Novak Djokovic tells 60 Minutes that mental toughness isn't a gift you're born with, it's trained. Carol Dweck and Anders Ericsson show how deliberate practice builds greatness. The work is yours to do.
Questions this video answers
July 5, 2024.
24 major championships.
22 major championships.
20 major championships.
Chapters
Hi, this is Ryan. Welcome back to another heroic one. The other day I was having a chat with a new friend who happens to be the head coach of one of the most prestigious college football programs in the country. We were chatting about how we plan to roll out heroic for his team and the team behind the team for the upcoming season. That was a lot of fun. And one of the things we were chatting about of course was how to forge anti fragile confidence so they can activate their heroic potential on and off the field and win a national championship. As we were discussing how to go about doing that, coach brought up a 60 minute segment with the great tennis player Novak Djokovic. Check it out. Linked in this plus one. It's only 13 minutes and it is fantastic. Now you may already know that Novak is considered the greatest tennis player of all time. I don't follow tennis, so I didn't know that until I watched the 60 Minute segment. With 24 major championships, Novak has two more than Rafael Nadal, the who won 22 majors, and four more than Roger Federer who won 20. So by those numbers, he's the greatest of all time. But Novak wasn't always better than those guys. In fact, early on in his career, he'd always lose to those guys. Not only that, but they consistently intimidated him. It wasn't until he developed an incredibly strong mental toughness protocol that his game went to the next next next level and he became as dominant as he is. But that's not quite what I want to focus on today. What I want to talk about is one scene in the conversation where the interviewer prefaces a question by saying, people understand big muscles and speed and strength. Mental strength, which is what I think is your great gift, is much harder to articulate. Then before he could finish his next sentence, Novak politely but firmly interrupted him as he said, I have to correct you, it is not a gift. It is something that comes with work. To which the interviewer said with a bit of surprise, you train for your mental side the way you would your serve or your forehand. How? To which Novak said, absolutely. Then he continued to chat about the various techniques he uses to train his mental game, starting with his conscious breathing. And that is what I want to focus on in today's 1. Our culture likes to live from the myth of the gift that the great ones have, as if their extraordinary abilities were handed to them by the heroic gods at birth. Carol Dweck talks about this all the time in her great books. See Notes on Mindset in Self Theories for more now believing that myth lie of greatness is exactly how you fall into the fixed mindset trap, in which you believe you either got lucky or more likely didn't get lucky to get the gift all the great ones got. Now, Dweck tells us, and I quote her, we endow our heroes with superhuman abilities that lead them inevitably toward their greatness. It's as if Midori popped out of the womb fiddling, Michael Jordan dribbling and Picasso doodling. This captures the fixed mindset perfectly. And it's everywhere. Note this 60 minute scene is an example of it being everywhere in why I created this one. Mozart was born a genius, right? Wrong. Sure, he had talent. And yes, he was also born the son of a world class music teacher. And he worked so hard his hands became deformed. As Dweck also says, and I quote her again, do you know that Darwin and Tolstoy were considered ordinary children? That Ben Hogan, one of the greatest golfers of all time, was completely uncoordinated and graceless as a child? That the photographer Cindy Sherman, who has been on virtually every list of the most important artists of the 20th century, failed her first photography course? That Geraldine Page, one of our greatest actresses, was advised to give up for lack of talent. Now, Anders Ericsson, the godfather of deliberate practice, talks about this in his book Peak as well. Check out those notes. He tells us the exact same thing. We all, he says, have the most important gift. In short, the ability to transform ourselves into that which we aspire to be. In his words, and I quote Anders Ericsson. But the clear message from decades of research is that no matter what role innate genetic endowment may play in the achievements of gifted people, the main gift that these people have is the same one we all have. The adaptability of the human brain and body, which they have taken advantage of more than the rest of us. So, spotlight on you. How do you think about the whole idea of gifts and greatness? Notice whether you think those you admire were lucky to be gifted something you weren't so lucky to get, or whether you know that sure, we all get different blessings and curses, but it's ultimately all about what we do with those gifts that make us extraordinary, or to be blunt, mediocre. It's really important we take extreme ownership of the fact we all have the gift. Then we need to get to work unwrapping that gift and giving it to the world. As I typed that, another historically great genius came to mind, Thomas Edison. He once said, we often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work. So, with this wisdom in mind, if you feel so inspired, please put on your heroic overalls and get to work. Give us your gifts today.
