J: Welcome to the compete like a champion podcast. You're here with Dr. Larry Lauer mental skills specialist and coach Johnny Parkes with USTA player development. On today's episode we're going to discuss a movie documentary that just recently came out at the end of 2018 called 'In Search of Greatness' is produced by Gabe Polsky.
L: That's correct.
J: Gabe Polski and what's really cool about this documentary, I'm fired up to talk about this cause we've got some phenomenal great athletes that were at that starred in it. We had Jerry Rice, the, the big time football player. Wayne Gretzky, probably the best hockey player to ever have lived. You'd probably know more about the hockey side.
L: He is.
J: [inaudible]. Pele's in there and then it draws on examples from boxing with Rocky Marciano, with Serena Williams and other sporting examples. Two really important people in it as well. A guy called sir Ken Robinson who is actually a, he's a British author, speaker and international advisor on education to the arts, to the government, nonprofits, education. He was the director of arts in schools and project professor for university of Warrick and done a lot of great things in the arts industry. And then we have David Epstein who is a report investigate, and investigative reporter. Say that right. And he has the New York times bestselling book, the sports gene. Uh, he's actually got another book coming out, which I'm really pumped about. It's coming up soon. Uh, called 'Range: Why generalists triumph in a specialized world'. But maybe we'll do another podcast about that.
L: We will down the road, for sure.
J: But anyway, so what was really cool about this is I watched it actually on a Delta flight and it's not out yet. Hopefully it might be coming out soon, but uh, watched it on a Delta flight, really into it. And as soon as I got off the flight, I said, Dr. Larry, you've got to watch this. And then you just watched it recently, right?
L: On a Delta flight as well. Coming back from Indian Wells.
J: Thanks Delta.
L: Yes, thank you Delta. We were running late, so, it gave me time to watch it.
J: Yeah. So really what the premise is around the documentary is like it says in search of greatness. And what it does is take some, you know, those, those three examples of, of Jerry Rice, Gretzky, and Pele and talks about some of the things in their early years and how they really came about to be champions. You know, who, who they are, what made them great and how they went through this process of, of learning and discovery to get to the point where they're at. So really excited to break into it, but I think as we kicked this off, the biggest thing that really stood out was this, this notion that champions don't fit a standard, a standard or a standardized mold, they actually break the mold. And you pointed out something about conformity with that.
L: Well, there was a, there was a part in the, in the documentary where they talked about, you know, the structure that we place upon athletes and upon kids as they're developing and how that reduces creativity. Uh, we're creating people where they're doing the same things that are not exploring, uh, their talent, their skill. And so therefore, uh, you don't reach the same level of performance because you're conforming them and we're making it to be safe. You know, whether it's a coach who doesn't want to have a player hit a certain shot because, uh, that's not, it's risk averse, right? We're afraid of making mistakes or this happens a lot in team sports because you're, you're dealing with multiple people and you're trying to create a standard of performance, right? A little less than tennis. But, uh, nonetheless, there's this idea that the more we make people conform to a certain standard way of doing things, that we're actually reducing performance. Because again, you look at the, at the greats, they broke the mold. They did things in a different way. Where Gretzky, you know, he, he played a different style of hockey. Uh, Jerry Rice was not the, the speedster track guy. Okay? And, and certainly Pele held onto the ball more than some of his older or younger coaches wanted him to hold onto the ball. They just didn't do what they were supposed to do. And that's one of the reasons why they became great.
J: Yeah, it's really fascinating. If you start at the early years, they talked about what they did when they were kids and you know, the really thing that stuck out to me was they were basically allowed to explore and be creative and the way they did that was through a lot of unstructured play. You know, we talk about that term a lot now. Having basically just time to go out and actually play with friends a different sport and go explore things, get creative, try different things. And really the, the significant person behind that was obviously the parent that, that got them involved with that. But the interesting thing is as this kind of time went on, I mean a good example is like Jerry Rice talks about this example where I used to switch the lights off in his room and he used to just throw the ball up in the air and try and catch it in the dark, you know, and try and feel the ball where it's at. Gretzky talks a lot about allowing to do things with the puck or play a certain way. And he was, he was allowed to explore that creativity of playing the game differently. And I'll let you maybe say the Cressey example, cause I don't really know hockey that well.
