Locker Room Power

Good morning, good day, good evening, wherever in the world you are. This is Dave with another episode of my Nuggets, you'll be happy to hear that feeling a lot better a week on. I'm still here in Connecticut, I fly to Chicago next Friday. Today I'm going to talk about how we just cannot read minds.

So we need to ask the question, What am I talking about here? Well, we all tend to waste a lot of energy and time making up stories and assumptions about situations and what we think people are thinking about. And we feel like because we can pick up so many clues through body language, through situations, and also, we have gut feelings. That and, and we know that energy does travel. So, if something's not really right, between yourself and someone else, we get the vibe. But although all these cues and signals can give us an inkling into what other people are thinking, it's not always very reliable. Because sometimes what they're expressing or their body language is to do with somebody else, some other situation that we're not aware of. And because we just happen to be part of their story for a day, or whatever it is, we think that it's all about us. In reality, it's about somebody else. So, you know, you can waste a lot of energy thinking “What have I done wrong? What did I do to make them feel bad?” There's a myriad of things that we can always be blaming ourselves for or thinking that we're responsible for when the reality is we're not.

I always find that the best policy is when you're just not sure of a situation. Just ask a good question, like, I'm just curious, you seem to be a little bit troubled today. Is there anything that I can do to help? Or is there something that, you know, I've done to upset you, and hopefully, they will tell you the truth, if you feel like they're not? Well, that is their problem. And, you know, just when they ready, they may tell you, they may never tell you, but then you can just kind of box it, and leave it alone and not waste further energy on it. Also, we can't assume that we understand how other people think everybody has different values, beliefs. Totally different upbringings. So, when you think about a situation, so for instance, I find it impossible to get my head around the fact that some people can actually sit down and plot and plan how to, you know, hurt somebody else, you know, in their job or in their careers or in their relationships.

Now, that kind of mindset. I don't know how it comes about, how you formulate that. And therefore, it's impossible for me to understand that there are people who simply think that way. You just have to deal with the consequences. Because it's very, very difficult to make up in your mind, a process that they've been through, because you just do not think like that. And there's a lot of situations in life, where you look at what people do, and you cannot fathom it at all. And that's because you cannot relate at all in any way to how they think. So again, don't fall into the trap that somehow you can truly understand where they are coming from. The fact that you can't also don't fall into the trap, that you somehow have the power to change the way say that they think. You do have the power to offer them a different perspective for them to choose themselves, whether they want to change the way they think. But that's the max that we can do. So anyway, the bottom line is, Do not assume that you can always read other people's minds. And no matter what the cues are telling you, if you're not sure, just ask. And there are ways of thinking that your brain just cannot get around. And therefore, you just got to say, okay, that's the way they are, and I can steer clear, or I'm aware of it, and, you know, be careful in those certain situations around certain people. I hope this makes sense. Sometimes, when you're talking, it just gets a little bit jumbled. But I hope the message is clear enough to understand, and I'll speak to you again next week.

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Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever in the world you are, you might notice this week that my voice is a little different. That's because I'm struggling a bit with a sore throat and a little bit under the weather. Luckily, it's coincided with a two week break from the tour which I'm spending it with the family in Connecticut, which is very beautiful and extremely hot, like many parts of the world. I will have some fantastic family time over the next two weeks.

Anyway, today, I wanted to talk to you about the positive outcomes that I can see from COVID. And whilst I'm in no way diminishing the problems that COVID has caused, and, you know, the heartbreak and all the terrible things that happened to people affected by COVID. Like everything in life, there are some, I believe some great positives to come out of it. The first thing is, I think the world has been stuck in a traditional way of working for a long time, probably a century or so, where people go into the office, work long hours and commute home. Also a lot of flying around the world happened in order to do business, that some of it possibly and a lot more could definitely be avoided.

Overall, I think the traditional model, whilst there were some companies already trying to break this, in the main, it was just business as usual. COVID has changed that! COVID has forced companies to trust their employees to get on with the job at home and of course, the realisation comes that people can be effective under a different model. And I think that people have realised that effective work is far more important than just putting in the hours and if you work effectively, that frees up time to spend with family. I think COVID gave a lot of people the time to reflect and actually see firsthand, from working from home, how things could be different and how they could spend more time with their family. And also, for those working incredibly long hours, actually see for themselves what they've been missing out on and find ways to be more effective, to still get the work done and have family time, which I think is a huge positive.

