// Front-end
Last Sunday, Rafael Nadal beat Novak Djokovic in Rome to equal his record 36 ATP Masters 1000 titles.
Tennis is one of my greatest loves, and I watched the whole match from start to finish.
As ever, the two titans of the sport continued their decades-old rivalry in a gripping match. Nadal played some of his best tennis of the year over the course of three sets, reminding us all of his status as one of the all time GOATs.
But he also lost the second set 6-1.
In fact, he just narrowly edged past his opponent in many statistics, winning just 51% of the points played overall.
This match played out with the same familiar pattern that I’ve seen in countless previous finals involving Rafa:
Edge out the first set narrowly to gain the lead;
Lose the second set heavily; then
Finish the match with an emphatic win in the third.
If the second set doesn’t go his way right out of the gates, then it seems like Nadal is happy to write it off. Knowing full-well that he has the extra gears to slip into in the third and final set to clinch the match.
Tennis is fairly unique in this respect. The scoring system allows you to forego large chunks of points throughout the match without changing the overall outcome.
After watching Nadal’s victory, I decided to investigate just how far this can be stretched with some back-of-the-envelope calculations.
Let’s say you’re playing a match at a Grand Slam tournament, like Wimbledon or the US Open, where it’s a best-of-5 sets scenario.
It turns out that you can win up to 78 points fewer than your opponent, and still come away victorious.
If you assume the minimum number of points are played in this scenario, the match-winner only needs to secure 37% of the points in the match to succeed.
That looks something like this:
Bearing in mind that Nadal only scraped through a tight encounter on the weekend with a 51% total, this stat shows just how much the big points matter in tennis.
And that’s why I wanted to bring tennis into the discussion this week.
I think it’s a great example of how a lot of success can come down to a few, pivotal moments in life.
For Nadal, what really mattered was winning those crucial points where the momentum swings. Converting break points, saving service games to stay ahead, and clutch recoveries in long rallies.
In the second set, it didn’t matter that he was haemorrhaging points. He knew that so long as he could take his chances when they came in the third, he would walk out the winner.
I think we can learn a lot from this attitude when it comes to self-development. Take the problem of building a new habit, for example.
Lots of people talk about successful habits being those where you are able to do the right thing 80% of the time, and I agree.
But there is a subtlety here, too. One of the major problems people have when trying to make a habit stick is the infamous spiral descent. When dropping the ball just once can derail your longer-term good work, and undo months of progress by starting you down a path of regression.
These are some of those critical moments that you want to get right. If you can make the right decision in a given moment that prevents you from spiralling, then that may have as big an impact as a whole month of 100% rigid self-discipline.
This is just one example of how we can employee this tennis mindset to other aspects of life. But the key message is this: some moments matter more than others.
That means that you don’t need to be on top of your game 100% of the time, just for that 37% that might win you the match.
// Database
Interesting things I found this week:
Flipping ‘imposter syndrome’ on its head - this is a fantastic little video that changed the way I see imposter syndrome. I think it is a great way to turn it into something constructive instead of seeing it as a hindrance.
Becoming a Developer at 45 - if you have a spare half-hour today, I cannot recommend watching this podcast episode enough. It’s an inspiring story about learning new skills and pivoting during middle-age, and the father-son element is really heart-warming, too.
Authority and NFTs - this is a refreshing sensible take on the legal implications of NFTs, and some indicators of where things might be heading.
// Comments
The best quotes I came across this week:
“When you make a few dollars from a new habit it validates in your mind that you’re not stupid — that you can build a tiny empire.”
“…there's interesting things where sometimes you have way more leverage as a company, because you've got the team, the brand, everything else, you know, has hundreds of thousands of users and all that. And in other cases where you have more leverage as an individual.”
// Commits
Some things I did this week:
I managed to get my article Both-Pilled by Bitcoin published. It’s my take on the future role of Bitcoin, and I’m hoping it might give you a more nuanced view to chew over.
I felt the need to write something about the Elon Musk about-face last week, which resulted in writing this thread.
1/ For me, the really interesting takeaway of this week's events is this: Most people outside of the crypto-bubble come to the same conclusion when presented with the objective facts.@loshan1212 @itsALLrisky For those bad at math 👆, 100X higher transaction volume with 100X lower fees means total fees earned stay same. Low fees & high volume are needed to become currency of Earth.Elon Musk @elonmuskI wrote down a slightly longer-form explanation of ‘Full Stack Thinking’ that I think you’ll enjoy. Keep an eye out for it next week.
I managed to get on top of some admin and life to-dos that had been parked for a while. It’s surprisingly satisfying to get these things done at last.
If you enjoyed this, consider sharing with a friend. Thanks!
Jack