L: There was a couple of things from, from Wayne where he talked about, well first it's, it's common knowledge and Wayne talks about a lot how he played on the ponds when he was young. And so they just played, they went out and they played all day and they figured out how to, how to win essentially, how to play well. And it wasn't structured into drills, it wasn't structured into here's a certain style of play. Right. And so he was able to develop his creative game and figure out what he needed to do. You know, one of the, the other interesting things I think is when it comes to like the parent involvement is not only you're letting your children be involved in, in unstructured play, and there's a real benefit to it, but his dad was just creative ideas having him puck handle, but with tennis balls. And people would say, well why, why are you doing that? Well because tennis balls bounce more and the puck is going to bounce, especially later in periods. So he needs to be able to manage the puck when it's bouncing. So it's just out of the box thinking that tends to create a, you know, this creativity that, you know, create, right? That word create, making something, something new. Right.
J: And to be innovative.
L: Yeah.
J: You know, because how can you be innovative if your mind isn't inspired to try things that go outside of the norm? You know, I think a really cool thing David Epstein said after, after they played these examples of Jerry Rice and uh, and Gretzky was he talked about how really a key to learning at any scale is creating the environment where you learn implicitly. So no, he's, he taught about no different than how you learn a language or how to walk. We don't have to articulate everything that we're learning that we can place them in this environment where almost the teaching, uh, you know, it teaches them themselves just from being in that environment. And he talked about this process of self discovery and how that was so important because that also, you know, they kind of touched a little bit on how that process to self-discovery almost led to this, you know, enjoyment of training over time as they got older and more skill kind of got towards their, their high level with the pros, but they said that they love practice because they loved the process of self discovery. But where does that start? I mean surely comes back to those early years. Right?
L: Absolutely.
J: You know, so it almost sounded like to me and they didn't really talk about this, but as he said that I'm almost like, well you know, you just maybe briefly touched on it there is if we, if we are too structured and Gretzky actually talked about this when they were too structured, you know, it just puts you in a box, right? Where it hinders basically your, your potential progress into the level you can get to.
L: So if, if Gretz had only done what he had seen, okay, on TV and he watched, he said he watched games all the time and he would map out where the puck was going. A very interesting sort of way to, to learn the game. He would have never figured out if I go behind the net, the defense doesn't come and get me like they don't know what to do when I'm standing behind the net. Like, do you come after him? And then he can go out the other side. Do you go with two people? But then you leave the front of the net open. So he was able to use the net unlike any other player before him. And now that this is behind the net play is essential to any offense in hockey. The other thing that he did, uh, which there was a lot of talk about this as he played, when he would cross the blue line in the offensive zone, he would hook up and circle. And when he did that, the defense got pushed back and then his teammates could come flowing into the zone and it opened up so much space in lanes for passes. He could go to the late man, he could shoot it, put it on net, look for a rebound. He could go to someone driving the net with a pass. But it was something that no one was really doing to any extent. But Wayne, because of this creativity and his unstructuredness about the way he was learning the game, he was able to create these new ways of, of doing things. It was interesting, you know, he had one coach that really tried to put him in a box and it wasn't working and he had other coaches, Hey, watch Bobby Clark, how he comes off the boards and plays offense. Right. So there was these great examples for Wayne Gretzky of how if he had gone the traditional route where he had been coached into conforming to the norm, we would have never had a Wayne Gretzky. If Pele didn't have a coach early on, he talked about [inaudible] I think, that allowed him, or maybe that wasn't the coach, it was another player, but that allowed him to possess the ball and to make those creative moves, we would have never had a Pele. Right. And so these are the things that as coaches, you know, do we overcoach, do we spend too much time giving feedback? Are we coaching the creativity out of our players? You know, are we taking away from that joy? Because I mean, young kids, when they're learning things, it's, it's really fun to, to learn about your environment and how to do something competently. And then you look at when they get to by like middle school, it's like drudgery and trudging along. And I have to do this assignment, I have to do that assignment and I have to learn in this order. And, and I think a lot of times we structure the enjoyment out of it, uh, for our children.
