Down 4-1: creating my own ghost to chase
What do Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic have in common? It's not just talent — it's a relentless mentality that refuses to give up, no matter the score
I’ve been on a short hiatus from publishing, and I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting this December. Here’s a piece that’s taken a bit longer to write.
Happy holidays everyone!
A few months ago, I attended a professor's office hours for a finance class I was taking. Technically, this was for a course on the economics of the private equity industry, but our conversation somehow meandered to a shared interest in tennis. Then, the professor casually remarked that he had played tennis with Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic.
Judging from my subsequent barrage of relentless questions, I'm sure he realized that I was a huge tennis fan, and he entertained me with a few choice stories about his time spent with these tennis legends. It was the most productive office hours I've ever had at the GSB.
As I stepped out of the room, my mind racing from having been exposed second-hand to such luminescent tennis greatness, my professor shared an unprompted golden bit of wisdom. It's something that has stuck with me to this day.
You know, I asked them (Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic) what separated them from the rest of the tennis players. And it's not talent. They said that it was all about the mentality.
I was about to tell him that, of course, I knew that the mental game in tennis was one of the most critical parts of the game. As someone who has lost his fair share of tennis matches in epic mental collapses, I knew that.1
But I wasn't ready for the next story.
When most people are down 4-1 in a set, they give up and start mentally preparing for the next set. Nadal isn't like that. When he's down 4-1, his mentality is, I'm going to win the next game. Once I win the next game, my opponent will crack. And once that happens, I'm going to add even more pressure to win the next game, and then his resolve will become completely broken. So all I have to do is win the next game.
Once I win the next game, my opponent will crack. There's a bit of disdain for the opponent's fighting spirit, but it's dramatically overshadowed by a sense of supreme confidence in his own willpower.
Something in this struck me. Perhaps it's because, as a Federer fan, I've too often been on the receiving end of this — see Why I hate Rafael Nadal.
Or perhaps I've been seeing that I need more of that relentless drive in my own life.
Relentless.com
As I've gotten older, I have begun to respect and look up to more people like Nadal, those who display some element of relentless drive. Whether it's Nadal's tenacious and indefatigable defense on the tennis court or Jeff Bezos' disciplined and rigorous expansion of Amazon, some deep core of it resonates with me.2 It's why I was spellbound by Vinod Khosla's story of dogged persistence to come to Stanford.
Of course, none of these people are paragons of perfection, but I wondered why I kept returning to them. I think I've figured it out now.
I find in my own life the missing ingredient has often been a lack of will and staying power.
I often find myself cursing my lack of drive. There's a sense of dread that perhaps I have been too comfortable, that I'll look back and rue the fact that my younger self didn't seize the opportunities presented in front of him.
That he had been too complacent, too self-satisfied.
My own version of filial piety
My narrative and world perspective is woven from the threads of my parents' story.
I am a first-generation Chinese-American, and my parents came to this country after surmounting obstacle after obstacle. My father faced incredible racism and mistreatment in his home country of Brunei, yet persevered to dominate academics and win a scholarship to study in America. My mother forsook a medical career in China, came to this country with nothing, and worked her way up to a successful career in a completely different field.
Of course, the Chinese-American experience can't be examined without examining filial piety. The Confucian virtue of filial piety describes loyalty and reverence to the family. It's core to the Chinese ethos, dictating proper behaviors and roles between parents and their children. I've often seen this central value wielded to enforce obedience within families, to coerce and cajole compliance within the family unit.
My parents gave me everything expected in the traditional parent-child relationship, and then even more. Far from the stereotypical Asian tiger parents, my parents gifted me incredible freedom to explore whatever I wanted and fully supported me in all my endeavors. I was born to a family of exceedingly loving parents in an environment where I lacked nothing.
I have seen the trials and tribulations my parents have had to overcome. They overcame much worse than anything I've faced in my life, yet they still meet everything with a sense of joy and caring.
In a way, it feels almost indulgent — disrespectful to their sacrifice, even — not to meet the same levels of drive that my parents showed.
Chasing a ghost
To be fair, I don't think most people would describe me as self-satisfied and complacent. I do things for an innate intrinsic motivation, for "a love of the game," as I like to say. It helps the long-term thinking and compounding game I like to play. I tell myself that I work at my deliberate pace so that I can continue compounding in the infinite game that I'm playing.
But I often wonder, what would happen if I injected more relentless drive into my own process? To kickstart new creative projects and propel me further. To shock the system out of the occasional malaise. To escape the languid grasp of ennui.
LeBron James has often alluded to chasing "the ghost that played in Chicago" in his basketball quest.
This "ghost that played in Chicago" is a manifestation of Michael Jordan that LeBron created in his own mind. It's LeBron's creation, ultimately allowing him to seize control of his journey and narrative.
Perhaps I should be doing more chasing. Creating my own ghost to chase.
But it's not a ghost made of the fear of failure, the crippling anxiety of social approval, or the tantalizing allure of "success." It's conjured from much stronger stuff than any fleeting external motivations. It's constructed from wonder and awe from exploring the world. It's composed of love and caring for my family, an homage to their sacrifice, and my drive to push further for them.
That ghost — a manifestation of my own wonder, love, and responsibility — stands across the tennis court.
In many ways, I'm down early in the match. But it's my turn.
The score reads 4-1.
One particular tennis match sticks out. After winning the first set 7-5, I lost the second set 6-0 and the third set 6-0. Getting double-bagelled in the final two sets sparked my tennis project here.
Bezos initially considered naming his company Relentless.com instead of Amazon.com. To this day, Relentless.com still re-directs to the Amazon homepage.