Even Superman has Kryptonite!

Today’s match was disappointing – the best way to put it is even Superman has Kryptonite

I played an ‘unorthodox’ player today who wasn’t better than me technically, but came up with the non-tradition shots that I couldn’t respond to due to lack of match experience.

This was the one thing I couldn’t avoid this year because I haven’t played a single tournament in the last two years. With my travel schedule with a lot of weekend events, it just wasn’t something that was possible..

I lost in three games, knowing that there is NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER that this will happen again next year. NONE, NADA, ZIP, NYET, ZERO.

This is why competing at ‘this level’ is priceless. This isn’t a squash blog so I won’t bore you with the squash distinctions, instead I’ll give you some ‘life lessons’:

  • You need to know what arena you’re playing in – just like a boxer that gets in the ring, hits and kicks below the belt are not allowed. Today’s match was more of a street fight than a boxing match. I ‘box’ well, now I have to learn to ‘street fight’. I knew that, but it’s so much more tactile and ‘real’ when you get off the court realising you lost the game rather than the other person ‘winning’. In business, if you’re in an industry with scrappy players, you need to know the ‘rules’ people are playing by and elevate your game accordingly as I explain below.
  • Strategy, maturity and vision are extremely important, especially at times like these. Like Superman, I knew that if someone showed up with Kryptonite, I had no defence. It’s the luck of the draw and I accept that – THIS YEAR. Next year’s a totally different story. If you know your strengths and weaknesses in business, you can try to avoid your Kryptonite as much as possible, but if you want REAL, ULTIMATE SUCCESS, you must find an antidote. Otherwise the ultimate prize will never be yours.
  • Find out what to work on to get the MAXIMUM results. I now know that my fitness is not an issue – I am as fit as I need to be to playing in the top ’32’. I need to focus on my racquet skills and match experience. The former I can work at on my own, the second will require considerable travel to compete in tournaments to get the experience I need. The analogy in business is that as I explained in yesterday’s post “Where you stack up NOW makes a difference LATER“, knowing your strengths and weaknesses as they are now can dramatically improve the speed at which your results will emerge. To stay with the squash analogy, if I fix two or three technical issues with my strokes and/or shot selection, I will start to win games that I am currently losing. If I don’t and just focus on fitness, the only thing that will happen is that I will sweat less after losing the game that I should have won. This is much easier said than done. Without a Business Mentor or a tool like our Marketing Autopsy™, it’s hard to know WHAT TO FOCUS ON TO GET IMMEDIATE RESULTS.
  • That’s why great, world-class competition is so valuable. It’s why Formula One racing is funded to the tune of HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. Car companies can’t test their products any other way…

With all that in mind, I leave you with one thought.

I hate to lose, I really do.

But what I hate more than losing is NOT WINNING. Winning requires that you lose to learn the lessons that make you better. Once you let go of your ego (yes, I know that is not an easy thing to do…) and re-direct your focus to IMPROVEMENT, then and only then can you get back on the ‘winning track’.

I was speaking to a top grade player and she mentioned that everytime she got to the next higher grade, she had to run around like crazy all over again because what worked previously no longer worked at the new, higher standard… That is a priceless insight that’s hard to find anywhere else but at a world-class competition, straight from the mouth of a champion!

That means I have to MAINTAIN my fitness BECAUSE I am going to need it when I get to the next ‘level’!

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault

Australia’s #1 Exponential Growth Strategist

P.S.

If you know me well, you know today has been a tough day for me, but what keeps me resilient and always ‘setting a new standard’ as Tony Robbins says is that with excellence (outstandingness or extraordinariness in Tony’s terms) comes a sense of confidence that mastery gives you the ability to DICTATE the game.

That is what I am striving for and I know without a doubt I have the talent and ability to ascend to that level.

On a day like today, that’s what keeps me going. I feel the pain, hurt and disappointment like anyone else would – I wanted to win today, but I lost.

I lost because I didn’t have the level of mastery to DICTATE the game.

But I know what I need to do to get that level of Mastery. That’s what I came to discover and it’s CRYSTAL CLEAR to me know – and yes the crystal was green today… very funny!

If you’re a squash fan or addict – the reason I know what I need to do is because at championships like these, there are seeded players and unseeded players. In the first rounds, seeds play players with a lot less talent and ability – yet the ‘unorthodox’ shots don’t win the game BECAUSE they do things SPECIFICALLY to counter-act them…

That is what I didn’t know I didn’t know that I need to know!

By the way, using a metaphor like Superman and Krytonite helps me deal with the situation as I evaluate and assess my progress.

Without metaphors, the Vortex Of Mediocrity™ can have a devastating and debilitationg effect.

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