Success is never ending, failure is never final

SUCCESS IS NEVER ENDING, FAILURE IS NEVER FINAL

Mario D’Couto

            Talent or effort? What makes the best stand out from the rest? Based on the research done by Carol Dweck, Matthew Syed in his book, “Bounce” distinguishes between a ‘fixed mindset’ and a ‘growth mindset’. According to him, people with a ‘fixed mindset’ would find it difficult to adapt and cannot take failure in their stride. On the other hand, people with a ‘growth mindset’ are a total opposite of the ‘fixed mindset’. They are able to adapt, are not afraid of failures and are open.

            Nick Bollettieri’s tennis Academy in Western Florida which was responsible in producing such illustrious champions as Andre Agassi, Jim Courrier, Martina Hingis, Maria Sharapova, Anna Kournikova and Jelena Jankovic has this creed that must be signed by all who are part of the institute, “Every endeavour pursued with passion produces a successful outcome regardless of the result. For it is not about winning or losing – rather, the effort put forth in producing the outcome. The best way to predict the future is to create it – therefore, we believe we have the best training methods to help each athlete achieve their dreams and goals and ultimately reach their ability level in the arena of sports and life.”

            Bollettieri praises effort, never talent; he eulogizes about the transformational power of practice at every opportunity; he preaches the vital importance of hardwork during every interruption in play and he does not regard failure in his students as either good or bad but as an opportunity to improve. When a student of his hits a forehand long, he says, “That’s fine, you are on the right track. It’s not the mistakes; it’s how you respond to them.”

            He further explains, “You know why this place is successful? Because none of these kids leave here without their mindset transformed. They may arrive thinking they can cruise their way to success, but they quickly learn that nobody has got anywhere in life without working hard, by showing tremendous discipline and by taking responsibility for their actions. That is what ultimately separates best from the rest.”

            One concrete case which Matthew Syed shares in his book, “Bounce”, is the story of a youngster named Darius Knight. On July 2002, he (Syed) was invited to south west London by Gideon Ashison, a table tennis coach who had a remarkable record of getting youngsters off the streets and away from crime through sport.

            Of the many youngsters that frequented this place was a boy named Darius Knight. When Syed arrived at the place, Ashison took him to a shed in the back garden. This place was cramped, poorly lit but just big enough to house a table tennis table. It was in this place that Knight would train intensely with another boy from Ashison’s group.

            Why the shed? The reason was simple: neither Ashison nor Knight could afford anywhere better. Knight hailed from a crime – ridden high – rise neighbourhood; his father had been involved in drugs before walking out on the family. The shed represented a way out. Besides, it had one big advantage: it was available to use 24 hours a day.  

            Every afternoon, Knight would leave school, travel five miles across town on the bus and then walk twenty minutes to get to the shed. There he would work with Ashison for hours at a time: honing his shots, learning footwork patterns, practicing his serves. With the progress of time, his range of abilities was awesome all the more so given the vivid contrast with impoverished surroundings.

            Soon his fame and popularity began to spread far and wide was selected to attend the High Performance Centre in Nottingham. Over here, he suddenly found himself surrounded by state – of – the art facilities, top coaches, specialized support staff and schooling tailored around his training and competition schedule. It was basically for him, a dream come true.

            However, this led to a change of mindset which actually led to his downfall. Statements such as, “It is as if table tennis is encoded in his DNA” which were written in The Times went to his head and that led to him to think as though he was unbeatable. But the more it happened, he only kept losing. His training lacked intensity, he began to duck big matches and he even began to become deceptive about his results.

            Knight’s story is interesting for all sorts of reasons, but it is first and foremost a parable about mindset. When Knight trained in a humble shed, he improved at lightning speed: equipped with the right state of mind, his appetite for hard work was ravenous, his enthusiasm palpable and his quest for personal transformation relentless. However, when he moved to one of the most prestigious sporting facilities in Europe, his development stalled. He had access to every conceivable advantage, but this counted for nothing because he had started to inhabit a very different psychological world: a world characterized by a preoccupation with talent, with wanting to look good, with fear of failure and an aversion to hard work.

            Today, Knight is back on track. Why? Because Steen Hansen, the Danish – born performance director of English table tennis, realized that Knight’s problem was not technical or tactical but psychological. His problem was mindset.

            Hansen instructed the coaches to abide by the prescription of Dweck; to praise effort, not talent; to encourage Knight to embrace failure as a means of realizing his potential; to eulogize about personal transformation. Knight’s form has since soared and he is near the top of the rankings for his age group, both in England and Europe.

            What is certain is that Knight is now equipped with the most important thing of all: the growth mindset. It permeates his attitude not merely to table tennis, but to life: his relationships, his commitments, his responsibilities to friends, teammates and sponsors. He does not duck challenges and he does not regard failure as a reason to stop striving. “Mindset is everything.” These are his words after his transformation. He is growing not merely as a table tennis player but even as a human being.

            Co – relating this with spirituality, I know there have been several occasions in my life, where I have fallen and got back up (in a spiritual sense). I remember, how in the past, I always had this delusion wherein I always thought there was a peak point in spirituality where after reaching it, one has nothing to achieve, like a rock climber reaching the point on top of a mountain. But the more I kept striving for it the harder I fell. It was only with time and by God’s grace that it dawned on me as to where I stood. Not to say that things are better, but I have a new and a better perspective on the struggles I face and that is in my weakness, God’s power and strength lifts me up as St. Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 12:10).

            The point that I am trying to drive at is that the moment we think that there is all that there is to achieve, that would be the starting point of our downfall. At the same time, experiencing failure does not imply that you have lost the war. You may have lost the battle but that does not mean you are devastated. In fact, small doses of it, in due proportion helps us to introspect, makes us more humble and spurs us to do even better which is why I say, success is never ending, and failure is never final.