J: Yeah, absolutely. And a couple of the quotes that stuck out to me that they put in writing on the movie was thing is Alan Watts, who is a philosopher. He put, there appeared to be many paradoxes, courses of action, which common sense would lead to one result, turn out in fact to lead to the opposite result. So as, as I listened to you talk right there, we're talking about we know if we play to a certain structure, we're gonna have this discipline structure of play. You know, we think that that's going to lead to the result that we want every time. But in fact, you find these creative imitative players, that have, you know, let's say in tennis an all court game, they have a diversity of skill set. They can slice, they can come forward. They, they have options like Gretzky created options for himself other than just fitting them all. You know, that actually led to an opposite result in terms of the standard result they thought it was going to lead to, didn't happen for that type of person, that type of player. Being more creative, being innovative led to a different result for him.
L: And they didn't talk about this in the documentary, but when the Russian style of play or the Soviet style of, of regrouping and you know, going wherever you needed to on the ice to make the play and not just going up and down a lane, up and down the ice, that revolutionized the NHL, I believe. Uh, because you, now you start, you see every team now doing regroups, they're doing slingshots on the power play and I won't get too much into...
J: Slingshots?
J: So this, this is where you have one guy trow behind everybody else and then they push a defense, they rush up and then they send the puck, get back to the guy who's trailing and he comes in with speed and he's able to break into the zone a lot easier. So instead of, you know, they'll come up with them all four, but they leave one guy back and they slingshot it back and he's able to enter the zone easier, but it's this kind of creativity, right? That allows the game to advance. It allows people to advance and you know, and I think, I think Jose Higueras has talked about this in tennis that you will probably see players, uh, doing more things like coming to the net more often again, because they're going to adapt the game, they're going to find ways to be successful. And if we are, as coaches, get stuck in a mold that every player has to play this way, then you know, what are we missing out on? We could be missing out on, on the next, you know, great player that's able to, to come to the net and to play the whole court.
J: Well in that, that comes to mind. Another great Billie Jean King. Um, we had the privilege of being able to do a Q&A with her and listen to her and she talks about that champions adjust, champions adapt, you know, and they, and I think that kind of talking a lot about the same thing here is the, the ability that basically champions, you know, they, when as they're breaking this mold but that they're not hung up on these fit, fixed definitions. They almost find the, you know, this is kind of going back to the documentary, they almost find the basics, the foundations of the sport over time it gets boring for them.
L: Cause it's easy for them.
J: And it's easy. Yeah, it's, it's really easy. So how do they, how do they make, make it more fun for themselves? Well, they let their mind explore and as their mind explores, they get their body to do things with, if it's in hockey, they get things to do some things with the puck and the stick, you know, it might be different. Or in tennis they might experiment a few things. So, you know, they're not, they're not hung up on all these standardized things that may have led to, to a few people having some good success.
L: Yeah. You know, and this really begs to the, the uh, idea of the games approach and it's the philosophy behind games approach that if you, if you play the game and you let the participants be a part of the game, that they'll adapt and figure out how to play the game and they'll get better, their skills will get better. Doing it that way. And I know that we do a lot of technical teaching in this country and obviously technique is very important to have that base. And I would never say that we shouldn't be doing that, but at the same time I think we could play more. I think we could play the game more and let the kids figure it out because one of the things that we see that could be improved is players' ability to problem solve and to creatively figure things out. Right? So for example, you take Jerry Rice who wasn't a speed burner, he wasn't a sprinter. He had to figure out how to become a receiver that could achieve at the highest levels. And he had this obsession with his route technique and just making it better and better on his cuts. You're making sure that he was running that route better, which gets to, well, football speed because, because these guys played the game so much and they loved it. They actually talked about how they are anticipating what was happening and it made them look faster because they were able to do something before their, everybody else picked up on it. Right? They were able to do the work that allowed them to have that edge. So while maybe, maybe Gretzky wasn't the most physically talented player on the ice any given day he was out there. He, he definitely was the most creative, maybe the smartest, the most accurate. Uh, he talked about this, you know, he didn't have the hardest shot, but he could put it on a dime and could find that corner. Right? So I think there's, sometimes we get hung up on the biggest, the fastest and having this profile when in fact, you know, today's, in today's game, Patrick Kane fits this as well. The guys that you can hit who are really accurate with their passing and their shot are, are pretty hard to deal with. Like, how, what are you supposed to do about that? You know, cause they always lose.
