5 leadership lessons from sports – Part 2

“I may not be an athlete, I may not be playing any sports, but still watching so many sports all over the year has defined me who I am and where I am today in my life. It is the best school of life I have been to.” – Unknown

The above statement is so true, yet the importance of sports is neglected in India. We, the people of our country, fail to see the importance of sports in our lives and how much it can impact our lives. Sports (except cricket) have been accorded the least favourable place in our lives by our society and is the most under recognized medium of school.

Believe it or not, people who have played or watched sports know that sports have turned out to be the metaphor of achieving success in their lives  through the lessons that they learnt. I owe a lot to sports and that’s why I thought about penning down the lessons learnt. Continuing from my previous article where I wrote my first 3 lessons, here are the final 2 lessons that I think have been instrumental in shaping my life.

4)      A goal is a dream with specifics and a deadline.

Every year, we set ourselves a goal in the hope that we will accomplish it as early as possible. The goals can vary from I will eat less, or I will sleep more, or I will lose weight, I will get ahead at work or I will go to gym regularly or I will do a MBA and so on. Can you see the problem here? The problem is that it isn’t specific; it is too vague. And as soon as you will feel bored or lazy, you will opt for the easy way out in life. Most of the times you will end up doing the opposite of what you wanted to do.

Early on in my life, I came across these words from another favourite player of mine – Michael Jordan. In his book, ‘I Can’t Accept Not Trying: Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence’, wrote: “I approach everything step by step. I had always set short-term goals.  As I look back, each one of the steps or successes led to the next one. When I got cut from the varsity team as a sophomore in high school, I learned something. I knew I never wanted to feel that bad again, so I set a goal of becoming a starter on the varsity. That’s what I focused on all summer. When I worked on my game, that’s what I thought about. When it happened, I set another goal, a reasonable, manageable goal that I could realistically achieve if I worked hard enough. I guess I approached it with the end in mind. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, and I focused on getting there. As I reached those goals, they built on one another. I gained a little confidence every time I came through.  

…If [your goal is to become a doctor] you’re getting Cs in biology then the first thing you have to do is get Bs in biology and then As. You have to perfect the first step and then move on to chemistry or physics. Take those small steps, otherwise you’re opening yourself up to all kinds of frustration. Where would your confidence come from if the only measure of success was becoming a doctor?  If you tried as hard as you could and didn’t become a doctor, would that mean your whole life was a failure? Of course not.”

Look at how specific Michael Jordan was in his goal-setting.  From that moment, I decided to set specific goals for myself. The more specific you will get, the more likely you will reach your goals. For e.g.  I want to reduce my weight by five kg in one month or I will go to gym on Monday, Tuesday and Friday after work at 8 p.m. etc. This way you will know exactly how you are performing with regards to your goals, and anytime you will deviate from your goals, you will know the reason for your failures.

Roger Federer in 2012 had a specific goal of winning the Wimbledon, an Olympic medal and becoming No.1 by the year end. A look at his results (Wimbledon champion, Olympic silver Medal and World No.1 ranking) should be enough to emphasize the importance of setting specific goals in life.

5) Your greatest fear should not be aiming too high and missing; but aiming too low and achieving.

This is the biggest lesson in my life that I have learnt from sports. Failure is a dreaded word in our society and everyone fears failures. What if I get rejected, what if I don’t succeed? People don’t try hard enough because they are afraid. For one second, even if we imagine that we will fail, then what will happen? For a moment, people might think that you are not good enough but does that really mean that you’re not good enough? Obviously not! Every successful person has had failures in their life and they still became successful. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school varsity basketball team as a sophomore; Mark Cuban failed numerous times in his life; Steffi Graf lost to Monica Seles multiple number of times and so has Roger Federer to Rafael Nadal. Despite all these failures, they all have been successful in their life and sports. If sports have taught me anything it is that you always have a second chance in life even if you fail once. People who aim high, believe in their abilities and try multiple times, often end up becoming the most successful in the end.

“I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how many times you failed, you only have to be right once. I tried to sell powdered milk. I was an idiot lot of times, and I learned from them all.”- Marc Cuban.

In the end, sports has not been just a mode of entertainment for me, it has made me who I am today. I hope it does the same for you as well.

Here is the summary of the 5 lessons:

 1)  Hard work beats talent when talent fails to do the hard work:

2)  The difference between possible and impossible lies in a person’s determination. If you are a champion, you will never give up.

3)  Negativity will knock at your door, but it doesn’t mean that you have to let it in.

4) A goal is a dream with specifics and a deadline.

5) Your greatest fear should not be aiming to high and missing; but aiming too low and achieving.

In the end, I will just say that I dream about a day when in India, sports will be considered equally (if not greater) important than all other activities of life. Do you too?