Lessons from the NFL AFC Championship

I know many people outside of New England are tired of seeing the New England Patriots playing in the Super Bowl. There are a lot of reasons why the Pats dominate so much but I believe we can apply a couple things Tom Brady said in the post-game interview of the 2019 NFL’s AFC Championship (in which the New England Patriots beat the Kansas City Chiefs 37-31). We can apply these ideas not just to sports but how we live. I’ve provided his response to a reporter’s question with key words in bold.

Q: How do you stay so calm in the biggest moments, especially when your team is down and you have to drive the team right back?

BRADY: “Part of playing sports is just staying in the moment. We always say one play at a time and you can’t make up for things that happen in the past. You just have to think about what you are going to do moving forward. Start of the fourth quarter, they scored. We are up three to start the fourth quarter. What a great opportunity to be against this team and to be ahead three in the fourth quarter with a chance to win is pretty sweet. They blew so many teams out this year. It is just a great opportunity for us, and we took advantage of it.”

His first point, staying in the moment, is key. I’ve seen players and teams get desperate or angry when losing or when calls go against them then try for plays or shots that aren’t part of their normal repertoire. They’re upset about what just happened then try to make up for it by hitting the ball harder or going for shots they don’t “own.” For instance, in tennis (the sport with which I’m most familiar because I play it almost daily) I’ve seen players go for a shot or an angle that they normally wouldn’t try if they were ahead. Instead, they often end up making an unforced error, which only makes things worse. (I know because I’ve done it!) 

As Brady says it’s better to forget about past mistakes or calls that go against you and focus on two things: stay in the moment while thinking of what you’re going to do next. One tip I use in tennis after making a mistake is to tell myself, “Next time” while making a couple shadow swings on how I wanted to hit the shot that I just missed. “Next time” means I’m telling myself I’ll do it better the next time I have the chance. This attitude implicitly represents a focus on the process rather than the results. It also reflects their confidence in themselves. And, it also means that their self-esteem isn’t tied to the outcome. Sure, it doesn’t feel good to lose but someone like Brady or Federer just use the loss as motivation to learn from what happened and try to improve. (This also reflects something I’ve written about in a previous post: the difference between having a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset.)

Later Brady said that the Pats had a “great opportunity” when starting the fourth quarter with a three point lead over a team that was seeded #1 and had beaten other teams by large margins. I find it interesting that he didn’t say it was a challenge or that they were nervous. This is one of the qualities I’ve noticed with champions like the Brady, the Patriots or, switching to tennis again, Roger Federer. They are unflappable.  They see facing a tough opponent as an opportunity to excel rather than a challenge for which they might not be good enough.

So what accounts for this calmness? I’d say these factors: focus on the present, confidence in yourself without tying the outcome to your self-esteem and a process-oriented mentality. 

What Separates Champions From ‘Almost Champions’? -- Science of Us

What Separates Champions From ‘Almost Champions’? -- Science of Us

I’m going to start of with a long series of quotes from an article in The Cut titled “What Separates Champions From ‘Almost Champions’?

It’s the perennial million-dollar question of nature versus nurture, sure. But the difference between the greats and the almost-greats (which, by the way, applies well beyond sports) also appears to be at least partially driven by one specific thing — how each group responds to adversity. The greats rise to the challenge and put in persistent effort; the almost-greats lose steam and regress.  

For a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, talent development researchers Dave Collins, Aine MacNamara, and Neil McCarthy examined the differences between athletes who overcame adversity and went on to become world-class (what they call super champions) and those who struggled in the face of hardship (the hearthbreakingly named “almost champions”) . Whereas super champions were playing in premier leagues and/or competing on national teams (think: Olympics), almost champions had achieved well at the youth level but were playing in the less prestigious leagues as adults. 

The researchers found that super champions were characterized “by an almost fanatical reaction to challenge.” They viewed challenges in a positive light — as opportunities to grow — and overcame them thanks to a “never satisfied” attitude. This runs in contrast to almost champions, who blamed setbacks on external causes, became negative, and lost motivation.
.... 

Super champions were driven from within. Their primary concern was self-improvement. They held themselves to high standards, but judged themselves against prior versions of themselves, not against others.
Almost champions, however, were focused on external benchmarks, like national rankings or how they compared to rivals, a mind-set the researchers speculate why almost champions got discouraged during rough patches.  

....... 

