It all led to this. Right here. Right now. This is the big one.
If you win this match, you walk away with 3 million dollars. Lose and you don’t. And the 3 million dollars doesn’t include the notoriety, sponsorships, and legacy you’ll create. Everybody remembers who wins Wimbledon. Nobody remembers who finishes second.
Who are you up against in this game?
Only the best tennis player in the entire world.
Now, right before you walk onto the court, onto the biggest tennis match of your life, your eye catches this quote.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same.
It jolts you. You pause and digest it.
No matter what happens right now, Triumph or Disaster, it’s an impostor. You should treat them the same. Winning or losing is the same. Place the game in the context of your entire life. The world will go on. You will have more highs and lows no matter what. “If you can meet with Triumph or Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same.”
You are competing only with yourself.
You relax, take a deep breath, and walk on the court smiling.
Although there’s no attribution on that wall, these two lines are from a poem called “If—,” written by Rudyard Kipling in 1895. Kipling was an English short-story writer and poet born in India who went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature and was declared England’s favorite poet in national polls.
“If—” is thirty-two beautiful lines written by Rudyard Kipling to his son John as parental advice on how to be confident, accept yourself, and do it for you.
“If—” by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Remember Secret #2. What do you do so criticism can’t touch you?
Remember to do it for you.
11
“I don’t stand back and judge . . . I do.”
Do it for you.
When I was young I asked my cousin why it seemed to me that the NCAA Final Four was more exciting to watch than the NBA. “I don’t understand,” I said. “These college guys are running as fast as possible, diving for balls, jumping for difficult shots, smiling and laughing the whole time. When I flip to an NBA game the point guard is walking up the court. Everyone is sitting on the bench instead of standing and screaming.” He smiled and said, “The college guys aren’t getting paid for it. They might never get paid for it. They’re doing it for themselves. Because they love it.”
His words rang clear as a bell.
At around that same age I used to love rolling up my parents’ change so they could take it to the bank every few months. I loved sorting the coins and counting out the exact number for each roll. I loved standing the coins up on their sides while squeezing them tightly together with my fingers. I loved carefully rolling them into those slippery little papers before folding tightly at the ends. Turning a big jar of coins into a small, heavy pile was deeply satisfying.
Then one day my mom said, “Neil, for your allowance you can keep ten percent of whatever you roll.” What did I do? I rolled all the quarters and dimes but quit before the nickels and pennies. I said I’d get back to those. My mom was disappointed. Suddenly I didn’t appreciate rolling fifty pennies for five cents when a roll of quarters earned me a dollar.
Do it for you.
Blog counters, score sheets, and job evaluations will always tell you how you’re doing. They will deliver external rewards like money, promotions, or critical praise. But those rewards mask your intrinsic motivators. You go from running down the court to walking. You start focusing on appealing to those judging you. Risk-taking disappears.
Remember, it’s not the critic who counts. It’s the man in the arena. Pick the type of success you’re aiming for and have a high opinion of yourself and a high opinion of others along the way. Move through hiding and apologizing to eventually accepting all parts of you. And as Buddha said, let others keep their criticism for you.
Do it for you.
Let’s finish this secret with a story.
John Lennon was one of the most fiercely independent artists of all time. Do it for you? He did. Most people who experienced his level of sales and social success would never walk away from the Beatles—but he privately told Paul, George, and Ringo in September 1969 that he was leaving the group. More than a decade later, just weeks before his death, John Lennon was asked in a famous Playboy interview if he thought his post-Beatles music would ever have the lasting imprint of his work with the Beatles.
Tough question.
What did he say?
“I’m not judging whether ‘I Am the Walrus’ is better or worse than ‘Imagine.’ It is for others to judge. I am doing it. I do. I don’t stand back and judge . . . I do.”
Say “I do.”
Do it for you.
Secret #3
The Three Words That Will Save You on Your Very Worst Days
1
The first war you are fighting every day
We are going to get to those three words.