Hello and welcome to the Tennis IQ Podcast. I'm Brian Lomax. And I'm Josh Berger. And in today's episode, we are going to talk about... centeredness, which can certainly be tied into the ego and how that can contrast with self-awareness. And the idea for this actually came from a book Inner Excellence by Jim Murphy, which I'm currently reading and which actually got a lot of publicity just a couple of months ago when A.J. Brown from the Super Bowl winning Philadelphia Eagles.
was seen reading this during a game on the sidelines, you know, flipping through the pages during a game. And this book has a lot of different themes on the mental side of the game, sports psychology themes. But I think this idea of... sort of contrasting the ego or self-centeredness from self-awareness, I think is a really interesting point in how we can... you know, how we can come to understand these two ideas. And then also how that fits into failure and maybe how people view failure.
We can, I think, certainly bring up some examples of athletes that have found maybe more productive or healthier ways to view failure. So, yeah, Brian wanted to see sort of as a starting point, what's your thoughts on... on this topic or on some of those concepts of self-centeredness, ego, and self-awareness. I wanted to see some of your initial thoughts. Let's start with self-centeredness. So when I read that passage, Josh, I was immediately, I thought of ego right away and I...
Ego is kind of an abstract concept. So let's put a definition to it. And I like when we're thinking about self-centeredness, I like Ryan Holiday's definition. So Ryan Holiday writes a lot about stoic philosophy. And in his book, Ego is the Enemy. He defined ego for the way he wanted to talk about it in his book as an unhealthy belief in your own importance.
And when I hear unhealthy, it doesn't necessarily mean like we're being arrogant about it, although that could be part of the ego. But some of it also comes from... about who you are and the need to validate yourself. through outside results or praise, things out of your control. And I think that that's a bit of what Jim Murphy is really talking about here. Could be arrogance, but it also could be the fact that... We don't really fully believe in ourselves yet.
And I think as we all grow up in sport and in life. It's kind of a rite of passage that we have to get to this place of, you know, how do I feel about myself? How do I feel about my abilities? How do I know I'm any good? That's actually one of the things that many junior tennis players struggle with is this notion of, am I good enough or I'm not good enough?
Like I said, I think this is like a necessary stage that we have to go through. And then, you know, the author then brings us through, all right, how do we begin to deal with this? And how can we... create better perspectives on I want to definitely get into more about failure and that word. We've discussed it in the past, but I want to get deeper into that.
and learn to adopt ways of thinking here that promote more mastery and learning as opposed to the need to win or the need to have some sort of achievement that is really only serving to validate who you are. And we talked about in the paradox of the ego, this notion of letting go of the ego. But of course, you can't let go of the ego until you have built a strong sense. of who you are and i think that's where the the process
And I think it's good for all the listeners to maybe take stock. Where am I in that process? And hopefully over the course of this episode, we'll get help people kind of understand that. Yeah. And as I think you touched on a little bit, we covered this topic from sort of a different angle in episode 202. So not too long ago, just a few months ago.
where we talked about the paradox of the ego, just like you're referencing where, you know, sometimes it requires... you to go through that process of actually having an ego of maybe being really tied to your outcomes and results. to understand that there's maybe a different path forward, that there's maybe a better path forward. And I think the way that I will often try to explain it to people is that...
No matter how high of a level you achieve in your sport, and you could be best in the world, there are always ups and downs. There are always ups and downs. You're never nobody. plays their best every single day. Nobody wins every time. So if we are tying our... Tying our self-worth and tying our ego to our results, then in a certain way, we are really setting ourselves up for failure, for failure, for disappointment, for frustration, because it's not going to be...
the way that we want it to be each time we're out there. There will be times where we're great. There will be times where we're less than our best. And if it's constantly, if we're constantly... Tying that to our worth as a person and putting too much stock in that, then we're setting ourselves up to not think much of ourselves or to at least, at the very least, have a... inconsistent or unstable.
feeling about ourselves and about our progress, where, you know, we can talk about different... things to focus on instead you know being more process focused having more of a mastery orientation um you know focusing more on excellence things like this which I think not only are they more sustainable because we can work to
get better every day and track our progress in that way. But, you know, but I think it's more within our control. So I think it's more controllable and more sustainable in a lot of ways. For different reasons, the ego or sort of this idea of being self-centered is a trap. it might be a necessary trap to sort of overcome that in order to approach things in an ultimately better way.
