FRANTZLEY MOISE AND THE W INITIATIVE
by Sarah Sorne | Photography by Dave Barfield
Moise uses “serious play” in a competitive game (which itself can be playful) to show how to achieve this balance. He cites the Red Bull company—specifically their brand of marketing strategy—as his primary example of “serious play.”
What if I told you that one move would make the difference between you winning and losing? What if I told you that your success depends on your decisions?” Frantzley Moise believes that everyone already has the tools they need in order to achieve their greatest goals — they just need to develop a winning strategy.
Moise grew up in Miami and received his B.S. in Health Science from FAMU in Tallahassee, and Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership of Educational Organizations from American InterContinental University. Having lived in Tallahassee since 2000, he has taught students
from pre-K to 12th grade, and it continues to serve as his home base for motivational speaking engagements across the nation — his most recent in Mobile, Alabama at the time of this interview.
He himself has been playing chess since high school, carrying a chess board and pieces everywhere he went. As he taught other students to play, he learned that the game could be used as a means of teaching life skills like patience, planning, sportsmanship, knowing the rules, learning from mistakes, developing good decision making, and strategy, without directly addressing those skills. He helps students learn to play with purpose—“not only to play bigger, better, and bolder, but to live bigger, better, and bolder.” Frantzley penned the 44-page book “Chess 4 Life, Life 4 Chess” to share these discoveries. He plans to use the concept of conveying life skills through alternative methods to expand beyond chess.
He more recently created The W Initiative (now parent company of Chess 4 Life) to help students, businesses and people of all ages alike maximize their potential by teaching them concepts and problem-solving skills they otherwise would have not had exposure to. The core concept of The W Initiative revolves around the idea of the “balanced win”: the letter “W” in French (dubla-ve) means “double V,” and The W Initiative is intended to instruct people on how to achieve Victories in both their professional and personal lives, while striking a balance between the two. And by allowing people to tap into their potential, The W Initiative also helps communities secondhand through the recipients’ interactions with their own communities.
Moise uses “serious play” in a competitive game (which itself can be playful) to show how to achieve this balance. He cites the Red Bull company — specifically their brand of marketing strategy — as his primary example of “serious play.”
Chess 4 Life is the first in a series of programs Moise says will soon be available. The main goal is to teach people how to make decisions, and how these decisions affect other decisions. Moise says schools do not teach these skills effectively enough, and he hopes to plug the gaps that are found in our current education system.
Moise has three additional books in the works: “Leap,” which will offer checkers-based life coaching, will be available in the late summer/early fall of 2017, “Chess 4 Life 2” (after numerous requests from his original “Chess 4 Life” fans), and “W Black,” which seeks to be a motivational and inspirational book.
Add “Chess 4 Life, Life 4 Chess” to your summer reading list, currently available for purchase from Amazon.com ($21).
