A couple nights ago, I stayed up two hours past my bedtime to watch TV and witness a miracle.
Well, a sports miracle:
Novak Djokovic beating Rafael Nadal at the French Open.
In case those names mean nothing to you, I’m talking tennis. And what Djokovic did is the hardest thing in that sport.
After all, Rafael Nadal has won the French Open 13 out of the past 15 years.
The only times he lost, it was in the early rounds, because he was crippled, hobbled, or hamstrung. Whenever he made it to the end stages, like this year, he was unbeatable. Until this past Friday.
It took an incredible effort. In fact, both Djokovic and Nadal played at the highest levels.
They made tennis look like ping pong, because of how they moved each other around, with crazy angled shots, delivered from far off the court and from seemingly impossible positions.
Other pros and commentators gushed afterwards that it was one of the greatest matches in history, and probably the greatest clay court match ever. Nadal and Djokovic are from another world, they said.
Well. Contrast that to my real-life experiences with tennis.
I started playing when I was a kid. If you saw me play, you might think I have skills. But I don’t.
In fact, I have such an extreme lack of skills that two years ago I vowed never to play again. It was just too painful.
I’d play a match against somebody who I should be able to easily beat. And I’d still end up losing.
Double faults… routine balls dumped into the net… attempts at winners that sailed a foot wide.
Each mistake-filled loss would set off a binge of self-hate that lasted for days, until it was time to play (and usually lose) the next match. So I decided to give it up.
And that’s my point for you for today.
It turns out that the sport played on tennis courts is actually two entirely different games.
That’s according to a Dr. Simon Ramo, who analyzed the data. Ramo’s research can be summed up simply:
Professional tennis players win points. The rest of us lose points.
In the pro game, outcomes are determined by the actions of the winner, like in the Djokovic-Nadal match.
In the non-pro game, the amateur rarely beats his opponent. But he beats himself all the time.
It’s two opposite games. And Ramo’s data bear it out. Pros win 80% of points. Amateurs lose 80% of points.
Of course, tennis is not the only loser’s game.
So is campaigning for political office… warfare… and modern dating.
In all these fields, outcomes are determined more by our own mistakes and self-sabotage, rather than anything the other side did.
And from what I’ve seen, entrepreneurship fits into this mold too.
We look to the highest performers, like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. We see how they run laps around the competition and create daring offers that wow customers.
But that’s not the game the rest of us play.
For the rest of us, competition is largely irrelevant and potential customers usually never even see our offers.
Instead, the outcomes we get (typically not good) are really the result of our own mistakes and self-sabotage.
If that’s the case, then what’s the fix?
I don’t have a good answer for you. But I can leave you with the advice that Simon Ramo gave to tennis players:
Lose less. Avoid trying too hard. And keep the ball in play.
But let me take my own advice:
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