Hopes, dreams and aspirations come and go from our minds on a daily, if not minute-by-minute basis; winning the lottery, getting a promotion, scoring the winner.  A youngster may want to be a professional athlete, an astronaut or an actor. 

Dreaming while we are kids is OK, but by the time adulthood looms we realise it is unrealistic to assume that we will all be heptathletes and hurdlers, actresses or astronauts.  But we can all be the best we can be.  That is a more realistic goal.  Winning Olympic gold, or winning an Oscar may be the top of the tree for some people, but the term ‘winning’ has a much broader definition than that. 

Winning, according to Frank Dick, a man who knows more about winning than most, is “being better today than you were yesterday, every day.” 

One of Scotland’s greatest ever coaches, and having worked with some of the most famous names in sporting history, including Daley Thompson, Boris Becker, Gerhard Berger and Denise Lewis, Frank knows that winning, by definition, is a gamble, a challenge.  It is never easy, as he told In The Winning Zone in an exclusive interview.  It might even be too much for some people to handle.

“Are you going to stand on the edge and step out into that great void?  Because not a lot of people will do that, that’s why you see athletes choking out there, why you see people thinking ‘I’ve done all the work, it should be happening for me now,’ out there on the rugby field or the athletics track.  But it doesn’t just happen; you’ve got to make it happen, and all the training, all the hard work is not something you can just fall asleep on, that’s just a foundation.”

Only one man and one woman will lift the Wimbledon trophy each summer.  Only one team can win the World Cup every four years.  In the history of time, less than 3,000 people have successfully scaled Mount Everest.  But everyone in the world can win by doing as Frank says, being better than the day before.  But just because it is more achievable doesn’t mean it is easy.  Climbing your own personal Everest every day is a task that requires a lot more than good will.  There are three key criteria that Frank Dick would ask of you if you were to seek his assistance in making it to the top. 

 “Do you want to win? Do you believe you can win?  Will you persist until you do?”

The simple truth is that if you can’t answer ‘yes’ to these three questions, Frank won’t help you.  No, that’s not right.  It’s not that he won’t help you, it’s that he can’t.  He can’t help someone who can’t help themselves. 

“These three areas [wanting, believing, persisting] are what determine whether you’re going to get there or not. The wanting is just the basic desire, that drive that I’m talking about to get there, but do you have it in your heart.  If you don’t want to do it in the first place, why the hell are we doing it? That drive has got to be yours.

Being driven is the key to any success and conquering any challenge that will follow.  Roger Federer, recently voted the greatest sportsman on earth for the fourth consecutive year at the Laureus Awards – the Oscars of world sport – reiterated this after picking up his award. 

“In the end I am playing tennis because I love this sport, and not because of fame, or money or anything else.  I’m very motivated.  I have a great hunger to do more and achieve more.”

Next on Frank’s list, do you believe you can get there?  “Now that’s a fragile little word, belief, and that’s where motivators and psychologists earn their bread and butter, because you can be knocked out of flight at anytime by the simplest of things, but you’ve got to get back in flight again.  Self belief, on top of your desire to get there, is the one I think needs the most servicing to be quite honest.”

There are stories of inspirational self-belief that hit the headlines almost every day.  Scotland defeating France 1-0 in Paris or Wales coming from 20 points down to defeat England in this year’s 6 Nations are recent examples that spring to mind.  None of these teams or individuals would have done it if they hadn’t believed they could.  In fact, without belief, it probably would have been the opposite.  They wouldn’t just have lost, they would have been annihilated. 

Essentially, belief should inspire confidence.  But what it should not do is harbour arrogance or complacency.  Just because you know you can do it doesn’t mean it will automatically happen.  A killer instinct, according to Frank, is vital, no matter what you are striving for.

“You must think that you’ve got somebody ahead of you at all times. You must always have that in your mind. You’re chasing the score. You’ve not got the score, you’re chasing it. You’ve got to understand the people you’re fighting are opponents, they’re not competitors, a competitor is somebody you beat and an opponent is somebody you hurt. You’ve got to be comfortable with that.

“And then of course, the final one,” continues Frank. “Will you persist until you do win?” Persistence, of course, is never giving up, no matter how hard it is or how much it hurts. Frank uses an example of one of the greatest boxing matches of all time to explain what he means.

“The third fight between Mohammed Ali and Joe Frasier was the big decider, it was one fight each, and in the first round, Ali came out in pretty good shape, really thrashing punches into Joe, and Joe would just shrug his shoulders, shake his head, and he’d come back and hit Ali just as hard.

“You could accept this kind of behaviour for one round, but by the end of the fourteenth round, Ali staggered back to his corner, collapsed on his stool, looked up into the eyes of Angelo Dundee his trainer and said, ‘That’s it coach, my legs have gone, if I stand up here, Smokin’ Joe’s going to kill me. My arms are so tired, my gloves feel heavy, through the towel in now, I can’t take the humiliation.’
 
“But Angelo Dundee slapped him, and he must have said to him something along the lines of ‘Don’t be silly Mohammed,’ then he beseeched him to stand up and fight. Ali stood up tall, full height, went back, and seconds after he stepped into the ring, the bell went and Joe Frasier’s corner threw the towel in.

“True story - look at both biographies. Both say the exactly the same thing. Now when was this fight won?  You see, I could forgive anything in life, except not having the heart for things. I could forgive you if you don’t stand up and fight because someone has broken your legs or if you’re in the wrong arena in the first place, but I’d never forgive you if you don’t have the heart to see it through.”

Ultimately, however, being the best you can, is about giving yourself the best possible chance.  The desire, belief and persistence will help you immensely, but to achieve those goals you must set yourself targets, and plan meticulously to make sure you can achieve them, says Frank.

“Being better today than you were yesterday will mean taking that extra step to be the best, as opposed to be second best or third best, but that’s how you start off.  It’s just like how you start off young athletes – you do a time, you jump a distance or a height, you throw a distance, and that’s measureable.

“You can finish eighth out of eight, but perform better than you did yesterday, so you’re winning, and that keeps the spirit going. Then performing better than you did the last day takes you to seventh, then it takes you to sixth.  Then, eventually comes a moment where being the best that you can is to make sure that you’re not second, the best is first.”

RO
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