THE SUPER STAR SYNDROME: THE MAKING OF A CHAMPION
AUTHOR: Dr Myra S White and Sanjay Jha
PUBLISHER: Random House India
PRICE: Rs 399
ISBN: 9788184004045
Our beliefs directly impact our ability to perform at our highest levels. When we are unsure about whether we can accomplish something, our attention shifts away from what we need to do and our performance falters. In contrast, if we believe that we can win, we put our full attention on our performance.
Superstars deliver great performances because they have this same belief that they can make the important shots. Roger Federer has stated: "It's important to be confident... I don't know if that's cocky or arrogant or whatever that is, but you have to have strong belief. The moment you start to doubt yourself, you're probably going to lose."
When Sam Walton was in high school, he was quarterback of the football team. Even though he was small and slow and didn't throw the ball well, he found a way to help his team win. During his years as quarterback, his team was undefeated and won the state championship. In looking back he has reflected that when they played for the state championship, he expected to win and that this experience has led him to expect to win at whatever he is doing. In talking about the football game he notes: "It never occurred to me that I might lose; to me, it was almost as if I had a right to win. Thinking like that often seems to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Unlike Sam Walton, not all superstars initially start out expecting to win. They have to work at building a winning attitude. This happened to Susan Butcher, a four-time-winner of the Iditarod, the gruelling 1,150 mile dog race across the heart of Alaska. Before she won her first Iditarod, she kept coming in second even though she had a powerful team of dogs and knew that she had the potential to win. In order to win, she had to convince herself that she could win.
"I would often finish a race an hour or a minute or a split second behind someone else, but I'd have the strongest and fastest team. So in 1986 I learned how to pull it all together. I told myself that not only could I win, but that I deserved to win and that I could win today. I knew before that, that "someday" I would win the Iditarod, but I didn't see myself as a winner today. So I kept failing."
Like Susan Butcher, we often fail to win because in our hearts we don't truly believe that we can win. We embrace what Stan Shih, founder of Acer, calls 'negative thinking'. This causes us to hesitate and hold back.
Believing that we can win is challenging. We must find ways to silence the little negative voices whispering to us, 'You can't do that.' One way that superstars drown out these voices and learn to expect to win is by using visualization. They start seeing themselves as winners.
Superstars also often have people around them who nurture and fortify their belief that they can win. Jeffrey Bezos' parents' confidence in him was so great that they used a large portion of their life savings to provide him with the money to start Amazon. His father didn't even know what the Internet was but he did expect his son to win.
'My dad's first question was, "What's the Internet." He wasn't making a bet on this company or this concept. He was making a bet on his son, as was my mother. I told them that I thought that there was a 70 percent chance that they would lose their whole investment, which was a few hundred thousand dollars, but they did it anyway.'
Other superstars find this type of support in colleagues and mentors. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard's strong beliefs in each other formed the core of the Hewlett Packard company that they founded. Their partnership began with a camping trip to the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado after they graduated from Stanford. Looking back at their decision to work together, Hewlett facetiously commented, "We trusted each other not to get lost."
Expecting to win is critical to turning in top performances. When we are uncertain whether we can do something well, it is like carrying a dead weight on our backs. It makes it hard for us to function at our peak. To become a superstar, we must free ourselves from this weight by expecting to win. While, like Susan Butcher, we can do this on our own, having family members, friends, and colleagues who also expect us to win can provide the added boost that we need to rise above our insecurities.
Reprinted by permission of Random House India. Excerpted from The Super Star Syndrome: The Making of a Champion by Dr Myra S White and Sanjay Jha.
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.
