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The Law

Mindset - VI

Virat, out of the all the players in the national team, puts in the most amount of effort, in his practices, physical fitness and finer aspects of the game. His determination to succeed, irrespective of the odds, keeps his focus razor sharp. In fact, he thrives under pressure and adverse conditions. In his own words, he likes to get needled to raise his level of performance. The Australian team, probably the most versatile needlers in the cricketing world, found this characteristic of Virat at great cost to them. They needled him when he was batting and Virat scored 82 in 51 balls, slamming all the Australian bowlers to all parts of ground. In another test match, Mitchell Johnson, the Australian test pace bowler tweeted on the test eve that Virat was not to be seen, implying that Virat had run away from the game. Virat slammed 169 and specially slammed Mitchell all over the ground. Virat takes control of the adversities and pressures. 

If you watch on television the Indian team playing, you will find two players capturing majority of the frames - Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina. Both of them are always moving around encouraging the team, smiling, high-fiving, and needling the opponents slyly. 

See Virat walking back after getting out. He will be cursing himself. He is never happy leaving the field. He always likes to go further and further. He too loses form. But then he claws back with effort, grit and focus.

Virat volunteered to the India B team - a team of second string player - to go out with them to Australia and play matches to get more match practice. Can anyone imagine this being done by any of the other national team players? 

That is what is open mindset is mostly about - learning, putting in effort, digging in and raising the bar.

Both, Virat and Rohit, have ability or talent. Both have reached the top level of the game. One gets going often and the other gets going now and then. One is considered to be the mainstay of the team. One never knows how Rohit will perform when he goes out. When Rohit comes out to bat, the commentators say "Here is a class batsman with a class act. If he makes 30 runs, the bowlers then will have to watch out. He usually converts those 30s into big scores". Rohit does makes those 30 runs, sometimes. They are so far apart that he gets dropped out of the team due to inconsistent performance.

Averseness to putting in effort is a problem anywhere. The greater problem is a mindset which believes in the axiom that success comes from ability, which believes that individuals with ability are superior and which believes that those who slog to reach success are inferior. No skill can be learnt and mastered without effort. Some of us may have been given a good starting line in way of talent. Reaching the finishing line takes effort.

Edison did not invent anything out of talent. He liked to tinker with machines and tools. That was his gift. That is all. His inventions came out of sheer hard work by him an his team of 40 odd persons. There were probably ninety nine failures before one success. He learnt from each failure. His interpretation of a failure was that he learnt what would not work. A failure was a stepping stone for success. A series of failures did not deter him. That was the grit in him. Every failure brought him closer to success. He the value of perseverance in attaining success.

See you again

Prabir