The Influential Mind Made Me Think #10: On How To Overcome The Fear Of Failure And Take Risks

On the last edition of "The Influential Mind Made Me Think", I talked about how the stress generated by a failure can make a person more attentive towards negative cues around them. As a result of being more attentive to the negative cues around them, people can end up in a vicious cycle of "trying to play it safe". I also talked about how underdogs in any match usually would have a better chance at success if they took some risks. Nevertheless, this playing it safe attitude precludes them from taking those necessary risks. The specific example I used was the one Tali Sharot used in her book "The Influential Mind" which is the California Golden Bears. In today's edition I will talk about how we can get out of this vicious cycle, accept the probabilities of success and failure, and take risks.

Before I take on today's edition, I would like to share something with you. I was chatting about my last post with my partner. Her family has been acquainted with the California Golden Bears for a while and I would even dare to call them fans. Even though the Bears have not given their fans a lot to be happy about through the years, it has given them two of the most memorable college football plays. As soon an my partner finished reading the last edition of this series, she told me: "well let me show you one time when they did take their chances, and it paid off". She was referring to one of these two plays, specifically, to "The Play" from 1982. With The Play, the Golden Bears scored the winning touchdown to earn their victory over Standford. When taking risks, the possibility of failure always exist, but along with it, even if slim, the possibility of success also rises. Enjoy.

On today's edition, we will be leaping again. Let's go to the French Open, June 5th, 1989 to the finals at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. Michael Chang, a seventeen-year-old Asian-American seeded 15th was playing against Ivan Lendl, ranked number 1 in the world. Needless to say, Chang was the underdog. The last time thay had met, Lendl had beaten Chang and said the following: "Do you want to know why I beat you today? Truthfully, you've got nothing that can hurt me. You've got no serve; your second serve is not very strong. So, pretty much whenever I play you, I can do whatever I want, however I want, and I am going to beat you pretty comfortable like I did today".

Chang had taken those words to heart, and for the next year, he trained harder than ever. When he met Ivan Lendl again, he put up a fight. He was proving to be at his level. Such a close match with sets being taken by both of them, turned into an endurance challenge. Playing at full force took its toll on Chang. Towards the end of the fourth set, he started to cramp anytime he had to sprint. He resorted to hitting moon balls and trying to keep points as short as possible. This was not enough though, his body was failing him and every step seemed like a whole race. He decided to give up. He started to walk towards the umpire. Right before reaching him, Chang reconsidered: "It dawned on me that if I was to quit then and there, every other difficult time I have there on the court it was just going to make it that much easier to quit. And from there, it wasn't so much a matter of winning and losing, my objective that day was to finish the race which was that match, which was that fifth set. Win or lose I had to finish the match".

He needed a different approach though. He knew his body was not in conditions to play. Therefore he decided to take a risk. He knew that in his following actions, there was a high probability of failure and if he was to fail, he would seem foolish and inexperienced to the world. But if he were to succeed, the reward would be huge. It was his turn to serve. "Let's see if I can scrape a point". Instead of serving like any other tennis player would, with full force, he served like a child. It worked. The underhand serve took Lendl by surprise. It was Lendl's turn to serve now. Chang was motivated and feeling lucky, so he decided to keep rolling the dice. This time, he started walking towards the service line. The crowd reacted with laughs and hoots. His actions threw off Lendl. In fact, they threw him off so much that he ended up serving a double fault. After this, Chang went on to win the French Open.

But what motivated Chang to stop playing Lendl's game and play his own? When asked, he answered that it had been the events from the previous day. The match took place on June 5, 1989. On June 4, 1989 the events at Tiananmen Square had taken place. Student-led protests in Beijing were forcibly suppressed after the government declared martial law. The number of civilian deaths has been estimated variously from 180 to 10,454. Chang had watched the events on TV. Rather than hindering his spirit, the events were "and opportunity to bring a smile upon Chinese people's faces around the world when there wasn't a whole lot to smile about", as he stated.

He had reframed the situation in his mind, focusing on opportunity. Humans have a very complex brain and sense of consciousness. This allows us to redirect our inner attention to different aspects of a situation and ultimately, to overcome our automatic reactions to such situations. Maybe not all of us have Chang's mental fortitude, but we can all try. When faced with a threat or an imminent loss, take a second to think. My past self would have told you to think analytically about the situation and go with the option that optimizes the outcome. But let's face it, most likely at that point in time, reason won't be the first thing your brain will go to. Most likely, it will be emotion. So try to hack your emotions. Try to focus on an opportunity that could motivate you enough to succeed. It might not be the go to strategy, but when you are an underdog, it might be the best. If you ever find yourself in this situation, remember this. Good luck.

Have anyone of you been able to focus on opportunity and overcome a challenge? What do you think? I'd like to hear your opinions.

If you want to check out other thoughts that this awesome book has evoked, click on these past posts:

• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #1: Disinformation That The Information Era Has Created
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #2: The Power Of Language And Ideas
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #3: On The Facebook Scandal, Data Usage, And The Spreading Of Emotions
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #4: On The Irrationality of Phobias
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #5: On Agency And The Hardship Of Financial Decisions
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #6: On How Agency Is Deeply Rooted In Us
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #7: On The Pleasure And Pain Of Knowledge, And What We Choose To Learn
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #8: On How Stress Changes Our Perspectives
• The Influential Mind Made Me Think #9: On How Stress Can Make You Avoid Possibly Fruitful Risks

Best,

@capatazche