Life is like an obstacle course of different lessons we need to learn, sort of like a Spartan race. And many of us will run into some of the same obstacles. Many of us will also have unique ones. And we see that with the players that we work with, Josh. Many will probably come to us with the exact same thing they're experiencing. And then every now and then you'll get somebody who's a little bit different.
And, you know, they've maybe taken a different path. But I think from a human perspective, this is one that we all go through. And I think trap is a good word because not everybody gets out of the trap. Some people remain in that trap for a long, long time.
you know how do we get out of the trap how do we learn that and i think that's a little bit of what is covered in this book, this notion of self-centeredness versus... self-awareness so can you cover because you've read more of this book than i have can you cover what he means by self-awareness as a means of dealing with this sort of self-centered, egocentric view of performance.
I would say the way that I would describe it is he talks about self-centeredness as being very ego-focused and very outcome-focused. He gives an example of somebody who maybe gives a presentation or a talk and doesn't feel like it goes so well. And from a ego perspective, they are so focused just on that outcome, just on that end result saying, oh, I'm such a failure.
you know everybody's judging me i'm never gonna make it as a public speaker um you know why should i even keep trying um and can be contrast that with more of a self-aware. vantage point where, yes, maybe there's still some frustration about the talk or presentation not going as well, but there's also that awareness of why. there's the awareness that okay maybe i could have prepared
There's the awareness of, you know, maybe I didn't handle the pressure as well during certain key moments of that talk. Maybe I... Could have, you know, prepared for the actual content of the talk and maybe prepared myself mentally as well for what I might be experiencing out there. So it's more, I think that that second piece or that second. option, we can say, of self-awareness is it brings in different aspects of instead of just focusing on the outcome, which obviously...
you know, even if we focus on the process and sort of how we get there, there's still going to be some, I guess we could say awareness of the outcome. But we are also focusing on, you know, Everything that leads up to that point, how we are approaching the situation, how we're feeling, the thoughts going through our heads, we're taking more of a comprehensive approach to our performance than just that. obsession on, on results and sort of identifying too much with those results themselves.
And I think part of the development of self-awareness is the ability to, in a way, step outside of yourself and see it almost from like a third person perspective of like what happened. yep and um when you can do that Then, like you just said, Josh, you're not over-identifying with the performance. You're not connecting your self-worth to, yeah, that was a horrible presentation or that was a horrible... Therefore, I'm not a good player.
You can take a look at it. And I think we've discussed these questions a few times here, but... um reflection questions and so and also a little bit more from dr richard young who studies a lot of olympic athletes he works with a lot of olympic athletes what we'll call oversight Both of these can really help when you're trying to step outside of yourself and be more self-aware. So the typical reflection questions of, all right, what went well?
What needs work? What did I learn through this process? You're right. And you might've learned, okay. You suck at presentations. You need to do a few things better or you're not handling pressure matches as well as you could. All right. So we've learned that. Maybe that's what needs work. The oversight questions are looking more at the overall process of preparation and recovery and performance. And it's like, what do I need to continue doing? So what's working?
What do I need to stop doing? What's not working for me to enable performance? And then finally, what do I need to start doing? in order to enable my systems to be really good. And just going through those questions in a very honest way, in a very objective way, can start to build some of that self-awareness and help you detach from that result. I think if we think about a really good Buddhist concept, Josh, impermanent.
