Last night, Roger Federer lost in the semifinals of the ATP year-closing tournament.
This means that Federer, possibly the greatest player who has ever played tennis, still has just 99 titles under his belt.
Asked by a journalist whether he needs that elusive 100th title, Federer responded:
“I don’t NEED it. I will breathe air if not.”
It might sound as if Federer is simply debating semantics, or that he’s even a little testy after his loss.
That’s not what’s going on.
Here’s a bit from an interview earlier in the week when he was asked a similar question:
“Personally I’m still not thinking of the number 100. I won’t let that get in my head, make me go crazy because it should be something I’m excited about and not something I should feel extra pressure about.”
This exactly mirrors what negotiation coach Jim Camp says.
One of Camp’s main rules is not to get needy. In other words, don’t trick yourself into thinking you need something when you actually don’t, and when you have all the things (like air) that you actually do need.
There was a time when I didn’t fully get the importance of this.
“There’s no difference,” I used to think, “between really wanting something and needing it.”
If that’s how you feel now, I won’t be able to convince you otherwise.
All I can do is tell you that I noticed, personally, that needing something actually seems to take place in an entirely different part of the brain than wanting that same thing. It seems to be an entirely different chemical process, and an entirely different emotion.
In short, even though it might seem needing and wanting are closely related, in truth they couldn’t be further apart.
As Jim Camp himself wrote in his book Start with No:
“As a negotiator aspiring to excellence, you must, at all costs, avoid showing need. In order to avoid showing need, you must never feel it. You do not need this deal. But what happens if we simply substitute the word and the emotion ‘want’ for ‘need’? The dynamics change. […] ‘Need’ is death, ‘want’ is life.”
I doubt Federer read Camp’s Start with No, but he seems to have learned the same lesson on his own.
And even though he only has 99 titles to his name, it’s hard to say his focus on wanting instead of needing has left him with a lack of motivation or success.
Something to think about, whatever your chosen field is.
A special note if you happen to be in the health field and you want (not need) more effective marketing:
You might like my upcoming book on email marketing in the health space.
Along with advice on actually writing emails and structuring email marketing sequences to sell supplements and health info courses, this book will also have a section on the mindset you should adopt to be successful in today’s marketing-saturated world — such as the Roger Federer/Jim Camp lesson above.
Anyways, if you’d like a free copy of this book when it comes out (I’m planning to sell it for $17 when it is out), put your red RF headband on, and sign up at the link below: