The Habit of Winning

by Prakash Iyer

  Truth is, criticism and critics could play a huge, huge role in improving our performance. In helping you rise to your full potential. I remember my college-going daughter returning from work at a radio station where she was an intern. Her immediate supervisor was being rather harsh on her. She was reduced to tears, wondering why he was picking on her and continuously criticizing her performance. She spoke to the human resources head, who told her this: ‘It’s a good thing he’s doing that. When you make mistakes and no one tells you anything, it means they are giving up on you. You may not like to hear it but he’s actually telling you that he cares. He believes you can do better. He wants you to do better, to be the best you can.’

  There’s another powerful role a critic can play at times. He can challenge you to prove him wrong, inspire you to raise your performance and do what you may have been capable of but never accomplished.

  Navjot Singh Sidhu, former Indian cricketer perhaps better known for his witticisms on TV than his exploits on the field, tells an inspiring story. Sidhu made his debut in Test cricket against the West Indies in 1983. In three innings, he managed a high score of 20, in a painstakingly long stay of 114 minutes. The critics were trenchant and well-known cricket writer Rajan Bala (alas, now no more) famously branded Navjot the ‘strokeless wonder’ in an article in Indian Express. Not surprisingly, Sidhu was dropped soon after from the Indian squad. And confined to the unfancied backwaters of first-class cricket in India.

  Navjot was born to an affluent family, and he tells a story from his early years. His father would wake him at 5 a.m. and ask him to go for a jog. Navjot would get up and once his father was out of sight, he’d bribe his servants to let him sleep in another room. At 7 a.m., he’d wake up, splash water on his face and shirt and present himself looking all sweaty before his father. Impressed by his hard work, Sidhu Senior would encourage his sher da puttar to take some well-earned rest. And Navjot would go right back to bed!

  When Sidhu was dropped from the team in 1983, after just two Tests, his father brought him the newspaper with Rajan Bala’s article and left it on his bed, without uttering a word. Young Navjot was devastated. He cut out the article and pasted it on his closet. The ‘strokeless wonder’ tag would stare down at him, every waking moment.

  That one article, the accusation of being a ‘strokeless wonder’, the criticism from a senior cricket writer, seemed to set off something inside Sidhu. And he was determined to prove his critics wrong. He was determined to take fresh guard and shed the tag of being a shirker. Forever. He took it upon himself to turn things around. He resolved to become a cricketer his father and his country would be proud of.

  Now when his father came into Navjot’s room to wake him up at 5 a.m., he was already gone. He was out in the nets at 5 a.m., having already jogged a bit. He practised hitting sixes and smashing the ball around, keen to become an attacking stroke payer, not a strokeless wonder. His target: hit 300 sixes, every day. He still paid bribes though—not to his servants to let him sleep a few extra winks but to young lads, as an incentive to bowl at him late into the night, to allow him to complete his daily quota of 300 sixes. At the end of the day, his gloves were soaking wet, with sweat and even blood at times.

  Four years is a long time to be out of the India team. Most players would have given up on their dream of playing again for India. Not Navjot Singh Sidhu. After four years in the wilderness, Sidhu was recalled to play for India. He was, in fact, selected to play for India in the 1987 World Cup. And what a comeback it was! In his first game, against the formidable Aussies, Sidhu scored 73 runs off 79 balls, with 5 sixes and 4 fours! He went on to score 50s in his first four One-day innings, with a strike rate of over 90.

  The newspaper clipping stayed on the closet but the ‘strokeless wonder’ tag was history. Wiped out by determination. By blood, sweat and toil. Sidhu went on to play with distinction for India: over 4400 runs in 137 One-day games with an average of 37.08. And yes, 44 sixes! And in his Test match career, Sidhu played 51 tests, hit 9 centuries, aggregated over 3200 runs and averaged a respectable 42.13. And the crowning glory? A certain Mr Rajan Bala wrote about how a ‘strokeless wonder’ had become a ‘palm tree hitter’.

