Mentally strong

Chapter 1:

Introduction

Rafael Nadal: "What separates champions from
near-champions is mental strength."

The personality

Being at the top, being the best, people loving you, cheering for you. There is hardly a boy who has not dreamed of this. Be it a professional tennis player, a professional soccer player or anything else. Just kids. Okay, realistically, the vast majority don't even really try. But even those who do try, they get into a squad, a selection, train in an academy, a sports boarding school, are subsidized, promoted etc. But the reality is:

The vast majority don't make it! Not only do they not make it to the top of the world, but they don't even make it into a field where you earn money.

Let's take a look at a development squad at the age of 14, 15, 16. It doesn't matter whether it's in tennis or the boys from the young talent center in soccer. They are all really good! Why do some of them make the leap into professional sports and others don't? Because you need the "total package," as talent scouts like to say. Roughly between the ages of 16 and 20, athletes are in "transition". In other words, they are making the leap from youth to professional sports. And this is where it becomes clear who was just a "talent" that didn't make it and who has the total package, with all the qualities you need at the top!

Let's imagine that we want to climb to the top of Mount Everest (the highest mountain in the world). If we want to have a chance to do it, we should be well-versed in mountaineering. We should be able to climb, have optimal equipment, oxygen devices, have a plan, know our route in advance, be physically and mentally fit. Every little thing counts! But if two days before reaching the summit, we realize: "Oh, we don't have any food left. We miscalculated our ratios". Then we have a problem. We will not make it! We may have done a lot of things really well. But we have not considered a decisive component of the overall package.

Whether it's summiting, being a professional athlete, or something else. One thing is clear:

Rule No. 1: If I want to achieve great things and be the best I can be, then I must know the whole package. Every building block that is important!

Otherwise, it will be difficult to reach the end goal.

Michael Jordan, basketball legend: "The physical part is a little bit easier but the mental part is the hardest part. And that's the part that separates the good players from the great players."

What does the overall package look like? We can imagine it like a puzzle with 100 pieces. Each piece is a skill, everything must fit together. All the strokes in technical perfection, speed, strength, concentration, feeling for the ball, self-confidence, stamina and much more. With top athletes, the pieces of the puzzle fit together. If parts are missing, you might still recognize the picture, but it's just not complete. And it is the same with athletes: They are good but not complete and therefore they do not use their full potential!

But why are some areas trained more than others?

There are skills, puzzle pieces, that are obvious. Stroke movements, for example. You can search for "Federer forehand" on YouTube and get great analyses. The same goes for fitness videos. Of course, that's important, but not the only part. The other part is not so obvious. Because what happens "in the head" is not obvious at first glance. And that's exactly why it's hardly ever trained.

If something in the stroke movement doesn't quite fit, a video analysis is made and the movement is optimized. But if confidence has been lacking in the tournament or the player has snapped, broken a club or otherwise had a head problem, people just say, "He still has to learn that." Or "He still has to mature there." But how? Most of the time, the right tools for the job are missing.

Novak Djokovic: "I've always had a very holistic approach to my life and career."

"You need self-confidence, always believe in yourself", "never give up", "work hard on yourself", "learn to deal with defeats", "stay calm and keep your nerve". Well-intentioned advice, of course. You're always right, but can anyone put it into practice? Particularly for young people in the "transition" from youth to professional athlete, it is often the mental factors that decide whether the athlete makes it to the top or not.

That's why a few years ago I decided to completely reappraise the entire topic of "performance", beyond the scope of sports. In the research work, I have dealt with questions of how humans learn, learn movements, have incorporated the latest findings of brain research, genetics and psychology. I have analyzed the path from childhood to the top of the world of greatest athletes from many different fields. Talked to researchers, professors, psychologists, mental coaches, world-class athletes, elite soldiers and a war veteran. My goal in doing this was clear. I wanted to collect complex knowledge, structure it and present it in such a simplified way that even the 14-year-old athlete next door can use it to get the best out of himself.

There are many biographies of athletes who describe their way to the top. Each had a slightly different environment, different conditions and different training methods. Each of these stories is inspiring but not necessarily transferable because the circumstances are different. But if you take a closer look at these top athletes, it quickly becomes clear that despite their many differences, they also have a lot in common. And it's precisely these common traits which represent the qualities you need to have in order to reach the top.

Michael Phelps, swimmer with the most (gold) medals at the Olympics: "I had proven to myself that I could set a goal and through willpower and being mentally tough, not only meet that goal but beat it."

Two 15-year-olds, both equally good, one makes it into the professional game, the other doesn't. Why? Is it talent after all?

Two 18-year-olds, one "living his dream", the other at some point "burned out" because of all the stress and stops completely practicing the sport. Why?

One of the best-known top coaches is Günther Bresnik, who says: "Tennis at the professional level is the freest market economy you can imagine. One gets ahead, one is out. Pure Darwinism. Fascinating. And the best school of life I can imagine." So when he talks about the school of life, it means that "sports education" is about much more than learning how to play tennis. And that's exactly the crucial point. It's about: personality development! Because sport shapes character.

There are scientific studies on extremely successful people. Self-made millionaires and billionaires. It is interesting that most of them were competitive athletes in their youth. These successful people have also learned qualities through sports that they could use these qualities in their professional life. Setting goals, working hard for these goals in the long term, even when things get unpleasant, asserting oneself, being fair, concentration, being able to deal with defeats, all part of a personality. And that is exactly what makes these people successful.

One can therefore state the following about personality development:

Rule No. 2: You need different personality traits to achieve maximum performance in sports!

Rule No. 3: Exactly these characteristics, these character traits are usually found in other "high performers", no matter which field they are successful in!

And that is precisely why competitive sports are so valuable for children and young people. At a time when many young people spend hours every day sitting in front of the TV, smartphone or game consoles, competitive athletes develop physical skills, but above all mental ones. They shape your personality!

Christiano Ronaldo's youth coach: "He was talented (.). But what impressed me more was his determination. His strength of character shone through. He was stout-hearted - mentally he was indestructible."

Mental strength makes the difference!

What does "mental strength" mean? For a lot of people, it means that someone plays well at 5:5 in a tiebreak. In other words, being able to perform in tight, important match situations. That is certainly an important part, but let's be honest. You don't get into this tiebreak if your opponent plays 3 classes better tennis. So it's about more: playing and physical qualities.

And that's where, in daily training, the difference is made....