World-class performers, then, don’t rely on either nature or nurture, but on a combination of the two — and they are really good at nurturing their nature. All of which suggests the recipe that gives rise to super champions is worth emulating: Individuals who demonstrate persistent effort follow their interests; practice foremost to get better, not to outdo others; derive satisfaction from within; and feel constantly supported, but not pressured, in their journey toward achievement. If these criteria are in place, experiencing failure doesn’t weaken motivation — it bolsters it. In the words of Michael Joyner, an expert on human performance at Mayo Clinic, “With enough persistent effort, most people can get pretty good at anything.”

These results touch on a number of topics I’ve covered in previous posts: having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset, focusing on the process rather than results, focusing inwardly on how you’re performing per your own standards instead of worrying about how you’re being perceived externally by your opponent or your friends, engaging in deliberate practice to improve, not just repeating what you already do well and not pushing yourself in practice and having grit as a personal quality. The Cut article doesn’t specifically touch on all of these points while I think they’re all implicitly involved.

I figure someone reading all of this might ask how studying world-class performers applies to us. How many of us really fall into that category? I know it will sound arrogant or obnoxious but I like to think I applied these ideas when designing and delivering presentations when I was working, in my tennis game and in other areas of my life such as relationships, etc. While I’ll probably never climb to the A level of players at the clubs where I play I do know my game has continually improved thanks to my constant investment into getting better. I like to think I’m now a B+ player! ;-) That’s why I believe the quote at the end of the article is key, which is why I’m repeating it below.

In the words of Michael Joyner, an expert on human performance at Mayo Clinic, “With enough persistent effort, most people can get pretty good at anything.”

Amen!

Seeing Challenges, Not Threats

Tomorrow you’re going to give a presentation to your most important client. Or you’re going to face the toughest player in a tennis tournament. Or your manager just handed you a critical project. How do we react when faced with these challenging situations? Most of us would feel a tightening in our stomach or the blood in our veins run cold. Yet, there are others who are unfazed by these situations. Why? What makes them different? This article, The benefits of seeing a “challenge” where others see a “threat”, sheds some light on this.

As the title suggests, “viewing a situation as a challenge will lead you to perform much better than viewing the same exact situation as a threat.” The article describes studies on why some people thrive on pressure while others dread it. It comes down to how a person perceives the challenge relative to their abilities.

People who are preparing for an event that they construe as a threat find the entire process far more demanding and stressful, while those who are preparing for a challenge end up performing much better.

The article shows that we can be taught how to prepare for this.

People can be trained to actively and intentionally engage in reconstrual; in fact, this process is one of the hallmarks of cognitive behavioral therapy. This model and its effects may rest on the assumption that people are prone to consistently construe situations in one way or the other based on their resource assessments, but that doesn’t mean that this tendency is immutable. If you actively re-frame stressful situations as challenges and your elevated heart rate as excitement (or “efficient effort mobilization”), you can improve your health, well-being, and performance level, all at the same time. [Emphasis added.]

In other words I think we can tell ourselves that we’re looking forward to the challenge rather than dreading it. We can tell ourselves that we welcome the opportunity to show what we can do. Yes, it’s a form of “faking it until we make it.” And, yes, there are limitations to when this works. For instance I can’t fool myself into thinking we can, say play star quarterback in the NFL. Nonetheless, I do believe in our normal daily environment we can improve our performance by self-talking ourselves into looking at it as an opportunity to excel, not a threat to fail.

I’ve tried it before important presentations or meetings and before key tennis matches. I do believe this has helped me perform better by keeping me loose and relaxed. Anyway, the article starts off with a quote about how gymnast Aly Raisman handles pressure.

You ask [Aly Raisman] about feeling the pressure and she says, ‘I don’t really feel it,’ and you know, I think it’s because she labels it something different in her head. Some kids feel anxiety, feel pressure, she feels excitement. It’s just how you label that.

I’d say it’s more than just labeling a situation. It’s how you visualize the outcome. When I know I’m heading into a potentially stressful meeting or encounter I’ll take a few seconds to stop, close my eyes and visualize a positive outcome. I think it helps because doing this keeps me relaxed as opposed to tensing up. I also think it shifts the focus from internal (“I hope I don’t screw up and look bad!”) to external (keeping my focus on the outcome and on the person I’m dealing with).

One last point. I think framing situations as challenges instead of threats helps us reach “flow.” Flow is a concept identified by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. See this Wikipedia entry on flow. We reach a flow state when we’re completed absorbed by a task, when the challenge of the task stretches our abilities but without overwhelming us. If it doesn’t challenge us to stretch the activity bores us. If it’s too daunting it intimidates us. I think Aly Raisman and other people who calmly face challenges believe they’re up to the task or they’ve labeled the task as a challenge, not a threat.