It’s the semi-finals. We have reached the last four of the NDTV Tech Grandmasters, a nationally televised quiz show which saw participation from schools, colleges and corporates all over India. We are riding on a string of impressive victories of various kinds: narrow strategic wins, impressive comebacks or no-contest domination. Now is our time to soar and go one step further.
The contest is about to begin, but there’s an introductory segment, in which the host asks us:
“IIT Delhi. Impressive story of success all through. Great journey till here, but the first question I have, You took out [some team] in the last one. This time a fight more of the equals, or you think you are superior? Are you flying high is the main question?”
And I say:
“No we’re not, actually….because we are well aware of this team…. because we’ve been quizzing in the past.”
I then position ourselves as underdogs by sheepishly admitting that the NSIT team had defeated us on six or so occasions previously.1
For illustrative purposes, here’s the actual clip. This is a prime demonstration of the underdog mentality.
The virtues of the underdog mentality
There’s a lot that can be said about the virtues of thinking of yourself as an underdog.
If you overestimate the other team, it makes you set higher standards and try harder. If your head is not up in the clouds, you’d pay more attention. And there’s a devious pleasure in lulling the opposition in a false sense of security before taking them down. It was the mindset that had not just landed us in the top four in that particular quiz show, but also held me in good stead in other areas of competitive life: during exam preparations, interviews, and elections. For me, it used to work, more or less.
But apart from a motivator for trying harder, the underdog mentality can also serve as a clever way to avoid the pain of defeat. Losing no longer hurts - when you lose, things are as you had expected. When you win, you get the pleasant surprise of victory.2 Dropping the expectation of winning is an insurance against the risk of heartbreak.
But what I didn’t realise then, and I do now, is that buying that insurance ensures the very outcome one insures against. Just like the secret to escape The Pit in the Batman story is to lose safety rope, the secret to success in highly competitive encounters is to think of yourself as the winner and risk feeling the pain of defeat.
In that ill-fated semifinal, we won the first two rounds and raced to a commanding 80-30 lead, only to choke in the final buzzer round and lose 80-70. And on reflection, the reason we lost was not that the other team was better, or that we were unlucky. We were not. What did us in was the lack of killer instinct, which, in turn, bred nervousness. And the killing instinct was absent because we didn’t think of ourselves as winners.
What’s wrong with the underdog mentality?
When you expect yourself to lose, you accept defeat without any consequence. You accept it because it conforms with your identity. And you lose an important motivator to avoid losing: a disappointment with yourself. You feel a kind of shame: you did not live up to your own standards. That hurts.
Worse, by allowing the opponent to see that you are vulnerable, you remove their anxieties and self-doubt for them.
A lack of winning mentality is particularly lethal in interviews. As it is the case in sports, an interviewer’s job is to spot and pick winners- not dispense social justice. And the interviewer can easily gauge who you are from what you think of yourself. Similarly, interviewees’ concern is to join winners, not a sinking ship. If you think of yourself as a sinking ship, then they would think the same of you.
“If you a low opinion of yourself you’ll attract people who agree with that low opinion.”
Often, thinking yourself as an underdog spills over to an instinctive belief that others know better, and their judgement is to be trusted over your own. And then you allow others to believe that you are not worthy of following.3
“Think you’re a slave and you’ll find a master; think you’re a master and slaves will find you”
What do winners look like?
When I think of winners, I think of personalities like Zlatan Ibhrahimovic, Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, Roger Federer and Steve Jobs. They all exude an intimidating confidence. Their aura plants seeds of doubts in the minds of their challengers. They seem to find a way to perform just when most needed. It is the same with teams: think of the ability of Zidane’s Real Madrid to score goals in extra time or Ferguson’s Manchester United to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.4
But even institutions outside sports and competitive contest can reflect a winning mentality: Oxford, Harvard, McKinsey, The New Yorker, The Economist. These institutions have all formed an image of perfectionism and excellence. One gets the impression that any task taken by members of these institutions in their respective areas would be done well.5
What does the winning mindset feel like?
A winning mindset is tied to an identity and worldview. Losing isn’t just an event which is disappointing - it conflicts with who you are. When you lose, you are not being yourself. Your entire worldview is at threat. They do not care for what other people think, but care much more about what they think of themselves.
“Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser”.
“Go big or go home”
Cultivating a winning mentality
Remember the victories and forget past defeats. If you’ve never won, winning frees you. That winning the first time takes you to another level - gets rid of a major psychological barrier to winning: the seeds of doubt
Go to the gym. Push heavy things around. Break a sweat. Don’t just half-ass it. Push yourself until you want to die. This is how you can get the highest ROI. Anything less is a waste of your time.
In the immediate point where you’re about to perform, it’s not helpful to focus on winning but about the performance you want to elicit. Maintain a clear mind, recognize your purpose, and implement your system
Observe: Assess strengths and weaknesses of opponents and exploit it.
Recognize when your opponent is struggling whereby you can attack and build momentum. When your opponent is beating themselves up for their play, this is your golden ticket to finishing off the match.
Example: Americans
This is from an answer on Quora, and aligns well with my experience of Americans.