J: Yeah. And just going back to that example that sprouted another thought is, you know, they talked about how these great champions almost saw the, yeah. Saw the place coming before they actually happened. Almost like they add that, you know, crystal ball, they knew it was common and Jerry Rice said, and I know there's something we, that we practice here, especially with our junior camps and doing it more, but he said he used to practice visualization in his sleep. Like he would, these plays, he would close his eyes and he would play out the situations in his head. So he would almost know that, you know, he would go through the different plays in the different games and the different scenarios before they've even happened. And you know, one of the other fascinating, uh, examples from Gretzky was he, you remember the, the, where he draws on the example he threw out the, the hockey rink? And he said he would sit in front of the TV when he was a kid and he would just follow the puck and he would draw where the puck was going on his piece of paper. So at the end of the game, it just looked like a big paper full of scribbles. But he's like basically training his mind as to these patterns and things and things that are happening as the game goes along, which again can only like start sprouting thoughts. It can be thought provoking into, Oh I'm going to go and try this now when I go out there. So that impact of visualization, of watching the sport of, you know, and they said they didn't have parents that told them to do these things. They just kind of did this, you know, through the the love or the enjoyments and you know, for whatever reason they just did it. You know. And that, that's something I think also separates maybe champions and what they do is they kind of go about doing things informally. Right. Cause this isn't structured to ask a kid to sit down and do that. He wasn't asked to do that. It wasn't structured. It was informal, it's something he just wanted to do. But it all came from being able to watch the sport or it came from like, in Jerry Rice's case, playing the game. I know different plays. Why don't I play out in my mind with visualization, these different plays I can go about. You know? So if I, as we link this to tennis, we, you know, especially now with, you know, just coming off court this morning with the kids, we're talking, asking them to visualize things like the serve plus one patterns. Yeah. Hitting wide, hitting open court. What effect does that have on my opponent? Why is it such a good effect? Why is it a good play to use? Okay. You know, what are some other plays I can come up with that can hurt my opponent based on some things that I've learned and you know, now it's a case with, with some of the players where it's like, Hey, like tell me which patterns you want me to use. You know, which ones work for you? Why do they work for you? Like, let's see it in action, you know, so, you know, yes, there's gotta be some sort of parameter to a certain degree, but it also is the ongoing spark of, of thought and, and ideas.
L: It's, it's, yeah, analyzing the game and, and that's why you have to play the game because when you start recognizing what your shot is doing to someone and you start moving faster, right? You start anticipating where you need to go. So I know that when they take a hand off the rack and on the backhand side, if they're a two hander that something weaker might be coming from this person, so I can start moving forward. Right. And we hear our coaches talk about these things. So the more that the player is engaging with the game mentally in thinking about their serve plus one or plus twos or return strategy and getting over the need to focus on how it feels like, am I hitting it right? Does it feel right? When you're focused on yourself, you're not really playing the game. But when you're young, you're not thinking about how it feels necessarily. You're just playing the game because you want to try and win, you want to be successful, right? And you're figuring things out. Oh, I figured out when I hit this ball low to them, they don't like it. Okay, so I'm going to hit it low to him. Right. And this is what gets structured out of with an a out of it with an overemphasis on, on technical aspects. But that creative environment, allowing the players to explore, allowing them to hit drop shots, allowing them to try different things. Uh, you know, hitting the ball short, bringing their opponent in, then hitting a lob, um. These kinds of things, you know, we, we celebrate when we see them in pros, right? We're like, Oh, they're much fun to watch and I love going to their matches cause they come to the net and they, they can do different things with a racket and, and yet we tend to, again, not really allow them to do that a lot of times. So not, not saying that everybody, there's a lot of good coaches out there that certainly do do that. But it's definitely something that I would, I would ask all coaches who are listening to take a look at your environment. Are you allowing them to play enough so that they can figure out how to be successful in that environment, which includes being able to read the game, see a ball, what it's doing to your opponent and, and being prepared to do something, you know, take time away and move forward. And that's not something that, you know, you learn off the court. You have to, uh, play the game.