This loss is not a permanent thing. It does not mean you are always going to be a bad player. Not even a bad player. You're on a journey. You're on a path. Things change. And the more that we can understand that. that this result is not a permanent thing it is not a fatal thing it isn't condemning you to any sort of life in tennis no no match will determine your future
You get to determine that based on how you process it and what you decide to do next. So I think in developing self-awareness, we're developing this idea of how do I respond?
to what is happening in my life and not so much needing to identify with everything that happened if we go back to like when we were all children learning to walk Imagine, you know, because the ego isn't quite as developed cognitively then, you know, we're not really having been introduced to this concept or even understand this concept of judging yourself. But I think if we had, a large percentage of us would still be crawling around.
on all fours we wouldn't have learned to walk we because what invariably happens is a baby tries to walk and they're pretty shaky and often fall down and imagine if they said in that moment oh i'm I'm the worst at this. They're just going to stay on the floor, right? But we all learned it. So it is within us to be able. to persevere through these things because the majority of us are standing upright on two feet. So we have done this before.
Can we tap into that bit of wisdom and knowledge that our younger self... more intuitively, or maybe it's because they hadn't learned some bad habits about judging ourselves or feeling judged by others. So I think the self-awareness is really key. It's the way out of the trap. I'm not sure if this is mentioned in the book, Josh. I think it might be. But mindfulness is also a mean.
of developing that self-awareness and developing that ability to watch yourself, kind of step away a bit, almost seeing what you're doing. And again, a third person perspective. We've also talked about the coach's voice being similar to kind of step away from yourself and speak to yourself in the second person. So we've discussed a lot of tools about developing self-awareness, but this is the way through.
that trap if you're noticing this idea of i have to i have to win in order to feel good or i have to achieve a certain ranking or rating then it then all the work has been worth it um if you're going to choose to define success that way, that's completely up to you. But you are probably setting yourself up for more psychological trouble going on.
Yeah, I would say that another key difference is that self-awareness is more objective, right? Self-awareness is... our ability to, as you said, kind of take a step back. But to, yeah, just simply notice, just simply notice or observe the situation, right? Where we're noticing. Yeah, we're noticing things that have happened, things that are happening currently in the moment, right? You know, trying to...
have that focus on the present moment, you know, which certainly relates to mindfulness. But yeah, I mean, in the case of let's say that presentation, there is that awareness of the past, right? We are able to... observe what actually happened in that last point, but we're taking an objective approach. And again, in that last presentation, we're taking an objective approach and the same can be done, let's say, in a tennis match between points. Can you take that objective approach?
and just kind of notice what actually happened. In that last point, can you sort of zoom in on it and just, yeah, just notice sort of the facts of the situation instead of constant judgment? Right. Which which is also a, you know, Buddhist principle, this, you know, non non judgment being able to. You know, instead, I think what people often do is they do judge a situation. They judge a situation or they...
critique a situation, they'll say, oh, that was a horrible presentation or that was a horrible pointer. How could you miss that shot? That was so easy. Right. Or things like that. And instead of being objective, just observing, just noticing, again, sort of the facts of what actually happened. in that situation or the you know in the past situation or a situation that's happening currently we bring our own
emotions and judgment and critiques into a moment. And then we define ourselves based on that. We define ourselves based on whether that moment went. quote unquote well or not and then we're either uh Success or not only was the. Did the point or the situation was the point or the situation is success or a failure? We are now a success or failure based on that. But guess what? Even if we view ourselves as a success.
Right now, because we won that last point or that last situation went well for us, that's not going to last. That is impermanent as well, right? The thing about tennis and life is there's another point coming and there's another situation coming. So maybe the next situation, you win it again. But soon enough, you will lose that next point or a situation will go. will not go your way. And then, you know, instead of viewing yourself as this big success, you're viewing yourself as a failure.
And sort of seeing yourself in that way. And again, maybe then that following point is a success. And, you know, you can sort of ride the ups and downs of that. But, you know, there certainly is a more sustainable... And yeah, a more sustainable approach, but I think it... When we talk about overcoming that ego, I think part of the awareness piece is the awareness of the ego and the awareness of that process taking place and of us.
putting too much importance on results and over-identifying with them at times. So before we move on to talk more about success, failure, feedback, different definitions of that. Let's take a moment to talk about our sponsor, Go Sports. So this episode is sponsored by Go Sports. It's G-E-A-U, sport.com. So Go Sports, a family-owned business in the U.S. They specialize entirely on gear bags, so racket bags, duffel bags, backpack.