  The next time someone criticizes you, remember you have two options. You can either sulk and give up, complaining about how unfair the world is and how your efforts go unnoticed. Or you could get back to work on your shortcomings and flaws, and emerge a winner. The choice is yours.

  Rajan Bala may not have realized it but his criticism actually helped Sidhu shake off the cobwebs of complacency and become a successful cricketer. It sparked off a new determination, a new resolve. It led to long hours of practice. To 300 sixes a day. And all that blood, sweat and toil created one of India’s most attacking stroke-makers.

  It worked for Sidhu. And it can work for you too.

  You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you that they love you and care about you, and want to make you better.

  Lessons in Survival from Frogs and Phelps

  A crisis is a true test of character, they say. And given how several people find themselves in a crisis these days, it’s useful to remember some basic lessons in surviving, nay thriving in, troubled times. Ups and downs are a part of business and of life but how you tackle the downs holds the key to the highs that might occur later in life.

  A business you started could run into trouble. Or you could find yourself laid off. It happens. You may find yourself burdened with some emotional upheaval. Or a health problem that lays you low. In such cases, it is important to ensure that you don’t get petrified into inaction like a deer caught in a car’s headlights. You must keep moving, keep fighting, keep trying. Sure, merely fighting hard in what looks like a hopeless situation won’t guarantee success. But remember, not trying—and simply giving up—will only guarantee failure. When you find yourself with your back to the wall, when you feel you are going deeper and farther into a deep black hole, it’s a good idea to remind yourself of that fidgety frog and the pail of milk.

  Seems there was this frog, ever curious about the world around him. As he hopped about in the farmer’s house, discovering a new world, he accidentally landed in a pail of fresh milk. He tried to jump out but the walls were way too high. He tried to push himself off the bottom of the pail but it was far too deep. With milk clouding his vision, and really no hope of survival, you would excuse the frog for thinking his end was near. Elders would have admonished him for his carelessness, some even suggesting that he deserved his plight.

  But the frog was not about to give up. He kicked, he squirmed, he splashed. Like his life depended on it. As it indeed did. His legs began to ache but the frog kept kicking, splashing, squirming, even though there was no hope in sight. All that churning eventually had its impact, as the milk turned into a lump of butter. The frog jumped on top of the butter—and escaped to freedom!

  When you are down in the dumps, remember to keep kicking, to keep fighting. What you do in these difficult times will determine what happens to you next.

  Not only could this be the key to your survival, it could potentially be a life changer. If you find you’re suddenly fired, don’t fret. It may just be the perfect opportunity to hone a new skill or develop a latent talent that can make a huge difference to your life. People have switched careers and turned to teaching, writing, farming—and discovered far more joy in their new-found vocations than their earlier jobs with fat pay cheques and fancy titles could have ever given them. In their most difficult hour, people have started businesses that brought them unimagined wealth. Perhaps it’s your turn now to take the plunge. That moment of strife, that hour of darkness, those crisis-ridden days could be the opportunity to craft a new beginning, a new triumph.

  Some months before Michael Phelps swam his way to Olympic immortality with eight gold medals in Beijing, he was involved in an unfortunate accident that seriously jeopardized his Olympic dreams. In October 2007, as Michael was getting
into a friend’s car in Michigan, he slipped on a patch of ice and fell, breaking his wrist. Interesting sidelight: Michael may be fabulously graceful in water but on ground, he is apparently an extremely awkward mover, perennially prone to slipping. Life is like that. Great swimmer, lousy walker. You win some, you lose some. But rather than worry about his inability to walk with grace and stability, he focuses on doing what comes naturally—swimming. And that makes all the difference!

  Back to the accident. A cracked wrist meant a plaster cast—a serious blow to his Olympics preparation. He couldn’t swim for the next few weeks. He was shattered. Was the great eight-gold Olympic dream over? All those years of practice, would they come to naught? After his fabulous showing in Athens, Michael had the world’s eyes trained on him—and he was a hot favourite for bagging an unparalleled eight-gold haul. Was the accident the start of the end?

