Joshua Colas is a neatly dressed skinny kid with glasses. Nothing flashy–he’s just a regular 16-year-old high school junior.

The family home, an apartment, is filled with scores of trophies of various shapes and sizes. Space is limited. Room now must be found as more trophies may be on the horizon since Joshua may be close to stardom. He doesn’t play sports nor does he have a singing, music, or acting talent. Joshua’s talent is found at the table with a board game.

Joshua is a chess whiz. No, he’s a chess champion. No, check that, he’s a prodigy whose ambition is to become one of the world’s best players.

Joshua learned to play from his father. It began when the boy was just seven years of age. In a few months, son was beating dad. He has a photographic memory and he memorizes the board.

Joshua compares his skill to finding his way home. Do it enough times and the route becomes second nature. No wonder his career highlights are longer than five pages. His chess rating has risen each year. At 10, he was third best in the nation in that age group. At 12, Joshua was the youngest African-American Chess Master (his family is from Haiti). At 13, he topped all players in that group.

Now, Joshua is ranked 231 out of more than 52,000 chess players of all ages who are registered with the United States Chess Federation. He has been selected to the 2015 All-American Chess Team.

For intense chess players, or should I say chess masters, the four-hour matches can become tiresome. Joshua, though, never gets too high or too low. He relaxes his brain before each match so as not to place too much pressure on himself.

Joshua’s goal is to become the first American-born black Grandmaster. To do this, he first must become an International Master. He will face that challenge during a European tour this coming summer. That goal is not cheap. Joshua is raising about $24,000 for travel, hotels and tournament entry fees.

With the help of family and friends, Joshua will be on that tour. Then, he just needs his second nature to kick in.

Checkmate!

Jim

The baton is in the air one, two, three, four and up to seven seconds. The work involves tricks, dance and gymnastics, with every move requiring concentration and precision. At least two hours of practice are required each day for this sport.

We are talking about twirling. Yes, it is considered a sport, and it’s just not for the ladies.

Richie Terwilliger of Rockland County is a twirler. He’s 22 and he has competed in six world championships. About 20 countries actively participate. But twirling as a sport is virtually unknown here. As Richie often says, people think of college twirlers, parades and girls whenever twirling is mentioned.

The female-to-male twirling ratio is 40-to-one here. In some other countries, it is 50-50. Richie started twirling at age 12, but he stopped several times. As a youngster, he wasn’t quite comfortable with the ratio. Since then, his love for the sport, and its unlimited tricks, flips and rolls, has convinced him to continue to compete.

Richie was introduced to twirling by his kid sister, a champion herself, and they have appeared in pairs competitions. The increasing roles for guys and the growing difficulty of competition that can include one to three batons prompted Richie to up his game. He has taken martial arts to help him focus. Gymnastics and dance classes have improved his balance.

Richie’s coach has complimented the young man on his blend of strength, flexibility and natural artistic ability. He has mastered rolling a baton over his body without the use of hands, and he is the only competitor to juggle a baton with his elbows before it is knocked behind him with a knee to allow him to catch it.

Though focused now on his college classes of mechanical and aerospace engineering, Richie has continued to compete in twirling “because it’s cool, it’s fascinating, it’s fun.”

Learning about Richie and his passion for twirling provides us with some great lessons that we can adapt for business. We can incorporate these lessons into our daily routine and we can introduce them to the people who work with and for us.

What have we learned? First, let’s pursue unconventional ideas. Second, we must remember to properly study and train for any task. Third, let’s find ways to ensure that we never lose the passion for what we do each day.

Let’s be just like Richie, because what we do every day is cool, is fascinating and it is fun!

Jim