All made with really high quality premium fabrics and materials. So the same materials that are used in premium outdoor products are used in the GoSport bags. And they are rigorously tested. Long-term use and great design. Both Josh and I have the Axiom 9 racket. Bag, really enjoying that, Josh. So any thoughts from you today about recent usage of your bag?
Yeah, it's been great. I would say it's definitely the best bag I've ever used. Yeah, I find it very comfortable. I find that it... thoughtfully designed, I guess we could say, where, you know, it just makes sense where... where things are located, where there's a clear place for my rackets. There's a clear place for where I might keep over grips and string and where I can put my phone wallet and keys.
clean you know a clean set of clothes or dirty clothes and there's because of yeah because of all the different compartments and different sections It feels like everything has a place. And, you know, I think both during training and during matches, that's that gives me a certain peace of mind that I don't have to worry about trying to find things. And I know where things. are. And, you know, and it's, yeah, it's just clearly a well-designed, sturdy bag that I know I'll be using for a long time.
Yeah, same. I've used it the last few weeks a lot more, playing a lot more tennis, and it just feels like there's more room in it because of the way it's designed. And it is definitely one of the best bags I've ever owned. As a Tennis IQ podcast listener, you can enjoy a 10% discount on GoSport products at... GoSport.com. So it's G-E-A-U Sport.com. And the discount code is TennisIQ10. You can also find that in the show notes if I don't have a chance to write that down. So please visit.
GoSport.com today. G-E-A-U, Sport.com. Okay, Josh, so let's jump back into talking about success and failure. There are, I think, some very good perspectives from some notable professional athletes with respect to... Failure, does it exist in sports? Does it not exist? And I guess it's all based on what you choose to emphasize, right? So I'd love to hear your thoughts on, especially from the book, because I think the author here...
says that there is no feedback. I'm sorry, there is no failure. There is only feedback. Can you explain that? What is required for that sort of approach is to redefine failure, right? I think for a lot of people almost... I would say maybe the default in our society is that winning is success and losing is failure, right? If I won that match...
Okay, that means I am the champion of this match. That means I, you know, I'm a winner. I've done everything well. And if I'm a failure, then that means the exact comment. And I think we need to be able to take a step back from that approach. And, you know, we can, I think they give the example of two runners who run a race, right? One of which is...
set world records, let's say, and, you know, has had a lot of success. It has, you know, historically been, you know, a top, top runner and the other who's, who's less experienced and they run the race and. the more experienced runner does not have their best day. And in fact, they win, but they barely win. They barely win the race by mere seconds or milliseconds. And the other runner who's less experienced... has a PR and has you know, their best race of all.
But the more experienced runner ended up winning.
quote unquote, you know, winning the race was a success in that race and the other one lost it. But really, who ought to feel better about their result? Is it the more experienced runner who... do their best you didn't do their best on that particular day you know we could say underperformed, underachieved compared to the... level you know their level that they're capable of or is it the runner who maybe they didn't end up beating their opponent but they they had their best day of all time
And I think it goes to this idea that, to a certain degree, our opponents are a little bit arbitrary. We might face... somebody who's playing great on that particular day. We might face a higher level player. There can be bad luck. There can be bad sportsmanship. There can be all sorts of different things that can happen out there.
that are out of our control, that are, again, a little bit arbitrary. So judging ourselves just based on that end result isn't actually fair. It doesn't actually reflect the... It doesn't actually reflect whether it was a... productive or successful performance out there or not right it simply is you know almost like a grade on our performance but doesn't fully tell
the whole picture. And I think this idea of failure or feedback, I think we can look at losses or really any situation wins as well as feedback, right? Take it in. We can learn from it. We can.
