In watching the sports network’s baseball pre-season coverage, I was amazed by Orel Hershiser’s interview with another legendary Dodger (and my childhood crush), Sandy Koufax. In his retirement, Koufax is now a consultant for the Los Angeles Dodgers. While his career speaks for itself, what impresses me most about Sandy is his class and his humility.
Whether or not you are a baseball fan, what outstanding athletes can teach us about confidence and focus is invaluable. In the interview, Orel remarked at how confident Sandy always seemed on the mound. Sandy replied (paraphrasing): “Oh, I don’t know about that. If you are confident out there, you are doing something wrong…something is missing. That is really not smart.”
What I think he was alluding to is the security of insecurity. That duality is omnipresent before and during any peak or novel experience. Think about when you were first learning how to drive a car. You were probably nervous yet equally anxious to master that skill. Same thing when you first started dating and were nervous yet excited about that first kiss. Same thing with the first day of school, at a new job, taking your first baby home from the hospital, etc. Life is filled with firsts and for athletes, every game – – indeed every play – – is a first.
Accepting this allows you to appreciate that you cannot be 100% “confident” when you are on the spot. What you can be, however, is committed to a goal. Commitment is a much healthier (and easier!) goal than trying to be confident. When we try to be confident, it is all about appearance, and it is about us. When we are committed to doing our job, it is about the game, and it is about service.
Boxing giant Mohammed Ali’s signature claim to be “The Greatest” was a hypnotic suggestion to self and opponents to overcompensate for his insecurity. He was bullied as a boy, and vowed to rise above that. Yet his focus was always on his game.
Motivational guru Tony Robbins claims that two of our basic human needs are certainty and uncertainty. We like the familiar, yet we also like surprise and spontaneity and novelty. Without the latter, we’d be bored and boring. We crave excitement, and it is impossible to have excitement without some degree of insecurity.
So why not embrace your insecurities? There can be no security without insecurity. No certainty without uncertainty. These elements all come together on the baseball field, in the boxing ring, and on the court of life.