. Bye bye.