F. Scott Fitzgerald’s definition of “first-rate intelligence” was the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time while retaining the ability to function.

Dave’s post last week on The Power of Paradox brought this quote to mind, and got me thinking about some of the seemingly contradictory ideas that, when held together, can actually help your coaching.

There is one paradox that I’ve been wrestling with. I don’t think I’ve fully landed it yet, but it keeps swirling round in my head. Dave’s post pushed me to dive into it a bit more. There will be some messiness in this one, but hopefully it gives a bit of an insight into where I’m at with it.

Funnily enough, where I’ve been struggling most is just articulating what the paradox actually is. Here’s where I’ve got to:

In coaching there is a tension between pushing for what could be, while accepting what is.

As coaches, we’re constantly trying to move things forward. Always improving. Trying to become something better. All while working within a reality we don’t fully control. But while we try and build the reality we want, we have to work in the reality we are in. And it’s the need to accept that where the tension sits.

For some coaches, accepting reality can feel like a defeatist mindset. Like once you accept what’s happening, you’re on a slippery slope. But I’d challenge that. It’s not about being resigned to what’s in front of you, it’s about understanding and accepting it clearly. That puts you in a better position to improve and perform.

British comedian, actor and author David Mitchell’s description of an “optimistic realist” captures this well:

The world has never been fair, and cannot be made fair, and claims that it can are foolish or dishonest. It can be made fairer and attempts to make it less fair can be resisted. Optimistic realists seek improvement, not perfection.

We can’t control outcomes or exactly how things unfold. But accepting the situation in front of us doesn’t stop us from striving to be better - it actually makes it possible.

There are some very high-performing people who show why it’s beneficial to work, play and coach within this tension.

Phil Jackson’s first coaching book was called Zen Hoops. He was a different cat. Over time, he came to realise that accepting the possibility of losing actually creates the freedom to perform.

He originally believed that once he could accept defeat, it would be time to stop coaching. It reflects a broader belief that accepting loss somehow means you’re setting yourself up for it. But as he wrote:

“As strange as it may seem, being able to accept change or defeat with equanimity gives you the freedom to go out on the floor and give the game your all.”

Accepting the reality—that you might lose—allows you to do your best. Obsessing about winning and trying to control everything adds pressure and constricts performance.

At the end of the day, you can’t win all the time (and this is coming from a coach who led one of only two teams in NBA history to win 70 games in a season). As he put it:

“Only by acknowledging the possibility of defeat can you fully experience the joy of competition.”

When astronaut Chris Hadfield is working on the International Space Station - 400km above Earth and travelling at 28,000km an hour - there are plenty of things that can go wrong.  Hadfield says he’s confident because, as he says, he’s spent “a lifetime spent visualising defeat and figuring out how to prevent it.”

His confidence doesn’t come from hoping things go right, it comes from preparing for when they don’t. Accepting that things can go wrong, doesn’t hurt his confidence, it gives him more of it. You accept the reality and then it forces you to sharpen your preparation. He expands on this further:

“Being forced to confront the prospect of failure head-on — to study it, dissect it, tease apart all its components and consequences — really works. After a few years of doing that pretty much daily, you’ve forged the strongest possible armour to defend against fear: hard-won competence.”  

If you refuse to accept what could go wrong, there’s no reason to prepare for it, and you’re exposed when it does. Accepting it forces you to get better.

For 22-time Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal, acceptance is about the ability to move forward.

In his book Rafa, he writes:

“Enduring means accepting. Accepting things as they are and not as you would wish them to be, and then looking ahead, not behind.”

Nadal (like Federer) only won around 54% of the points he played across his career. When you accept the reality that you’re going to lose almost half the points you play, it’s not a shock when it happens. You accept, then move forward. Now you’re ready for the next one. And that is what allows you to win the points when they matter most to turn 54% of points won into 82% of matches won.

As I’ve worked through this, I still feel like there’s a bit for me to flesh out. Dave pointed out that the examples I’ve leant on all focus on the accepting reality part of the tension, rather than the pushing for better part. At the moment, that’s probably reflective of how I see it.

The pushing for better piece is something I see coaches do intuitively. We’re always trying to help players and teams improve, to move environments forward, to support change. But the gap I see is in accepting current reality. In my experience, it’s where I’ve seen some of the most common causes of emotional dysregulation in coaches. We get stuck in what’s just happened, compared to what we think should have happened and what we would want to happen.

But as Phil Jackson, Chris Hadfield and Rafael Nadal have all spoken and written about, it’s accepting that reality for what it is that allows us to push for better.

Dave eloquently pointed out in the last post that coaching often sits in the “and” rather than the “or”. So when it comes to striving to be better versus accepting what currently is, maybe the power is in being able to sit in both at the same time, rather than feeling the need to choose one.

Chris Hadfield’s Ted Talk really drives home the importance of accepting the reality as it is to support your preparation. This comes in pretty handy in staying calm and performing when you go blind while on a spacewalk…

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