#182: Roger’s Rule, a Rare Privilege & the Gift of Criticism
3 Ideas in 2 Minutes on Screwing Up
I. Roger’s Rule
Telling people to learn from their losses has become a tired old trope. So let’s look at it from a different angle. Consider Roger’s Rule, a mindset coined by tennis legend Roger Federer:
In tennis, perfection is impossible. In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches. Now, I have a question for you. What percentage of points do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%. In other words, even top ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play.
When you lose every second point on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot. […]
So here’s why I’m telling you this. When you’re playing a point, it has to be the most important thing in the world and it is. But when it’s behind you, it’s behind you. This mindset is really crucial, because it frees you to fully commit to the next point and the next point after that with intensity, clarity and focus. The truth is, whatever game you play in life, sometimes, you’re going to lose a point, a match, a season, a job.
—Roger Federer, 2024 Commencement Address at Dartmouth
II. A Rare Privilege
What’s the antidote to screwing up? Some say it’s to know your limitations and not mistake luck for skill. Essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb describes it as a rare privilege:
My lesson from Soros is to start every meeting at my boutique by convincing everyone that we are a bunch of idiots who know nothing and are mistake-prone, but happen to be endowed with the rare privilege of knowing it.
—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness
III. The Gift of Criticism
Since making mistakes is inevitable, we should also accept what I’d call the Gift of Criticism. Here’s an excerpt from the last lecture given by the late Professor Randy Pausch on achieving your childhood dreams. He remembers his football coach from when he was a kid:
There was one practice where he just rode me all practice. Just you’re doing this wrong, you’re doing this wrong, go back and do it again, you owe me, you’re doing push-ups after practice. And when it was all over one of the other assistant coaches came over and said, yeah, coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn’t he? I said yeah. He said, that’s a good thing.
When you’re screwing up and nobody is saying to you anything anymore. That means they gave up and that’s a lesson that stuck with me my whole life. It’s that when you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be in. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.
🐘
Have a great week,
Chris
themindcollection.com