What Leaders Can Learn from Andy Murray

Andy Murray, the British tennis player lost in the semi-finals at Wimbledon two days ago to Rafael Nadal.  The consensus among ex-players and tennis commentators is that Murray has all the shots needed to win a grand slam, but he hasn’t yet broken through.  Frustratingly for him, he was in charge of his match against Nadal until his level of play dropped after the first set.

It’s clear that Murray faces two psychological challenges in trying to become a grand slam champion and anyone wanting to be an effective leader can learn from what he’s facing.  Here’s why.

Mental Toughness

Boris Becker, in today’s Sunday Times remarks that, “Between the ears Murray is far more fragile than Rafa [Nadal], Novak [Djokovic] or Roger [Federer].  Deep down he’s just not emotionally strong enough to win a major right now.  We know Andy is a very dedicated sportsman.  He trains and trains to get better.  He is prepared to push himself on the practice court, the track and in the gym.  He is playing to become a champion but he must get tougher in the mind to prevent these slides.”

Challenge #1: Monkey Mind

One noted sports psychologist pointed out in the same article, correctly in my view, that Murray must learn to deal with a problem we all face: “monkey mind.”  This is the mind’s tendency to flit from subject to subject against our conscious will.  You can experience this yourself if you try to concentrate on an object in front of you.  Within seconds, you will almost certainly realise that your mind has wandered and you are thinking about something else and hadn’t realised it was happening.  This is monkey mind.

Now imagine you are a tennis player serving at set point in a semi-final at Wimbledon.  This is when a thought can pop into your conscious mind along the lines of, “I mustn’t do a double fault.”  A random thought like this can interfere with your learned subconscious routines (like serving), causing you to tense up and hit the ball long or into the net.  And monkey mind can cause a bad line call to leave you stewing on the injustice of it, even though consciously you know you need to let it go and focus on the now.  For leaders, monkey mind can cause you to procrastinate on important issues.

So it’s true that Murray will have to learn how to focus his mind and remove distractions to allow his skills to flow to best effect.  And this is the same for anyone wanting to practise effecive leadership – be they leaders of nations, organisations and small groups.  One way to do this is by practising mindfulness meditation.

Challenge #2: Self-Image

But learning to control the mind, although important, is only half of the solution.  For if Andy Murray does only that, he will probably see an improvement in his play, but he may not break through to become the champion he wants to be.  Why is that?  Because the other, crucial, part of the solution is letting go of his old self-identity and moving to the self-image of a champion.

In the model of the psyche outlined in the book, The Three Levels of Leadership, your mind has four levels.  The highest level is higher mental mind.

This level controls what you think in the lower three levels.  It is where you store your self-image – your view of your qualities, your flaws, your potential and the roles you habitually play in life.  Now your self-image is a mental creation of your own; a structure of beliefs about yourself.  You have created it and although many people don’t realise it, you can let go of it and transcend your self-image at any time.  Indeed, without noticing, you have done so many times in your life.

How Self-Image Controls Perceptions

Most people don’t realise how much their self-image controls them.  So let me illustrate this with a thought experiment.

Imagine three people are watching a championship-deciding game between Chelsea and Manchester United.  One is a Chelsea supporter.  One is a Manchester United supporter.  And one an Everton supporter.  And imagine the score is 0-0 when Didier Drogba scores a brilliant goal from 18 yards in the 89th minute.  How will the three people react?  The Chelsea supporter will be full of joy.  The Manchester United supporter will most likely be despondent.  And the Everton supporter, the neutral, may simply enjoy what was a brilliant goal.

Now note that the physical event was identical for all three onlookers.  But their perceptions of that event and therefore their emotional and physical reactions were different.  Why?  What controls their perceptions?  The answer is their self-image – the words that come after, “I am…”  So subconsciously the first says, “I am a Chelsea supporter.”  The second says, “I am a Manchester United supporter.”  And the third says, “I am a neutral.”  Can you see that our self image, our self-concept, determines our perceptions and therefore our feelings and actions?

Thus, Andy Murray – like all leaders wanting to grow in their role – will need to learn how he sees himself (that is, what he believes about himself) and notice which aspects of his self-image are limiting him.  From there he will need to go into those beliefs and – without going into technical detail – learn to realise that they are all false.  Only when he’s done that will he be able to let go of the internal ideas blocking him from winning a grand slam.

Beyond Our Self-Image: Pure Self

Now there’s an unspoken question in all this.  If Andy Murray, like the rest of us, has a self-image and can change that image from time to time, then clearly he is not his self-image; he is something more fundamental than that.  So what is he?  What is it that creates and holds the self-image?

The answer is that Andy Murray, like every other human being, is a Self.  A Self is a centre of self-awareness, will and imagination.  But – and this is a crucial point – a Self is a centre of potential, but not of content.  All anyone can say about pure Self is that it “is.”

But in the physical world we can’t live with such vagueness.  Thus, we create a sense of identity (a self-image) to express ourselves, connect with others, learn, gain experience and grow.  And we create this self-image in the four levels of our mind.

So you can think of the mind as the container of the Self’s psychological contents.  It’s in the mind that we hold our thoughts, beliefs, memories, feelings, desires and behavioural habits – but they are not all that we are.  We are more than them.  But – and this is the big point – with our faculties of self-awareness, will and imagination we can unconsciously identify with our self-image and both its helpful beliefs and limiting beliefs; beliefs that we have created.

And most of us do indeed identify with our self-image, which is why we’re held captive by our most subtle, invisible limiting beliefs.

Learning from Andy Murray’s Challenge

So all leaders can learn from Andy Murray’s challenge to move beyond the mental barriers he has unconsciously created for himself and work not only on taking control of their “monkey mind” but, at a deeper level, moving beyond their limiting self-image.

For it is Andy Murray’s self-image that controls his performance at crucial moments.  Working on mind control and letting go of a limiting self-image are the main elements of self-mastery.  And self-mastery is the hidden key to effective leadership.