J: Yeah, absolutely. And, and if we switched gears a little bit, they also talked a lot about the role of the, you know, to me there was a lot about the role of the parent and the coach athlete relationship. So you're hitting up that sort of trifecta of, of, uh, influential communication and people in the life and the, you know, just using Gretzky as your pure example. He talks a lot about, you know, his dad was a smart man. He didn't know everything about hockey, but he knew enough. I think he used those exact words. My dad knew enough to help me. Um, and he talks about when he got to a certain stage or certain level, he knew when it was time to hand him off to, to coaches that helped him explore his creativity. But his dad was his biggest fan, his biggest supporter and continue to help him and you know, in a supportive way. But at the younger years he was, he was so influential in his life because he allowed him to explore his talents. He, he opened doors for him to walk through so that he could take it further. But when it got to a certain point, he knew when the time was right to, to position him with a coach and uh, that allowed them to flourish.
L: Yeah. So, so critical obviously, and we talk about this with coaches and parents and players, even that at some point if you're, you're going to get on that pathway, you're going to be a professional player or you go, you play in college, that you switch over to the master coach, you switch over to the fulltime coach who that's what he or she does and understands that context, whether it's pro tennis, college tennis, and that's normal. That's how the pathway should probably work. But sometimes parents have a hard time letting go and they like to stay involved and that certainly can be a struggle.
J: And that all comes from just the love of seeing their kid do something they enjoy and wanting to help them.
L: And want to be a part of it.
J: Right, which I mean I can, I can totally understand that and I have, I have empathy for that. At the same time what Gretzky said, look, I mean I went to the right situation, Glen Sather was the right coach for me at the right time because Sather was building a team that could play that open creative style and allowed Gretzky to flourish. And he said, I didn't play defense. My defense was possessing the puck and they're really, in the NHL, they were the beginnings of, of that kind of style, you know, that offensive, uh, focus and you know, had sather not brought that philosophy and had he overstructured it then there would have again been no Gretzky. And that was kind of at the end of the documentary where there was some cognitive, cognitive dissonance I think with Gretz where he's kind of like, well you have to really have a passion for it and love it and you put the work in, you have to want to be great. Oh yeah. And you got to have some block and you gotta have the right environment, you gotta have the right coach. And he kind of laughed at the end, kind of giggled like this is, you know, a bit confusing or a bit like, Hmm, I have what it took. But at the same time, had I not had the right environment, may have never happened for me. So yeah, very interesting moment in the documentary.
J: Yeah, no, absolutely. And some of the biggest takeaways as well was this, I guess deeper level of the psychology of the mind that these these top athletes have. A good example was they talked about Michael Jordan's speech when he got inducted into the hall of fame and it was almost a speech as, you know, you would think he, um, I think the way Apstein or maybe it was Kim Robertson said it, he goes, the way that you listened to it was as if this was the kid that got picked last in kickball class.
You have this massive chip on his shoulder where he created these conflicts in his mind and he addressed all these different grievances. Like one of them where there was a coach at,I think it was UNC, and had four players on the cover of sports illustrated. And Michael wasn't one of them. And he talked about how that kind of motivated him and it spurred him on to kind of prove a point. You know, and he talked about, he, he acted like it was life and death out there. Every moment to him was life and death. And that's just the way he approached things. He talked about when he didn't get picked as, as a kid in, in on a team or you know, it's just always this massive chip on his shoulder. And Gretzky also talks about, he remembers specifically when he didn't get picked on a team, you know, and he, it and when he had people that doubted lots of people that doubted him in his skills...
L: And he said his size.
J: And his size and he, and he said it motivated him, you know, motivated him to be great and motivated him to, to do things the, you know, you, you again don't fit inside this box that you do go outside the norm and uh, it, it created this sense of urgency in them that wanted to just be better than the standard, I guess.
L: Yeah, and I mean, I think, you know, Epstein said it well when he said that you have to have this rage to master the domain that you're in. And at the same time, you have to have the ability to learn quickly. And this was a what he felt led to greatness when he looked at these athletes and there was clearly, you know, they had a desire that they wanted to figure out how to dominate their environment, how to be one of the best. And at the same time they were able to learn. They were able to figure out how to do things in a different way, in a creative way, better than than everyone else. And again, I keep coming back to this idea that you know, you have to have the right environment. But the other thing that was very clear from the documentary was that it's about more than talent. These guys, all of them said they weren't the best. They knew other guys that were better than them, but they ended up being the best. Why? Because they had this rage to master the domain, the passion. They wanted it more than he and anybody else in many ways. But there's a lot of people who want it. So what does that mean? They also had the ability to learn quickly and faster. And this is one of the things I talked about to the players that come to the campus all the time is when you're young, the most important thing is to be able to learn and to retain it quicker and faster than everybody else. Because if you can, then you can accelerate your curve, right? And you can push things. So winning right now, not that important. Learning, the number one thing. And guess what would a Fed, Nadal, what do these guys do? They're always looking for another way to get better. They don't stay the same. They keep looking for ways to grow and get better. So to me, the the best have this drive. They learn really fast and they, in tennis anyway, cause they have a lot more sane. They create these players that are the best, the environment that works for them, that allows them to be themselves to enjoy it.
