“When we witness extraordinary feats …, we are witnessing the end product of a process measured in years. In Mathew Syed’s book, Bounce, he beautifully sums it all up: It just moves consistently at often a barely discernible speed. (Teach your athletes to do the same!) And, as Abby Wambach put it, “ MAKE FAILURE YOUR FUEL“. There are no overnight successes.Įnjoy the long slow walk to greatness. It blows up all the endless made shots (😏) rather than including the misses that preceded it. Social media gives you the highlight reel. We see the success, but not the work that went into it… The unseen hours, necessary failures, setbacks, crises of confidence, the not-now’s (to the countless asks), the loneliness, the late nights and early mornings and, all the wobbling that comes before the walking-much less running.

It creates a false impression of what leads to success. You see… the hyper focus on outcomes is one of the biggest failings (or façades) that comes from social media. And yet, this just might be a better visual for sport than the ‘iceberg illusion’. It’s been a fav analogy of mine for years.

We often get mesmerized by someone’s above the surface success and don’t factor in all the below the surface opportunity-costs they paid to achieve that success.

Success iceberg sign