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Prepare to fail

It's a recurring theme for all of us.

I read a quote from Roger Federer today. Some of the great sportspeople in the world are perhaps the people who understand this the best. Not the guys who are chasing quarterly results, always looking for growth and upward numbers, but the guys who have to battle against an adversary or worthy rival who can beat them at any time.

Roger Federer played over 1500 singles matches in his career and won over 80% of those matches, which is extraordinary, but he only won 54% of the points in those matches.

And so, as one of the most elite-level tennis players or athletes in the world, he lost almost half of the points he ever played.

So, how do you reconcile that as a sporting genius? 

You do that by preparing to fail and understanding that failure is always part of progress, growth, and improvement.

That's why the process is always (always) much more important than the outcome; in fact, the process is the outcome, and the outcome becomes the process.

I love sports where people who are unlikely to win start to compete (I never win anything in triathlon). 

My daughters are horse riders. They do crazy stuff on horses, but they rarely win the whole competition, and everyone who turns up to those competitions knows they are unlikely to win.

Those are people who love the process, and loving the process is how you gain joy out of your day-to-day work and your day-to-day life without falling into the trap of all the noise around you that says you are always entitled to win. 

By Colin Campbell on 24/06/24 18:00