  Michael was disillusioned but quickly picked himself up and was back in the pool. With his plastered arm, he couldn’t swim but he would lie in the pool, kicking with a kickboard while his Olympic teammates did laps. He just splashed and kicked away furiously. While that was no substitute for swimming, it had one huge positive. He added incredible strength to his leg muscles.

  Fast forward to 16 August 2008, in Beijing. Having won six golds, Michael Phelps was on track to the eight-gold dream. Just two races to go. In the seventh event, the 100 metre butterfly stroke event, Michael was neck-to-neck with Milorad Cavic. He won by the narrowest of margins, picking up his seventh gold by edging out Milorad by a mere hundredth of a second. That’s right—the margin was a hundredth of a second! As experts analysed the race and watched slow-motion replays, they found that in the last 5 metres of the race, while an exhausted Milorad dragged his legs, Michael used a strong kick to get his hands to the wall first, going ahead by that hundredth of a second. That strong final kick made the difference. Those leg-strengthening exercises paid off!

  It doesn’t matter whether you are a frog or the world’s greatest swimmer ever. The lesson is the same. When you are down and in trouble, keep fighting. Don’t give up. Keep kicking. It won’t help to wallow in self-pity, or curse your stars or play the blame game. Every adversity has an opportunity couched within. It is up to us to grab it. And what you do when the going gets tough, is what defines your outcomes.

  You could give up trying to scale the walls of the pail—and drown in the milk. You could give up on your Olympic ambitions and blame it on an untimely injury. Or you could choose to keep kicking away and turn the milk into butter, and make it a lifesaver. You could keep kicking away and strengthen your leg muscles, which could one day help make you the world’s greatest swimmer.

  Perhaps this explains, in a somewhat convoluted way, the origin of the phrase ‘alive and kicking’! Get a life. Keep kicking!

  When you are down and in trouble, keep fighting. Don’t give up. Keep kicking. What you do in these difficult times often determines what happens next.

  Learning to Fly: Lessons from a Butterfly

  The incredible transformation of creepy-crawly caterpillars into amazingly colourful butterflies is one of the marvels of nature. As the caterpillar forms a cocoon—and then emerges from it as a butterfly—it holds out a valuable reminder for all of us. Don’t be dismissive of seemingly ordinary, average performers. There might just be a butterfly in them, waiting to emerge!

  There’s an even more powerful life lesson hidden in this natural phenomenon, as the following story shows.

  A man was sitting in a garden when he saw the incredible sight of a cocoon with a tiny opening through which a butterfly was trying to emerge. He watched for over an hour, captivated, as the butterfly struggled to come out of that tiny hole, bit by bit, flapping its wings, shaking itself, fighting, struggling to free its body. But even after an hour of frantic struggling, it seemed that the poor little insect was making no progress. It had probably got as far as it could on its own.

  So the man decided to help the poor butterfly. With gentle hands, he tore open the hole in the cocoon, just a bit wider to allow the butterfly to emerge easily. The butterfly came out. It had a shrivelled body and tiny wings. It looked weak and tender.

  The man eagerly waited for the butterfly’s wings to open up and expand, for it to fly away. But that did not happen. In fact, the butterfly stayed weak and shrivelled, unable to fly.

  The man did not realize that in his attempt to help the butterfly, he had in fact harmed it. The struggle to break free from the cocoon is nature’s way of preparing the butterfly to learn to fly. As it fights to emerge from the restrictive cocoon, fluids from the body get pushed into the wings, making them stronger, making them larger, enabling them to fly. Without that struggle, the butterfly stays weak and unable to fly.

  No struggle, no success. That’s as true for butterflies as it is for all of us.

  Struggles and challenges make us stronger, more capable. The next time you find yourself struggling and feel like giving up, remember it may be nature’s way of helping you fly and soar to your true potential. At times, you may find that a dear friend or your boss or your mentor is deserting you in your hour of need. Don’t be too harsh on them. They may be doing it to help you, to help your wings develop fully, so that you learn to fly.

