Frank Giampaolo's Maximizing Tennis Potential

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis. Click Here to Order through Amazon

Changing Fixed Mindsets

Benefits of Competition for Fixed Mindsets

Many undeniable, positive aspects stem from tournament competition. Advantages include:

• Competition keeps us honest: It allows us to assess our strokes and movement efficiencies and deficiencies. Exposing our strengths and hiding our weaknesses is an important function of match play.
• Competition assists us in the art of opponent profiling. Without match play, there’s no dissecting because there are no opponents.
• Competition exposes our mental fortitude. The ability to stay on Script (your customized game plan), strategy, and tactics the match demands.
• Competition through failure and success helps us develop a massive list of life skills, positive character traits, and a moral compass.
• Competition aids in developing consistent quality. Winning a 64 draw event requires peak performance for approximately 15 sets.
• Competition assists us in customizing our future developmental schedules. It’s not the quantity of on-court time; it’s the quality that counts.

Tennis mastery is a process of continuous adaptation and improvement, which is a growth mindset system.

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis. Click Here to Order through Amazon

Changing Fixed Mindsets

Recognize the Negative Dialog

Athletes with a pessimistic viewpoint have a running dialog that continually persuades them that they don’t honestly have enough talent, and if they fail, they will be criticized for trying. Many athletes invent an excuse or injury and avoid competition. By doing so, they keep their dignity and ego in check.

The following two solutions will help challenge the fixed mindset worrywart to consider adopting a growth mindset warrior attitude.

1. Explain that Mindset Is a Choice

Their mental habit is to choose to interpret competition as a serious personal threat. Fixed mindset athletes are typically worried about what could and will go wrong versus what could and will go right. This pessimistic view tears down the will to give 100% effort. Changing from the fixed mindset to the growth mindset is challenging because the athlete has an onslaught of two simultaneous opposing demands. One is the need to suppress their pre-set, negative mental habit, and two is to be open to learning to embrace the exact opposite viewpoint.

2. Present the Opposing View

Fixed-mindset athletes need to be reminded that improving and growing requires a metamorphosis into a growth mindset. As these students ramp into tournament mode, be on high alert for their worry, stress, and fears to multiply. They view tournament competition as an event that will expose their shortcomings. It’s our job to present tournament play as a healthy way to assess the development necessary to obtain their goals.

Warning: Responding to and changing their negative banter is emotionally draining even for the well-equipped software developing coach.

Examples of a fixed mindset approach include:

Athlete: “I can’t play, my games not perfect yet. I’m not ready.”

Teacher: “Every time you compete, you learn and improve, and that is the goal.”

Athlete: “If I don’t compete I won’t fail, and I can keep my pride.”

Teacher: “The only true failure is being too scared to try.”

Training the stroke components is only the beginning of a world-class coach’s journey. Having the tools to develop the whole athlete is the end game.

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis. Click Here to Order through Amazon

Managing Fear and Risk

Managing Risky Players

Like we uncovered in previous chapters, not all athletes share the same cognitive profile. We are all controlled to some extent by our genetic design. While parents and coaches promote the rewards of taking calculated risks to some athletes, it is wise to understand that other cognitive designs need polar opposite training. To these, reckless daredevils, minimizing risk is in their best interest. Some of our athletes aren’t thinking of reasons not to risk; they are thinking why not risk…

Opposite of the timid performers are the reckless athletes who are hard-wired to thrive on risk. In fact, they perform with too much reckless abandon. They are often downright mindless and inattentive to playing high percentage ball. This personality profile doesn’t have limiting beliefs; they have limitless beliefs.

I occasionally work with talented, young juniors who are so overly confident that they are sure they’re going to be #1 in the world next week! Due to their limitless beliefs, nothing is stopping them from routinely attempting low percentage shot selections. Their intuition is skewed, as we watch in horror as these impatient athletes give away relatively easy matches.

With these exciting athletes, I recommend assisting them to play only within their pre-set comfortable script of play. Firstly, assist them in designing their most proficient serving patterns, return patterns, rally patterns, short ball options, and net rushing sequences. Second, practice these exact scripts routinely in place of rallying. Third, bring in a sparring partner and monitor the athlete’s ability to stay on their pre-designed scripts throughout practice sets. Forth, in real tournament play, chart the percentage of points the athlete played on script versus going rogue. In my experience, exceptions follow every rule so shoot for a performance goal consisting of about 75% on script and 25% off-script. The athletes should seek excellence and not perfection.

“Champions understand that if they don’t apply intelligent risk, they don’t grow. If they don’t grow, they don’t reach their peak potential. If they aren’t performing at their peak potential, they’re not satisfied with their performance. If they’re not satisfied, they’re not happy. So, happiness stems from risking intelligently.”

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis. Click Here to Order through Amazon

Managing Fear and Risk

I’ve been a high-performance tennis coach for over 30 years. I thrived comfortably in relative obscurity, enjoying the Southern California sun working with nationally ranked junior tennis players and coaching coaches. For 20 of those years, I secretly dreamt of writing my own tennis instructional books to positively impact the coaching industry while traveling the world.

Procrastination dominated those 20 years. I wasn’t willing to take the chance. I lacked the courage to risk leaving my base and losing my successful coaching business if I were to begin traveling. It seemed too dangerous. What if I failed? What if the books bombed? What if I wasn’t as smart as I thought?

My internal dialog was telling me that even though I had something special to share, I shouldn’t risk a good thing. I didn’t have a professional speaking experience. Why did I think I could write books?

I intuitively knew that I had to risk leaving relative comfort behind and put my old career in jeopardy in order to attract a larger audience and share my experiences and tennis developmental theories. I researched the fear and risk management process and began writing The Tennis Parents Bible. My goal was simply to complete it and if it helped a single parent or coach along their journey that would be a bonus.

Back then, no one could have told me I would go on to write four, #1 bestsellers, coach the ITF coaches and speak at the largest conferences and grand slams around the world.

Athletes respond to risk and fear differently. In my experience, while most athletes are initially overly cautious, some are overly adventurous. Success and failure in competition greatly depend on how the athlete responds to fear and risk. Results, both positive and negative, stem from repeated behavior. An athlete’s behavior is created by their attitude. Therefore, understanding and managing our athlete’s attitude toward fear and risk is worth exploring.

A great place to start when managing an athlete’s attitude is establishing a baseline of their thoughts and behaviors concerning the following common stumbling blocks. Begin by answering the following question:

1. Do they have adversity towards fear and risk? Is it extreme or mild?
2. Are they tolerant of fear and risk?
3. Do they seek out fearful or risky endeavors? Is it extreme or mild?

Athletes possess different degrees of fear and risk depending on the conditions. For example, in competition, one athlete may exhibit extreme tolerance and grit while playing tennis behind the baseline and extreme adversity and fear when attacking the net. Other athletes may excel on the practice court displaying almost flawless stroke production only to shut down, choke or panic in competition. At the other end of the spectrum, some athletes possess no fear and live for the thrill of competition.

“Some extreme athletes hold only mild fear as they seek canoeing over Niagara Falls or bungee jumping over the Bhote Kosi River.”