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🧭How a TED Talk Motivated UVA to a National Championship

🧭How a TED Talk Motivated UVA to a National Championship

The Growth Compass
August 03, 2023

Good Day, and welcome to The Growth Compass. We are like your daily multivitamin, giving you your weekly dose of resilience, leadership, and mindset information.

Here’s where we’re headed today:

Joshua Waitzkin on success and adversity
Why adversity can be transformative for you
How 1 Ted Talk motivated UVA from embarrassment to champions
Why you cannot lose if you do not quit

Joshua Waitzkin on Success and Adversity

"The moment we believe that success is determined by an ingrained level of ability as opposed to resilience and hard work, we will brittle in the face of adversity.”

- Joshua Waitzkin

The Transformative Power of Adversity

Challenges are inevitable. In the face of challenges and adversity, true leaders rise to the top. It's not the absence of difficulties that defines a leader, but their ability to embrace challenges head-on and lead during the toughest times. Great leaders transform obstacles into opportunities.

Numerous studies have explored the relationship between resilience and success, showcasing its undeniable impact. Research conducted by psychologist Angela Duckworth at the University of Pennsylvania found that grit, defined as the combination of passion and perseverance, is a better predictor of success than talent alone. These findings highlight that the ability to bounce back from setbacks and maintain unwavering focus can be more critical than innate abilities.

In the face of adversity, individuals who embrace the power of resilience are better equipped to handle challenges. Being able to overcome adversity and endure will:

Build mental toughness
Build your character
Build your resilience
Build your confidence
Lower your stress levels
Lower your anxiety levels

Key Takeaways:

Success is not solely determined by innate talent, but rather by resilience and hard work. Embracing the power of perseverance can lead to greater achievements in the long run.
Resilience is a trainable skill that empowers individuals to navigate through adversities with greater ease, promoting a positive outlook and reduced stress levels.

By shifting our perspective on success and acknowledging the transformative power of resilience, we can unleash our full potential and overcome even the most daunting challenges that life throws our way.

How a TED Talk Helped Turn UVA Basketball from Embarrassment to Champions

After the 2018 NCAA Tournament, Virginia coach Tony Bennett was lost.

His team collapsed in one of the biggest upsets of all time, losing as a 1-seed to 16-seed UMBC. He debated all offseason on how he would address the loss and frame it to the team.

Tony Bennett’s framing and speech to his team would define the Cavaliers’ 2019 season and his career:

Tony Bennett debated how he would talk to his team, but his wife had an idea for him. She had attended a series of Ted Talks in Charlottesville in 2014 and one talk stuck with her. It was about storytelling and adversity and was called How the Story Transforms the Teller.

And this is how one Ted Talk motivated the Virginia basketball team.

Tony Bennett watched the TED Talk and took so many powerful lessons, but most of all, he learned the power of adversity and the stories that we tell ourselves. At the bottom, there is a link to the video of the TED Talk, and I included some great quotes throughout.

After watching the talk, Tony Bennett had an idea. On the first practice in October, instead of getting out on the court, he had his team watch this 17-minute TED Talk. In the TED Talk, the speaker Donald Davis says, “You’re not telling the story to change what happened. You’re telling the story to change you.” And that is what the Cavaliers did. They told their story, and it allowed them to accept what happened in 2018 and move on from how they felt.

Kyle Guy, starting shooting guard, talked about how much the loss hurt him and even how they needed a police escort after the game because they received death threats. He said, “For me, it's never forgetting it, but definitely trying to move past it to where I'm not hanging my head on it.”

Assistant Coach Jason Williford told his story about how he didn’t shave or leave the house for three days. Finally after 72 hours and talking to his wife, he needed to get up and try to change the story in 2019.

Virginia, with a few lucky bounces and calls, would go on to win the 2019 national championship.

As part of his own story, Tony Bennett said at the game, “If you learn to use adversity right, it will buy you a ticket to a place you can’t go to any other way. I think (last year’s loss to UMBC) bought us a ticket to a national championship.”

Takeaway 1:

Growth only happens when you accept your past and learn from your mistakes, adversity, and failures.

Challenges will happen. Mistakes will happen. It is your choice how you respond and learn from those events.

Buddha once said that life is suffering and there will always be pain. By accepting it and moving forward, you take ownership on what you can control to think “Why not me?” instead of “Why me?”

Takeaway 2:

The most dangerous stories you make up are the ones that diminish your worthiness.

You tell yourself stories every day. Those stories will determine your attitude, mindset, and habits moving forward. It will drive your perceptions of reality and start to form your confidence beliefs and self-limiting beliefs.

In Donald Davis’ TED Talk, he emphasizes the power that one story can have on your perception of reality. Choosing to re-frame your stories and overcoming those self-limiting beliefs is what will ultimately move you forward.

TED Talk referenced: