#61: Losing Towards Success

Roger Federer won 80% of the 1526 singles matches he played. Now, what percentage of POINTS do you think he won in those matches?

65%, perhaps 70%?

You may be surprised to find that it was just... 54%!

In other words, one of the greatest ever tennis players, with 20 grand slam wins to his name, lost almost half of the points he played as a professional tennis player. Watch Federer Explain

Paradoxically, the most successful people, often fail more than an average person.

WISDOM 💎

Peter Lynch one of the all-time best investors who returned 29.2% per annum for 13 years at Fidelity, spoke in similar terms.

“In this business if your good, you’re right six times out of ten. You’re never going to be right nine times out of ten.”

Peter Lynch

Tip 1 - A SMART PLAY ✅

In many games (e.g. sales, interviews, marketing, advertising, social media, elite performance, auditions, investing) even the best will have a high percentage of failures. Being able to quickly get over them and focus on the next thing is a huge factor in determining long-term success.

Tip 2 - AVOID 🚩

Dwelling on losses. In performance psychology, there is a tactic known as the post-shot routine. It is a short period of time, where the player releases emotion, takes any quick learnings, accepts the result and then leaves it behind. Try implementing a post-event routine to allow you to quickly recover from losses.

Tip 3 - ACTION 💪

Might you,

A) Need to look at your mindset towards losses. Are small setbacks, derailing you and stopping you from taking further good opportunities going forward?

B) Need to introduce a post-event routine, to resourcefully deal with inevitable losses/failures that you encounter, to improve your overall winning process?