What Separates Champions From ‘Almost Champions’? -- Science of Us

What Separates Champions From ‘Almost Champions’? -- Science of Us

I’m going to start of with a long series of quotes from an article in The Cut titled “What Separates Champions From ‘Almost Champions’?

It’s the perennial million-dollar question of nature versus nurture, sure. But the difference between the greats and the almost-greats (which, by the way, applies well beyond sports) also appears to be at least partially driven by one specific thing — how each group responds to adversity. The greats rise to the challenge and put in persistent effort; the almost-greats lose steam and regress.  

For a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, talent development researchers Dave Collins, Aine MacNamara, and Neil McCarthy examined the differences between athletes who overcame adversity and went on to become world-class (what they call super champions) and those who struggled in the face of hardship (the hearthbreakingly named “almost champions”) . Whereas super champions were playing in premier leagues and/or competing on national teams (think: Olympics), almost champions had achieved well at the youth level but were playing in the less prestigious leagues as adults. 

The researchers found that super champions were characterized “by an almost fanatical reaction to challenge.” They viewed challenges in a positive light — as opportunities to grow — and overcame them thanks to a “never satisfied” attitude. This runs in contrast to almost champions, who blamed setbacks on external causes, became negative, and lost motivation.
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Super champions were driven from within. Their primary concern was self-improvement. They held themselves to high standards, but judged themselves against prior versions of themselves, not against others.
Almost champions, however, were focused on external benchmarks, like national rankings or how they compared to rivals, a mind-set the researchers speculate why almost champions got discouraged during rough patches.  

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World-class performers, then, don’t rely on either nature or nurture, but on a combination of the two — and they are really good at nurturing their nature. All of which suggests the recipe that gives rise to super champions is worth emulating: Individuals who demonstrate persistent effort follow their interests; practice foremost to get better, not to outdo others; derive satisfaction from within; and feel constantly supported, but not pressured, in their journey toward achievement. If these criteria are in place, experiencing failure doesn’t weaken motivation — it bolsters it. In the words of Michael Joyner, an expert on human performance at Mayo Clinic, “With enough persistent effort, most people can get pretty good at anything.”

These results touch on a number of topics I’ve covered in previous posts: having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset, focusing on the process rather than results, focusing inwardly on how you’re performing per your own standards instead of worrying about how you’re being perceived externally by your opponent or your friends, engaging in deliberate practice to improve, not just repeating what you already do well and not pushing yourself in practice and having grit as a personal quality. The Cut article doesn’t specifically touch on all of these points while I think they’re all implicitly involved.

I figure someone reading all of this might ask how studying world-class performers applies to us. How many of us really fall into that category? I know it will sound arrogant or obnoxious but I like to think I applied these ideas when designing and delivering presentations when I was working, in my tennis game and in other areas of my life such as relationships, etc. While I’ll probably never climb to the A level of players at the clubs where I play I do know my game has continually improved thanks to my constant investment into getting better. I like to think I’m now a B+ player! ;-) That’s why I believe the quote at the end of the article is key, which is why I’m repeating it below.

In the words of Michael Joyner, an expert on human performance at Mayo Clinic, “With enough persistent effort, most people can get pretty good at anything.”

Amen!

Coaching Junior Varsity High School Tennis: 2nd Year Observations

This spring I completed the second season of coaching a boy’s junior varsity team for a local Catholic high school. Although I haven’t coached a high school sport before I have coached town and club soccer teams from Under 12 up to U18 teams. However, as you can imagine none of the drills and exercises I used for coaching soccer helped with coaching tennis. The only commonalities shared by both centers on my general preference for coaching. This includes finding ways to set up practices so that the players aren’t standing around in lines waiting for their turn, keeping instructions short and to the point rather than long lectures, and not having the players run laps. (No lines, lectures or laps.) Fortunately for me, the varsity coach (who started at the same time as me) has coached high school tennis for 15 years and designed most practices for both varsity and JV.

In any case, I’m glad to say that the JV record for the two seasons I’ve coached was 6 wins and 6 losses in 2017 and 7 wins and 4 losses in 2018. For what it’s worth here are some conclusions and lessons I learned from these two seasons.