understand what went well, what needs work, and be better because of that, because of receiving that feedback, which I think the best in the world do. And there's, as you said, Brian, there's definitely some examples of athletes that... that have you know have had some great quotes about that um so we can take it as feedback and and you know and be better because of it or we could view it as failure we can view it as a
as a threat to us as a person, as a threat to our identity, a threat to our ego, and try to avoid it, right? And I think when people try to avoid it, that's when we see things like People not playing in tournaments, people quitting, people burning out. Even within a match, things like tanking can happen, which I think often happens. Somebody tanks and then they have that as an excuse. They say, oh, well, I didn't lose because I was the weaker player. I lost because I didn't lose.
Or I lost because my opponent made those couple of bad line calls earlier. And, you know, instead of fully putting ourselves out there, maybe winning or losing the match, but risking that. risking that potential bruise to our ego if we end up losing because, again, we view it as failure and we view it as somehow that...
you know, a situation where we've really fallen short rather than just viewing it as, okay, I lost this match, but look at all these different things that I learned from it. And there's a... You know, and yeah, there's some great quotes from Kobe Bryant or Giannis. sure i'll mispronounce his last name so maybe i i shouldn't even try um from from the nba where i i think you know with the honest they it was a After a playoff loss and they were asking him, you know, sort of how he...
You know, does he view this season as a failure? And he kind of... uh pauses and and laughs a little bit and says no i don't you know that i i'm not gonna view it in that way right i mean you know there's you know uh Many NBA teams, only one can win the championship each year. And just because we didn't end up winning the championship for one reason or the other, I'm not going to... I'm not going to just believe that that's a failure.
You know, he, he talks about, he brought up Michael Jordan and he said, Hey, you know, he, I think, I think won what six, six championships. Um, but you know, many, there were many years that. that his teams didn't. Was each of those years a failure? We can bring the same to tennis. We think about Novak and Rafa and Roger and Serena and, you know, some of the greats. And yeah, dude.
You know, we think about their incredible achievements. Does that mean that they failed every time they lost in a final or every time they didn't win a Grand Slam tournament? So, no, I really like that. And there's great quotes from Kobe Bryant as well, where he talks about viewing.
viewing it all as, you know, as feedback, as just opportunities for him to get better, which I think also relates to different points that we've talked about, that idea of everything is practice, right? That, you know, everything we... You know, every situation we have is simply practice is simply an opportunity for us to get better at it for next time for the future as well. So I think that there's a lot there in terms of.
top athletes quotes and about, you know, sort of this idea as a whole, but I wanted to see some of your thoughts on, on that idea. I think, first of all, success and failure, they're abstract concepts that everyone gets to define for themselves. An athlete or a coach wants to define it through achievements and outcomes. That's fine. You can do that. I think as we've said on this show, there are many ways to success.
And I think what we're trying to promote here today is different ways of thinking that we believe are going to be healthier for your mental and emotional states as a place. So when we think of something like failure, Josh, I think first of all, I just have a problem with how the word is used. in modern-day society. I feel as if we are using that word as a very judgmental and harsh way of describing something that could be described more objectively.
why is that a failure simply a loss losses are normal or it's a mistake why is that a failure why are we putting this sort of overloaded term on these things When we could simply look at it more rationally and objectively, it's like, okay, I lost that match. Or I made a mistake. Or we didn't win. Our team did not win the conference championship. Again, if you want to define success and failure based on winning, that's purely up to you. And that might work for you.
