About

Training the strength & conditioning of skills, just like your fitness.

Hey, I'm Misbah Haque — the mind behind Habit Chess. I help high-agency thinkers approach skill development like athletes approach physical training: strategically, systematically, and with a focus on compound gains.

Ever notice how most people approach learning new skills? They dabble without direction, bounce between random tactics, and wonder why they plateau so quickly. They're essentially doing the equivalent of walking into a gym without a plan and expecting results.

I've been there too. For years, I collected strategies and frameworks but struggled to integrate them into a coherent system. I'd jump from one learning approach to another, never quite creating the momentum needed for breakthrough results.

Then something clicked. As a strength coach who had worked with everyone from complete beginners to professional athletes, I realized the principles that transformed physical performance could revolutionize skill acquisition in any domain.

The turning point came when I stopped treating learning as something mystical and started seeing it as something measurable. Just as you wouldn't expect to bench press 300 pounds without progressive overload and proper recovery, you can't expect to master complex skills without the right training methodology.

This realization changed everything for me. I began developing a system that applied proven strength and conditioning principles to intellectual and professional skills:

Progressive overload for cognitive abilities. Periodization for project planning. Recovery protocols for creative work. Strategic skill stacking for unique leverage.

I tested these approaches in my own life first. In 2016, I started podcasting from my childhood bedroom with zero audience or credibility. Within just one year, consistency and strategic skill building paid off - I landed my dream job in the Bay Area coaching Fortune 1000 executives and professional athletes while producing and co-hosting a show that went on to do over 1 million downloads.

In 2020, I founded Pod Mahal with the mission to help others build their own table with podcasting. This venture allowed me to work with hundreds of ambitious professionals to understand the real limiters people face. I also published the Pod Mahal book in May 2025 to further share these strategies. Through this journey, I've developed a weird body of work that opened doors I couldn't have imagined.

I’ve learned an assortment of skills from what I call context mapping from fitness. Things like:

  • Coming back stronger than before when they said I wouldn’t after my lower back injury when I was 19

  • Competing in Olympic weightlifting post injury for 3 years

  • Coached onsite clients for a combined thousands of hours in the Philly area, San Diego, and San Rafael

  • Coached and managed a roster of over 60+ 1:1 remote clients in over 15 countries

  • Interviewed world class athletes and coaches on my first podcast (The Airborne Mind Show) that would land me my dream opportunities

  • Helped Marcus Filly produce and co-host Look Good Move Well for the first 120 episodes

  • Pouring my life into stand up comedy for 4 years

  • Understand how to bring writing to life

  • Learn to craft and hone something through iteration and bombing

  • Failed small and big with projects that cost me my own money

  • Know how to analyze data and improve it

  • Built laplist.io with zero coding skills

  • and much more

The results weren't accidental—they came from applying athletic training principles to skills that matter in a knowledge economy.

That's why I created Habit Chess: to provide a strategic framework for high-agency thinking and skill acquisition. My mission is to help ambitious individuals master what's notoriously difficult to teach – the meta-skills of learning and performance that make all other skills more valuable. While high-agency thinking isn't easy to absorb, those who commit to it gain the ability to make their skill stack compatible with practically any core skills they choose to develop.

While I help others build their own table through consulting at Pod Mahal, Habit Chess is where I focus on these foundational capabilities that create exponential returns: my podcast, newsletter, and training programs equip ambitious individuals with mental models, decision-making strategies, and high-leverage skills that allow them to see the game differently and make moves that compound over time.

Habit Chess stands at the intersection of strategic thinking and skill acquisition, delivered through an immediately actionable approach that challenges conventional wisdom about success and progress.

When I'm not creating or consulting, you'll find me:

  • reading books

  • writing books

  • hanging out with my wife

  • playing tennis

  • building something

  • and just being a person

As an INFP, I'm naturally drawn to finding meaning and connections between diverse ideas, and I love translating complex concepts into frameworks that help people grow and fulfill their potential.

If you're tired of random "productivity hacks" and ready for a systematic approach to becoming harder to compete with, you're in the right place. The world doesn't need more tips and tricks—it needs more strategic thinkers who understand how to train their capabilities for performance when it counts.

Ready to elevate your skill development?

Get my Habit Chess newsletter for free here.

And subscribe to Habit Chess Podcast on Spotify or YouTube. Wherever you listen to your pods.

Have a specific challenge you're facing with skill acquisition or looking to discuss how these principles might apply to your unique situation?

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