1.        Relative coaching pressures between varsity and JV. While varsity plays to have a good enough record to qualify for the end of season state tournament, JV doesn’t have the same tournament. (At least that’s true here in Massachusetts. I don’t know if this is true in other states.) That doesn’t mean I don’t care about the win-loss record. I know the boys (and their parents) do keep track of how they’re doing. This gave me the freedom to experiment with different lineups without being unduly concerned about the results.

2.        Statistics. I use a spreadsheet to track the win-loss match record of each player as well as the number of sets won or lost and total number of games won or lost. I also tracked how many times each boy played an exhibition match. (Exhibition matches are those that we play after the initial three singles and two doubles matches that determine which school won that day. With 11 players on my roster and 7 playing official matches I had 4 extra players who would play exhibition matches with the extra players of the other team.) I also tracked the win-loss record of the different doubles teams so that I knew which teams were stronger.

3.        Coaching technique. You’d think the fact that we worked with the boys five days a week for ten weeks that the varsity coach and I could work on their technique. However, we usually had 2 or 3 matches a week, leaving only 2 or 3 days a week for practices. Plus it was difficult spending too much time with any one player when you have 11 or 12 at the practice. So the best we could do is make some suggestions. (I liken it to the difference in what you can learn in taking a tennis clinic versus a private lesson.) We had a couple players who asked for specific help on a specific stroke like their backhand or serve. For them we’d have the player stay after practice so we could work with them. The bottom line: we spent more time working on singles and doubles tactics.

4.        Chalk talk sessions. We started try-outs and practices in the third week of March. However, New England weather often forced us to cancel practice or run them in a basketball gym, which limits the amount of tennis-like activities you can run. When forced indoors the varsity coach and I would use foam balls or low-pressure balls to work on technique. Sometimes I would have JV meet in a conference room where I could go over some of the info I shared with them in emails and to explain handouts showing positioning in singles and doubles.

5.        Designing practices. I mentioned above that I was lucky to have an experienced varsity coach (who also instructs at a local tennis club) who designed the practices. Still, there were times when I was on my own because varsity had a match while JV didn’t. I was frustrated when looking for ideas on designing practices in the various books I have as well as coaching web sites. Most of the drills and games offered in these sources involve only 1 to 4 players. I wanted to create practices that involved everyone, if possible. One of my solutions was to use a game-based approach in which the boys played singles or doubles games but with conditions I imposed to get the boys to play in a certain way. For example, I set a condition where all of the players had to be inside the lines of the court after the serve. This encouraged them to play a bit more aggressively instead of retreating behind the baseline and playing defensively all of the time.

6.        Pre-match talks. While I tracked individual win-loss record in addition to the team’s win-loss record I never talked about winning or losing during the pre-match team talk. Why? Because I know that the players can’t control whether they win or lose. They can only control how the thought and effort they put into their play. I came up with a mantra that I repeated before each match: Give 100% effort (or take no points off), act strong and poised regardless of the score, enjoy the competition (because it shows where you can improve and what you do well), and learn from every mistake and every match.

7.        Between the points ritual. I told the boys that they spend more time getting ready to play the next point than they do actually playing the point. To help the boys focus between points I recommended a three-step process: Review, Rehearse, Relax. When the point ended I recommend that the player review what happened, especially if it was an error. Then rehearse what you wanted to happen by taking a couple shadow swings while visualizing the shot they wanted to make. Relax by taking a couple deep breaths while looking at their string dampener.

8.        Importance of team captain. The team elected the same team captain in both seasons. He turned out to be a great asset. I had him introduce the players to the opposing teams but also had him organize getting parents to volunteer providing drinks and snacks for our home matches. He also ran the warm ups before practices and matches. He also told me if he knew certain guys would not be able to attend a practice or match due to illness, school commitments, etc.

9.        Team emails. In addition to using the school email system to inform the boys of the upcoming practice and match schedule I’d also use the email to share important information on technique and tactics from a variety of sources such as web sites or email newsletters from a variety of online coaches. I’d also print out key diagrams as handouts.

10.    Parent emails. From talking with the parents who would come to watch their son play at home matches I learned that the amount of information the boys shared with their parents varied wildly. Some parents had no idea how the team was doing or what we worked on during practices. While I know I don’t need to cater to the parents I also know they’re more likely to complain to the Athletic Director if they don’t know what is going on with the team (in general terms). I’m not talking about giving parents a blow-by-blow accounting of everything we do. But I figure it helps to explain my coaching philosophy and provide some key information on tactics and techniques to make them feel a bit more comfortable. It appears I struck the right balance because all of the input received from the parents has been positive.