I think that new models are going to emerge that we haven't really thought of yet, but because the tradition is broken, people's imagination and creativity will kick into place. Clearly, there's definitely a need for human interaction. And if you're going to build teams and have great teamwork, it's impossible to do that without human interaction. So therefore, whatever happens needs to be a mixture of in office, and, and your meetings and get togethers, as well as working from home or remotely. And I think this is going to be a huge challenge for companies to build an environment and culture that they want with less human contact in terms of person to person or in groups. And that challenge is to find that happy medium of where you can still talk together because nothing can replace the personal touch the personal nuances that happen when you meet and how relationships are built through. mixing together that cannot happen in the same way over things like zoom. But overall, I think that the change in working practices is a huge positive for the world, and that the new models that emerge will be Be extremely exciting.

Speak to you again next week

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Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever in the world you are. Today I'm coming to you from a Shake Shack in Indianapolis. My bags didn't make it through yesterday on the flight, so I had to pick them up from the airport today. It's a usual travel story as to why it wasn't delivered to my hotel, but I took advantage of the trip on my way back to stop and check out a little if Indianapolis. Walking around at over 90 degrees the thought of a cookies and cream shake from Shake Shack loomed large in my head and had to be the order of the day.

Anyway, today I'm going to talk about complacency and how at the highest level you can never take anything for granted. Even when things are going well such as Liam Broady making 3rd round of Wimbledon, beating Diego Schwartzman, the number 12 in the world and then qualifying for Newport only to lose a close match, we enter this week conscious of how dangerous round one will be, given it against Max Purcell the recently crowned Wimbledon doubles champion who is full of confidence. The pressure at a high level of any profession is that every day you have to be on it or you can and most probably will lose.

The level is extremely high. In Indianapolis he starts again Monday or Tuesday and whilst this is a challenger you can take nothing for granted because you start fresh, nervous, eager to do well but given the margins are so small it is difficult to feel comfortable even if you're favoured to win.

There's a different pressure when you know and believe that winning the tournament is a distinct possibility but only if you put in the relentless hard work and that a little luck falls your way. The acceptance that many crises will develop in almost every match and certainly over the course of five matches there is going to be adversity to overcome. Knowing this, you still must believe and remain confident that you have the mindset, the resilience to overcome every obstacle. The only time that you know that you have not overcome all the obstacles is if you shake hands having not won any one of the hopefully five match journey.

I will end with this – complacency of any kind, taking any challenge for granted, feeling entitled to have an easier time of it because of previous success will bite you in the ass. The greats in all fields of life know this well and whilst they can relax and enjoy downtime, they never take winning or their job for granted. This is the pressure that must be endured and put on yourself. The diamond that emerges is because of the ability to sustain a work ethic through success and learning.
(Listen to episode 2 - the myth of failure)

If you like my work and you think my nuggets can help others please share on social media and as always I would love to hear from you about anything that’s on your mind, with ideas, questions, love or any opinions on ways I can do better! Email me at: [email protected]

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Good morning good day good evening wherever you are this is David Sammel with another nugget. Today I’m going to talk to you about insecurity which is very pertinent to Liam after a very good Wimbledon. I have purposely planned a quick turnaround because after the highs and loss in the 3rd round of Wimbledon, it is a sign of confidence and maturity to put that all aside and focus on the next step here in Newport. I’m pleased to tell you that he started well and focused with a win today.

While it may be difficult for us to accept, insecurity is a universal human condition. No matter how successful a person becomes, insecurities may arise quickly when faced with a new challenge. If we recognise that when these insecurities emerge, we don't have to be afraid of them, then we can learn to manage them. They can be the fuel we require to realise that if we focus on our job and know that it is normal to doubt, then it is equally normal to know that despite our insecurity we can perform and get through the challenge and emerge stronger than ever.

A tennis player begins each week in round 1 of a tennis tournament, regardless of whether they won the previous one. Players often obsess over their game leading up to a tournament, to the detriment of their performance.

When a player begins a match, they are almost always nervous, even if they have been winning a lot. It is important as a coach to help players recognise and accept insecurity as normal and to use it as motivation to focus on their processes, the things they can control. This brings stability and calmness because good routines are a source of comfort and familiarity.

As our performance improves the more confident we are in our abilities. When a tennis player trusts their game it is far easier to get some rhythm going and slip into a flow state.

When we are in flow all our insecurities disappear. We are able to focus purely on the job at hand. Because nothing in life is certain we will always be plagued with some insecurity. Personally, I think this is life’s way of keeping us humble and from complacency, teaching us to take nothing for granted. A big part of mental strength is acceptance and then learning how to manage ourselves through various challenges and adversity.

