sort of a competition to see who ends up with the most beautiful murals and pavements. So, for the 1982 World Cup, just like every other kid in my country, I went out and painted my street with the other children who lived beside me. Everyone in our town would take part, and then murals were everywhere . . . in all kinds of colors and designs—birds, the Brazilian flag, players on the national team.
Ronaldo says that, by the time he was five years old, “I already saw my life around football. I don’t know how to explain it, but I just connected with the sport right away. It was just there . . . inside me.” For Ronaldo, football is “like an addiction,” and “a football pitch is the most perfect thing in the world.”
In 2002, after Ronaldo won his second World Cup (the first was in 1994), he and his teammates stopped in various Brazilian cities on their way home. “Those were some of the best days of my life. Seeing all the people in our country, and all the happiness. Seeing murals everywhere. But now . . . with our faces on them.” Yes, football is part of Ronaldo’s soul.4 There is a child in Brazil who looked at those murals, experienced the celebrations, and is now engaging some of the nine practices at every opportunity to emulate his heroes. Ronaldo has played it forward.
Every one of the athletes I interviewed for this book speaks about the influence of the environment they grew up in on their career in sports. The Players’ Tribune and Bleacher Report are full of personal stories— both the struggles and the successes—of athletes on their way up or down the sports ladder. The story of Mikal Bridges, a standout NCAA basketball player for Villanova, is particularly inspiring. With his seven-foot-two-inch arm span, Mikal has been known by various nicknames, including Noodles, Inspector Go Go Gadget, String Bean, and Praying Mantis. His mother, Tyneeha Rivers, says her son always had “ridiculous, stupid-long arms.” One article explores how the environment Mikal grew up in with his mother influenced his approach to sport:
Tyneeha Rivers was a 19-year-old sophomore in college when she had Mikal. She raised her son as a single mother and refused to quit school, attending class at night and working in a company mail room by day . . . “I didn’t want Mikal to have to struggle like I did,” she says, beginning to cry . . . Some days she was so exhausted from mothering, studying and working that she wanted to collapse. But she persisted and graduated . . . So when people ask her about her son’s hustle, how hard he boxes out, she smiles. She doesn’t know any other way to operate, and neither does he.5
One reason for looking at the ascent to a personal best is to understand the effect that factors like early environments can have as you move toward a personal next. Your environment may stimulate your ambitions or fuel a desire to escape it; it can enhance self-worth or destroy potential.
EARLY COACHES
I don’t like getting wet! I know that’s a pretty strange thing for a swimmer to say. I’m fine with warm water—hot tubs and hot showers—but I never liked the cold water of the swimming pool. I still don’t. I don’t enjoy jumping in and feeling that frigid water swallow me up.
But my first coaches figured me out pretty quickly. They knew how to get me going, what my strengths were, and what I needed to work on. I’d stand around and talk to them about stuff—the weather, the latest movies, maybe some detail about yesterday’s results or tomorrow’s meet—until they realized that I was just trying to avoid the water, at which point they’d tell me to get my butt in there and start doing the workout! Once I was in the water (and feeling the blood pumping), I felt right at home.
Everyone needs coaches or mentors who know when to push and when to congratulate, when to encourage and when to get angry. The attitude that if you work at something, you can get better at it is one coaches look for and, wittingly or not, they give those who display such an attitude that little bit of extra attention. Under the influence of first coaches, athletes on the way up learn the character-building value of hard work and repetition, the importance of listening, and how to recover quickly from the inevitable losses and tough feedback.
FOR ANY HIGH PERFORMER, it is the influence of family and community, the environment, coaches, and society that help instill the nine practices that eventually make success possible. But once you’ve made the team and started to meet, and exceed, expectations and gain momentum, you begin to realize that increasing levels of achievement require a deeper commitment. This leads you to the next point on our journey along the arc of transition.
TIME OUT: A SELF-INTERVIEW
Take a time out to consider the influence that the early part of your career had on you. For these, and for the “time out” questions in each chapter, you may want to jot down your answers in a journal or share them with a trusted support person.
•Think about your own story of starting out. Who were your early supporters, champions, and influencers? Who acted as your secure base and encouraged you to seek challenges, take risks, and explore alternatives?
•Consider who was most influential on you. What is the most important lesson you still carry with you today that you learned from that person?
•Early expectations of others can create early success. Did you feel expectations, and how did these (positively or negatively) influence your trajectory?
Chapter 2
All-In
“My grandfather gave me one dollar for every goal I scored. That made me happy, because I loved scoring goals, so I felt like I was going to be rich! And he gave me $1.50 for every assist. He helped me realize that being on a team means that other people are involved, and that it would be more rewarding for me to enhance or empower other people. That has stuck with me for forty years.”
—BRANDI CHASTAIN, SOCCER PLAYER
There comes a time in each athlete’s career when a bigger commitment is required and a decision is made to be all-in. This point on the arc is one of energy, excitement, and enthusiasm. As you improve and experience success, tougher benchmarks are set, and you tackle more challenging hurdles. Not all experiences are positive, however; some are downright tough. But as an achiever, you learn to ignite the attitude of “I will overcome the pitfalls and handle the intensity, and when I experience a failure, I will learn from it and keep moving toward my goals.” At this point on the arc, you deepen your connection with the nine practices and continue to gain knowledge about yourself. The desire is to succeed, and no matter what the discipline (athlete or not), being all-in is a stage all high performers can relate to.
Being accepted to the team feels wonderful. Perhaps the first time you made the team you gave an inward cheer for yourself: “Yes! I did it!” You may remember the ups and downs of being all-in, too. For young athletes who are at this point on the arc, one week it can seem as if the whole world is smiling on you. Parents congratulate, coaches encourage, teammates high five, friends and family cheer you on. The next week could be a completely different story with a different set of emotions, such as embarrassment, sorrow, or shame. At this phase, everyone invested in the athlete develops (and sometimes destroys) them. Adults who surround young high performers carry immense influence.
The shift from simply participating to being all-in differentiates the high-performing child from other children. Before I went to Pine Crest, I trained three times a week for forty-five minutes each session. Then, suddenly, my day started with training at 5:30 a.m. I had classes from eight in the morning to 2:30 in the afternoon, and then I jumped back in the pool before working out in the weight room until five in the evening. Throughout the day I squeezed in meals, and at night, I faced the academic demands of a prep school, toiling away at homework until I fell into bed. In my first year, I barely met the minimum standards to return. The training schedule repeated every day, all year long. I couldn’t skip it or sleep in. This positive but demanding environment meant I had to cultivate every single one of the nine practices. When I was at high school, I learned that being all-in is hardly a balanced lifestyle. It is a choice that must be made every day. Today, forty years later and far from the athletic environment