11.    Cheat sheet. I’m not sure why I saved this for the final point but I distilled key points for singles, doubles and general tips into one double-sided sheet. We covered this sheet during our chalk talk sessions and referred to it sometimes during the pre-match talks. It was an interesting process whittling the tons of info I have into what I think are the most important.

That’s it!

Can I? versus I Can!

Having read many self-help books over the years I’ve constantly encountered the idea of using positive self-talk and affirmation statements to help improve your chances of achieving your goals. Many of these books tell you to write positive “affirmation” statements. Examples would be:

• I have plenty of creativity for this project.
• I am successful.
• I complete tasks and projects on time.
• I expect to be successful in all of my endeavors. Success is my natural state.

A tennis example could be, "I always play my best" or "I love competition and do well."

When I read these books years ago and tried affirmations I believe they helped put me in a more positive frame of mind. However, as I wrote in my April 23, 2017 post “Moving Beyond Positive Thinking”, research has shown that if we vividly visualize our goals our mind doesn’t know the difference between the imagined outcome and the actual results! We can end up having less motivation not more. In this post I referred to work done by Gabriele Oettingen, professor of psychology at New York University and the University of Hamburg and covered in her book Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation.

Daniel Pink, author of books such as Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us and To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, reports on research that says we can be more productive by asking if we can do something then answering with a “yes” rather than declaring “I can do it.” Pink describes research done on a method used by Bob the Builder, an “overall-clad, stop-motion animated construction executive – who debuted on CBBC in 1999 and whose television programme now reaches children in 240 territories and 45 languages – is a management radical. His approach to directing projects, people and himself runs counter to the prevailing wisdom about business performance.”

Most of us believe in positive self-talk. "I can achieve anything," we mouth to the mirror in the morning. "Nobody can stop me," we tell ourselves before walking into a big meeting. We believe we'll do better if we banish doubts about our ability or our strategy and instead muster an inner voice that affirms our awesomeness.

But not Bob. Instead of puffing up himself and his team, he first wonders whether they can actually achieve their goal. In asking his signature question – Can we fix it? – he introduces some doubt.

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In a nifty set of experiments, three social scientists explored the differences between what they call "declarative" self-talk (I will fix it!) and "interrogative" self-talk (Can I fix it?). They began by presenting a group of participants with some anagrams to solve (for example, rearranging the letters in "sauce" to spell "cause".) But before the participants tackled the problem, the researchers asked one half of them to take a minute to ask themselves whether they would complete the task – and the other half to tell themselves that they would complete the task.

The results?

The self-questioning group solved significantly more anagrams than the self-affirming group.

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By asking "Can we fix it?", Bob widens the possibilities. Only then – once he's explored the options and examined his assumptions – does he elicit a rousing "Yes, we can" from his team and everyone gets to work.

So the next time you're feeding your inner self a heady brew of confident declarations and bold affirmations, toss in a handful of interrogatives with a few sprinkles of humility and doubt.

The research that Pink reports relates somewhat to Oettingen’s WOOP process. WOOP stands for Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, and Plan. You define what you wish [W] to accomplish, determine the outcome [O], identify the likely obstacles [O] then design a plan [P] to overcome those obstacles.

Am I saying not to use positive affirmations? No! I think they have a place. For an interesting perspective see Scott Adams’ How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life. Adams in hardly a raving advocate of positive mental attitude but he admits to have tried positive affirmations. I think the key take away is not to expect affirmations to have magical powers that will make things happen without work or without accounting for obstacles that could derail your efforts. We need to have a positive idea where we want to go while also asking ourselves what could go wrong and what can we do to deal with it.

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By now you’re probably wondering, “How does this apply to tennis or other sports?” Here’s how it applies for me. When I step onto the court I ask myself a version of Bob the Builder’s question: “Can I play well today? … Yes!” (I also use the acronym LIFE³ to remind why I’m playing: to Learn, Improve, have Fun and to Express myself, to Explore my capabilities and to Exercise.)