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Good morning. Good day. Good evening, wherever in the world you are. I’m coming to you from Wimbledon where we've had a pretty successful week with Liam Broady making the third round and taking out the number 12 seed in the process.

My reflections on the tournament come down to what we can teach and what we have to learn through experience. Liam played back-to-back five set matches. Whilst he had done all the training in order to be able to play with that intensity for over four hours, twice in three days with a three-hour doubles in between he still didn't know if he could truly trust his body to carry him that far without feeling fatigue that would affect performance. Now that he has been through this experience, he can truly trust his body to cope with the stresses and strain that these matches produce, and no one could teach him this.

He had to learn it through going through the experience. As parents or as coaches I think it's so important to understand this aspect of life so that you don't think that your kids or students are automatically able to cope with different situations without having the experience of living through them.

Last year, Liam went through the experience of over four hours and still didn't quite have the confidence because he felt cramp and struggled with the relentless intensity that a great player brings. He had to go through it again to learn if he could ever do it without struggling to that extent and cope when he's feeling stressed that he might cramp. This year, he proved he could cope with two five set matches both over four hours and one of them against one of the fittest and most successful 5 set players in Diego Schwartzman. It was an exact replay of the second round of the 2021 Wimbledon and this time, not only did he cope but didn't have any of the problems that he had last year. Nothing can replace experience in certain situations. You can only give students a glimpse and an insight into what is to come, but people so often must go through it themselves to truly understand what they can and cannot do. I hope this makes sense and the message is to allow people to have experiences which maybe they need more than once or twice to get truly confident in those situations. In fact, sometimes it takes many times and many years because some things in life just must be felt. Speak to you again next week.

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Good morning. Good day. Good evening, wherever in the world you are. I'm back this week. I hope you enjoyed my ATP podcast from last week. I didn't send out a nugget because I'd already done a podcast with ATPmedia and sent that out instead. But back to the nuggets this week.

This week I'm going to talk about how to prepare for something huge, like Wimbledon. Obviously, this is the pinnacle of the sport and if you're good enough to be here, that already in itself is a huge achievement. But how do you prepare to play well, in this tournament?

Well firstly, stick to your routines.
When the nerves hit, accept them without suddenly panicking and feeling like you have to do things differently.
Trust yourself and your team.
Be yourself and don't feel like you suddenly have to do more to win. If you're good enough, you will give yourself the best chance to win.
By doing what you do all through the year, you don't have to suddenly become a much better player in order to win. Put your game on the court and see where it takes you just like any other tournament.
Go into every match with no thought of losing. no possibility of losing. The only time you accept a loss is if you have lost the last point and you're actually out of the tournament. Until that last point is lost, you have to believe that even the slimmest chance can still be turned into a victory. Sometimes to win from the edge of losing.
Try everything in your power to convert the chance.

What in the world would prevent anyone from not enjoying playing at Wimbledon, a dream achieved something that people who get there have worked for all of their lives. This is a privilege that you've earned to try and win the biggest tournament in the world.

No one imagines as a child that they would play Wimbledon one day full of fear and playing really badly. Protect your mind from a thought of failure and instead focus on delivering and expressing yourself and your level of expertise in the way that you saw you would in this position.

The closest you can come to feeling this huge desire to succeed in life at a tournament like Wimbledon, outside of sport, like a World Cup, or whatever the pinnacle of a sport is; the Olympics is a job interview for a job that you really, really want or an exam that you must pass or a huge deal that you want to pull off. And similarly, you have to approach these situations relaxed and calm, focused on what you need to say or do with a body language that reflects confidence that you're the right person in the right place. I hope whatever you trying and striving to achieve that some of these thoughts resonate with you and can help you get possibly a little more clarity in how you approach a difficult yet wonderful opportunity. If you entertainers enjoy Wimbledon because it's fantastic to watch. And if you're lucky enough to be there in person even better. And I hope you spare a small thought to wish myself and Liam all the best so that he can perform to the best of his ability in this tournament and see where that takes us speak to you next week

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Good morning, good day, good evening, wherever in the world you are, this is David Sammel with another nugget.

What is success? Everyone talks about success. Usually, it means what can be shown to others as a success.

Understand that this is a never-ending process with your measure of success based on your communication and effort given to relationships. You know, there are many examples and I'm going to give you a few here that I would say are a measure of success.

So, decide what level of sacrifice is worth it for you. This does not mean that sacrifice is not fun. that hard work is not satisfying but work takes time. And where you spend your time is the most important choice of all because it has to be decided. Where you spend your time must be divided. So, I'll end with this thought,

“What, where and with whom you spend your time is what you value the most no matter what you say. Where you spend your time and what you spend your time on is truly what you value.”