  One of my fondest memories of my career revolves around my first few months as a management trainee at Hindustan Lever. As part of the training programme, you start off as a frontline salesman, selling soap and toothpaste and shampoo. The sales stint requires all trainees—freshly minted from blue-chip B-schools—to spend the first few months living the salesman’s life. You live in lodges in small towns on salesman’s allowances. You travel by bus and train and get a first-hand feel of the real thing. Another incredible learning experience in those days was my two-month rural stint, living in Etah district of Uttar Pradesh, getting a taste of how 70 per cent of the country lives. Those experiences, I believe, helped us all emerge stronger, become better human beings and smarter managers. Corporate India has seen some of its finest leaders emerge from the ‘Hindustan Lever School of Management’. Those early days of struggle, no doubt, played their part in the process.

  In cricket, Suresh Raina is perhaps the latest example of the cocoon syndrome.

  Seen as a precocious talent, Raina found himself pitch-forked into the Indian squad, without going through the real grind of first-class cricket. After a brief stint on the team, where he promised much but delivered little, he was dropped. Then, he went out and pushed himself through the hard yards of first-class domestic cricket. For eighteen rigorous months. After consistent performances there, he fought his way back into the team—and has only improved ever since!

  Not all of us are as lucky as Raina though. We don’t always get a second chance to return to first base. The tiny, shrivelled butterfly can’t choose to go back into the cocoon and fight its way out to strengthen its wings.

  The next time you find yourself struggling, remember it might just be your preparation for take-off. When you get that chance to struggle, make the most of it. After all, in dictionaries and in life, success never comes before struggle.

  The next time you find yourself struggling and feel like giving up, remember it may be nature’s way of helping you fly and soar to your true potential. No struggle, no success.

  VII

  THE WINNER’S WAY

  Goalkeepers and the Action Bias

  My son is a football fan. Okay, not just a fan. He’s crazy about the game. As we watch the English Premier League games on TV in his room, which is increasingly looking like a museum of Manchester United merchandise, my fascination for the sport grows. A new fan is emerging, slowly but surely.

  One aspect of the game that has caught my fancy is the penalty kick. I love to put myself in the footballer’s shoes, and try to simulate the pressure he must be experiencing. I often think that the penalty kick mirrors life itself, in many ways. Think of the poor goalkeeper. Someone else commits a foul, and the goalkeeper is left tr
ying to block a goal, paying for another’s folly! And the striker who is taking the penalty kick? Poor soul. He knows he is expected to score. If he does, no big deal. If he doesn’t, God help him!

  I have also discovered that I’m not alone in my fascination with penalty kicks. I came across a piece of research by a team of scholars in Israel. To understand the goalkeeper’s mindset, the team studied 286 penalty kicks from major league football games around the world. As you probably know, a penalty kick is taken from a distance of just 11 metres from the goal. The goalkeeper gets about 0.1 seconds to react—a window so tiny that goalkeepers must guess which way the ball will go, and commit themselves to a dive—left or right.

  The research team tracked the direction of the kick (left, right or centre) and tabulated the statistics. And here’s what it found: A goalkeeper’s best chance of blocking a penalty kick is if he doesn’t dive but just stays put in the centre! You wouldn’t have guessed that, would you?

  That’s not all. Though the probability of stopping a kick is highest when the goalkeeper did not move, the team found that in 92 per cent of the cases, the goalkeeper committed himself to a dive on either side. Why was that? Goalkeepers in professional football are highly paid, highly accomplished, highly intelligent. Why then do they dive, when standing still would give them their best chance of success?

  The answer apparently lies in the bias for action that most sportspeople—and high achievers—have. If the goalkeeper stands still and lets slip a goal, he is subject to ridicule. ‘He didn’t even try!’ comes the anguished cry from friends and fans. But if he dives, the view is more sympathetic: ‘He tried. There’s not much you can do when someone is firing a shot from 11 metres!’