Americans are single-minded like no nationality I have ever seen. They get down straight to business. They love to win. They play to win. And they will push relentlessly 24/7 and never let up. All. the. time. In every field - business, technology, sports, you name it. And that’s an attitude after my own heart. I simply love it and wouldn’t have it any other way. The wealth, friendliness, optimism, arrogance, insularity and even ignorance of Americans is all too famous and talked about. What is monumentally understated is the determination of top American professionals to pull out all stops to win. In every damn field. Don’t be fooled by the friendly exterior. Yes, they are indeed a generous people and they smile a lot - but once they are in a serious contest, Son, you better have your shit straightened out, bring your A-game or they’ll clean out your clock. That affable personality conceals a steely and ruthless determination to do whatever it will take to climb to the top. You know the way some Westerners look and wonder why Americans work so hard? Yes, it’s the price you pay if you want to win. And Americans at the top in each profession will pay it gladly! I’ve seen that play go down in my career everywhere from research laboratories at American universities to Wall Street investment banks. The lawyer who served as general counsel at my sister’s former employer, a large corporation in NYC - you know when that SOB came into work? 4 a.m. every morning. You’d look at his annual paycheck of over a million dollars and think he had it so good - unless you knew how incredibly dedicated and diligent the man was. And nobody sees him start his work day when it’s still dark before dawn. You’re in a race to run those experiments and publish that paper? You’re vying to get that big M&A deal? That’s the kind of men who you’re up against. If the opponents aren’t down with it 100%, the American scientists, lawyers or investment bankers will chew them up and spit them out. Case in point - Sports. The top echelons of sport are the ultimate exemplar of determination and the ability to take stress. Now, I’m not even talking about the Olympics. Just take a look at soccer to see what I mean. Most Americans don’t give a hoot about watching that sport compared to the big four (baseball, American football, basketball, ice hockey). And people constantly mock Americans for calling it “soccer”. Yet the American soccer team has reached the round of 16 four times in the last six FIFA World Cups. Think about it - this nation whose people don’t even care much for the sport, manages to have a record as good as England on the international stage, a nation that is batshit bonkers about football! And there are populous nations like Mexico who are bananas about football (but don’t manage anywhere close. Even outside of the World Cup, since 2000, the US has won 13 and lost just 7 of its matches against our neighbors to the South. You can bet that each time Mexico wins, its a much bigger deal in Mexico City than it is in New York City when the U.S. team wins (in fact few even notice). Can you now even imagine what would happen if Americans got even half as crazy about football as they are about basketball or American football? The NBA slogan sums up the quintessential American attitude when it comes to competition, better than anything else.
Example: Andy Murray
Andy Murray found focus only after a 2008 Olympic defeat:
“I was so excited to play in the Olympics and be part of it that I was doing a lot of media. I learnt a lot from that match. It was one of the toughest losses of my career, and I don’t plan to repeat the experience on Wednesday. I was going to the opening ceremony, I was trying to speak to all of the athletes and take pictures with them, I was collecting the pins from each team - I was loving being part of it. “But when I lost, I thought, ‘Why was I doing all that stuff? I’m here to win matches, I’m not here to collect pins.’ I loved going to the opening ceremony but had to think, ‘Is that the best thing for my preparation?’
He got very close to winning 2012 Wimbledon Final. But he did not have the mindset of the winner. He wanted it too much; one can gauge by how much it hurt him that he was very emotionally attached to the outcome.
But he then won the Olympic 2012 Gold. That broke his mental barrier, and allowed him to win the US Open that year, and Wimbledon the following year. He found the elusive winning mentality in the middle of the career, unlike Jana Novotna or Goran Ivanisevic - who, despite having the opportunities to win, struggled for years because they lacked the magical sense of “knowing winning”, and the focus and inner belief that comes with it. Prior to winning the Olympic Gold, Murray was stuck in the same mire of uncertainty and doubt that did not leave Ivanisevic and Novotna through much of their career. But winning the Olympic gold set him free of it - it unlocked the winning mentality, and their was no going back. Winning gives you a mental grasp of your target, and once you know it, darkness and uncertainty disappears.
Contrast Murray with Eugenie Bouchard, who after losing the 2014 Wimbledon Final, started believing that she is destined for winning even before actually achieving it, and totally lost her way.
Illustrations
It was probably not even true. ↩
At the conclusion of my first ever quiz win, the regionals of the ESPN School Quiz, I was not brimming with happiness and confidence that I had scored a deserving victory. Instead, I was positively baffled that others teams were so much worse. ↩
Sometimes I like to play ignorant and ask questions, even if I have a strong hold of the subject. This often leads to people assuming that I know less than them. One might think that there is nothing to lose in this attitude: by giving other people the stage and by just listening, you give them the opportunity to add to your learning. But in my experience, it almost never works. I remember having conversations with designers from Hike, Roposo and the like, and letting them advice me on what I should be doing (with my product). This led them to assume a position of superiority or high status. Eventually, I felt I lost out on them as potential recruits. People do not work for those who they perceive to be of a lower status than them. People want to follow winners. ↩
Something I am thinking about: There is an alternative philosophy of public excellence, embodied by figures like Rafael Nadal, Jurgen Klopp, Cate Blanchett, Raghuram Rajan, Trevor Noah, Barack Obama and Amia Srinivasan. All of them excel in their respective fields, but they lack the flavour of invulnerability and narcissism that Federer, Jobs, Bale and Ronaldo (note: all white men) embody. This alternative attitude of excellence feels more humane, more authentic ↩
These impressions are, ofcourse, an illusion. These personalities and insitutions are just as flawed as anyone else. One only has to look criticially or dig deeper. But in a competitive context, this illusion provides an advantage that can make the difference between winning and losing. ↩