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This is Dave Sammel coming to you from Great Britain, and the grass court season. So, the grass court season has just kicked off and it's an exciting time of the year for all British players and coaches. I'm looking forward to seeing how the whole season plays out and then on to the hardcourt season in America. But keeping that aside, today, I'm going to talk to you about letting people down and how we so often feel really badly about certain situations like we're letting other people down.

I have this a lot with athletes who feel like they're letting parents down or coaches or their support team. I always say to them, “do you have a little brother or an older brother or sister? And are they trying to achieve anything in their lives? If not, then a friend who is trying to achieve something in their life?”

If they do badly at it, how do you feel about it? Well, obviously, you try to help them, try to pick them up. You really feel like you want to do everything you can to support them. So, if your reaction is to support people close to you trying to achieve things if they fail, but failing is just learning really, basically you don't get it right the first few times, why do you imagine others will react differently?

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LISTEN TO YOUR INTUITION

I can’t think of a better way to start a podcast than with a quote from one of, if not the greatest mind in history.

"The only real valuable thing is intuition." Albert Einstein

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We all need to learn to listen to their inner alarm system often referred to as intuition or gut instinct. We are all aware of the little inner alarm that makes us uneasy about a situation or person. The reasons we give for too often ignoring this feeling are:

o The need to fit in and be part of something (peer pressure)

o Seduced by a person, situation, or place

o Want a certain outcome so badly and ignore the warning signs and the feelings of “this is wrong” in the hope that it will turn out all right.

An example of this was my wife and I falling for a timeshare in Florida -> the idea of this idyllic place on the beach where we could come whenever we wanted for cheap and make money the rest of the year seemed an amazing deal. Our desire to see it work overrode a niggle in my brain saying “if its too good to be true, then it is” so we signed up. Luckily before the 14-day cooling off period ended I had done the math and it wasn’t great, so we asked to cancel and get our deposit back. They offered a better deal which annoyed me because I was told we had the best deal available originally further proving my intuition right. The hassle we went thru to get our deposit back was exceptional and wasted a couple days of our holiday – if only I had listened to my instinct all of that would have been avoided.

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Good day. Good morning. Good evening, wherever in the world you are. This is David Sammel, coming to you from the UK after a short trip to Paris, where Liam lost a very close, second round qualifying match. He started poorly, but fought back well, and seem to be on top, when a little bit of luck, and good play from the opponent ended up in him losing his serve and unable to break back went down 64 in the 3rd set.

He had a couple of break back chances but buoyed by the partisan French crowd his French opponent was inspired and it just didn't fall for Liam, which brings me to the subject of relativity. It doesn't matter how successful you are, there are always setbacks and the best people in the world in any field, understand this, and know that you don't get it right all the time, that you don't win all the time. So, when somebody looks at a career, such as Novak Djokovic’s, and thinks, how amazing, with everything that he's achieved, it is easy to think that he had very little disappointment. Relative to most players this is true, but for him as an example looking at a tournament like the French Open, his record is won two out of six finals in 17 attempts and Roger Federer one win in five finals in 21 years. Many players like an Andy Murray lost more Grand Slam finals, than won. If you look back in history, this is not uncommon.

Whatever level you're playing at losing is disappointing and often when you're striving for something it's only afterwards that you realise how long it has actually taken for you to achieve the result that you wanted. The famous “I’m a twenty-year overnight success” has been uttered by many stars. The other thing to come to terms with is it's not all in your hands. Other people have great desires for success and working equally hard, trying everything that they can to win, to succeed. Certainly, in tennis, there can only be one winner each week. But with everything in life, you're not going to win every deal, you're not going to be able to succeed in everything that you try.

Whilst success is relative, feelings are not!

Just because someone is extremely successful, their feelings of disappointment are no different from anyone else. When a 16-year-old loses a final, her feelings don't have more or less depth than a pro losing a final, given that both wanted desperately to win. Feelings are feelings, and as human beings it doesn't matter how wealthy or good at anything you are, you will have feelings just as angry, disappointed, sad, or happy as someone who is poor. Feelings are not linked to success or wealth; feelings are just feelings and therefore everything is relative to the depth of emotion invested in a situation rather than the result. Whatever happens what we feel is the same.

As for me and Liam it is onward to the grass court season, the disappointment of the French quickly transformed into a desire to get some success on the grass. Thanks, and please follow the podcast and any reviews more than welcome as are suggestions about topics for the future.

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