But I think in most cases, that gets in the way of the long-term perspective of trying to become the best you can be. Because now you're trying to manipulate things to create a result that you don't fully control. Instead of working on yourself and learning and improving and becoming the best you can become. This is where I think the Kobe, there's a good video about failure doesn't exist and it says short.
excerpt from an interview that Kobe Bryant did years ago with Jamel Hill, where he talks about the fact that he's not playing not to lose. He's not playing just to win. He's playing to figure things out. He's playing to learn. So every experience is all about him improving his process and what he does. And one of the reasons that he talks about failure not existing is because there's always another practice. There's always another game. There's always tomorrow.
so as he said the story continues none of these results are permanent unless of course you decide to take a result look at it and then quit or decide not to learn from it that yes you could probably more objectively call that a failure because you you stopped before you had a chance to reach your highest potential whatever that
You know, and I think Giannis Antetokounmpo also had very similar points, you know, and in fact, if somebody watches that press conference, you'll see him get actually get a little bit upset. He's a little bit exasperated with this particular reporter who he's known already. He had a relationship with... And I think it's a very similar message. It's like, no, in sports, we just continue. We're always building on the last experience.
And it's not about having to win and calling ourselves successful. It's about learning and improving. all the way through. And there's always another game. There's always another tomorrow, especially for most of us who play tennis. It's a lifetime sport. We can continue to get better and better through very... late age in our lives. So the more I think that we can put aside the word failure, Put aside the verb to fail.
and look at this stuff more objectively as, yeah, I lost or yeah, I made a mistake, but what do I want to learn from this? What did I maybe figure out? What became a little bit more clear? In your example of the runner, Josh, even the person who won, maybe there's a positive there. Maybe for whatever reason, that runner. Just didn't have the same energy today, but you know what? He gutted it out. Maybe he was able to deal with the fact that his energy was lower and...
Perhaps his being more experienced is what led him to actually win. So there might be some level of pride there that, hey, you know what? I did what I could based on what I... We don't know the full story, but that could be an example too. That happens a lot. I'm working with a college player who had a recent match in which his body was cramped.
And if you were to watch the match without knowing that, you'd be like, what is this guy doing? Why is he hitting the ball this way? It looks like he's afraid to lose. He was doing the best he could with what he had. you know super tie-break win for the third set um with his hand and arm cramped
That's something to look back on and say, you know what, that's good, right? Certainly, aesthetically, not your best performance, but from a competitive perspective, that was great. That's a good match. What did we learn from that? We don't get too excited about it because then when we do get too excited about these things, we end up creating expectations of having to do it again and again and again. And that's not realistic either.
So can we simply look at every experience as a learning opportunity on our journey to becoming the best i would certainly encourage people to look up videos on kobe how failure doesn't exist or janice janice's press conference from a few years ago where he's asked that question because they're they're really great perspectives and these guys We want to listen to the elite when they talk about stuff.
99% of the rest of the competitive world isn't saying this, but they are. So we want to understand how they think because people who are high performers, elite performers, they do think different. And this is part of maybe giving everybody a little bit of a cheat code on how to think about.
don't over identify with results don't use the word to fail or failure simply look at things objectively keep learning keep trying to figure things out Use your self-awareness and observation abilities to help. And it's a little bit paradoxical where it actually ends up being some of those best athletes of all time that have that. that perspective right which which i think makes which i think you know we think makes sense because it
It tends to lead to, you know, better and better results, right? Where it's instead of this. Fixation on results and that being everything and them defining us and us viewing losses as failures and wins as successes without us. being aware enough of ourselves and of the situation to maybe see it, you know, a little bit, a little bit deeper than that. I think, yeah, the, the, what, what can separate.
um sort of that without one percent of athletes from from the rest is this way of of seeing it right where instead if somebody you know views If somebody takes more of that self-centered ego approach and they win, they win a tournament, let's say, or they have some sort of success in their minds, why would they put themselves out there again and risk that? Because in their minds, they are risking. that way that they're currently feeling about themselves. They're risking that.
that success that they currently have, right? So it almost wouldn't be logical for them to continue to put themselves out there and take that risk. Where instead, if we're viewing everything as practice or we're viewing every... you know, every loss, let's say, as feedback. then we're eager to put ourselves out there. We're eager to get more feedback because...
Just like Kobe talks about, it's necessary. It's necessary to help him learn, to help him get better, to, you know, he's picking up more information, right? And I, you know, I think it's, you know, in a lot of ways that... We can experience that as athletes and as people, right? As we grow older, as we mature, we have more and more experiences. And hopefully we're handling them better now than we would have in the past, right?