J: Yeah. So I guess here we'll finish off with this little question because I think it hopefully sparks some, uh, some thought that uh, as you mentioned, the, the ones that achieved greatness are the ones whose talents came to fruition because the conditions proved favorable for them. They had the right environment, they had parents and coaches that help guide them. But how many other people could achieve similar things if the conditions were right?
L: Yeah. Ken Robinson said this right at was such a poignant moment in the documentary. I just sat in my, my seat in the Delta flight, like hoh, man. That's essentially what we do, right? This is a call out to us. What we do is like how many people can we help to find their talent, their potential, those skill, right. And not limit them. And you know that that's, it's a tough question because it's really hard to, number one, identify at a young age. You know what people are good at and that's why we have to play multiple sports and let things develop, at the same time, it's really hard to trust the process. When you look at an athlete, a player, and say, you know what, you're not winning right now, but you're doing the right things. You're being creative. You're, you're playing away that's going to make you successful down the road. This is what we gotta do. And getting everybody within the entourage, within the team to buy into that is a challenge because the immediate seat immediacy of results and needing to get those results, you know, and to play a certain way to get that usually, uh, trumps near the exploration of creativity.
J: So yeah. So I guess some key takeaways. I'll throw a couple out there and maybe you can and then, and then we'll wrap up here. But to me, I think the biggest key takeaways was, create an environment that lets the teaching kind of do a lot of the work. A lot where a lot of implicit learning can take place, I think open the doors to letting a player or a child explore their mind. Explore their thought processes. And I think, and I think the last thing is, is you know, never don't really hold anyone back. Like let them, let them flourish, let them move forward with things, let them try things. Even if it means failure, let them move forward and try it out. So that, that, that self discovery can happen.
L: Clearly failure's not the worst thing on the court. Right? It's not allowing yourself to grow and explore. That's the worst thing cause you can never get better. And I yes, as I was listening to you talk there Johnny and summarize things that makes me think about, you know, sort of from the mental side and just the idea that just having the, those visions and those dreams of how you want to play in those situations you want to be in. You know, Djokovic's talked about it a lot as well being number one and that inspires these guys and, and, and then they try to figure out how to get there and that they'll do whatever it takes in a healthy way to get there. And they had coaches who didn't keep them from doing that. They let them figure out how to do it. They help them to do what they needed to do to be great and they listened to them. They didn't try to put them in the box. And it's really hard. It's probably harder to coach these great players in some ways because the ones who are not as good you can say, I can teach you a certain style and we can get you to a certain point, but it's the great ones where you can't put them in the box or otherwise you hamstring them and you don't let them become who they naturally are driven to be. Yeah, absolutely. Fantastic. So I strongly recommend all the listeners out there, your next Delta flight you take, look for in search of greatness and hopefully it comes out on DVD or the ability to stream.
J: So the, the, it's more accessible, but I, I believe it's great for any coach, any parent, any player that's, that wants to play at a high level in their sport. I just think it provides some fantastic information, gives you an insight into the lives of how these greats have grown up and yeah, and how they got to where they were. So.
L: Trust me, every, every junior tennis player we come across that we can get them to watch this. We're going to have them watch. It's unbelievable. My son's going to watch this, by the way. All my kids. But.
J: Do you think my 21 month year old daughter's too young?
L: She probably should just watch hockey and draw the puck. That's probably a good start.
J: Well, I'm not going to force her to do it.
L: Don't force her, but definitely get that pad of paper out there and turn on the game. See what happens. You might get Mickey Mouse instead.
J: She'll draw Mickey. Yeah, for sure. Okay. And that's been in search of greatness on today's episode of compete like a champion podcast. As always, for more information and resources, visit our website playerdevelopment.usta.com and we'll look forward to giving you the next podcast next time.