That's definitely true on the tennis court and true in other areas of life. And to me that, you know, in a lot of ways that is success, right? That we've learned from our experiences that we've. that we've grown, that we've gotten better, that we're handling them better now than we would have. a year ago or five years ago or 10 years ago or whatever. Because we're, you know, and that's us maturing as people and as tennis players, right? Us maturing as tennis players is not just that.
We're able to serve bigger or... hit our forehand with more pace or more spin or whatever it may be. It's that we are a more complete player by developing different aspects of our game and different aspects of us as people. For sure. So I think if we begin to wrap it up, Josh, and put this selection from InterExcellence together. And we're trying to connect this idea of We all have to go through this trap of self-centeredness and focusing on ourselves.
Maybe trying to help our own insecurities around it, but we can get through it by being able to develop some awareness. Mindfulness can help or simply reflecting on things, stepping back and then developing better. definitions for ourselves about what success and failure are. looking at things more objectively so that we can kind of learn and grow and really use mastery in our tennis project as the purpose.
I think we had an episode on purpose-based identity versus performance-based identity. I think this marries up with this concept very well. So any last thoughts from you? I would actually go back to a point that I think you brought up earlier and just try to underline that or highlight that about the only real failure is... is giving up right i mean you know understanding that
Everybody, including the best in the world, have lost. And you can't get to the highest level of the game without losing. A tremendous amount of times, in fact. So the losses themselves are not the issue. The issue is... the judgment around the loss, the way that we're viewing that in regards to our identity and our ego. And then ultimately, if we take that loss or we take that, you know.
that sort of judgment of our performance and make a decision of, okay, I'm going to stop playing or why, why even play or, you know, things like that based on that. Right. Again, to lose is normal. If you are going to compete as a tennis player, you will win plenty and lose plenty over your career. And that happens to everybody. No part of me saying that means that you shouldn't try your hardest or you shouldn't work to be the best player you can because you absolutely should.
But it's about how we're viewing those situations. Are we viewing those losses as failure and as a reason why? yeah, why we should stop or why we should give up? Or are we viewing it simply as a... as a source of our potential improvements, right? Okay, because I had this match today, which I lost, I now understand that I need to make more first serves. I now understand that I need to control my emotions. I now understand that when I'm up five, two in the tie break.
and I feel tense, and I tell myself, oh, let's just make the ball in, that I need to counteract that in some way. And again, I wouldn't have known any of that had I not played this match, had I not lost that match. Right. But since I did play that match. I learned these things and hopefully next time I play, I can be a bit better. But if I'm not, or if I lose that next time, guess what? I'm going to take that same sort of approach. And I think what this approach does is it gives us this.
ability to keep striving to get better, where it's not just about some arbitrary finish line. I want to win this match today. That's the finish line. Or I want to be this level UTR. Or I want to be a... for 4.0 player or playing college tennis, right? Instead of sort of this arbitrary line, which again, could be somebody's goal.
It's, I want to be the best player I can be. And part of being the best player you can be is overcoming those ups and downs, those wins, those losses. But I think if they're viewed in the right way. you can get quite a bit more out of them. So yeah, that's the final point that I would make. And I think if you can also have an attitude of gratitude towards some of those things, I can think of just some losses I had that felt unpleasant in the moment.
but were necessary for growth. And looking back, I'm grateful that they happened. Because they opened up my mind to something that needed to be dealt with. And I did deal with it. And I got better because of that. Be grateful for some of these difficult experiences. They don't define you. It's really how you respond to them.
Well, that's our show for today. Thank you for listening. For more on today's episode, please check out the show notes if you have any feedback or questions for the two of us. Please email us at tennisiqpodcast at gmail.com. Also, if you are enjoying the content that Josh and I discuss on the show, please rate and review the podcast so other tennis enthusiasts can find it more easily.
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