11. Lessons on Selflessness
Evolved individuals put themselves last, yet they are first. Selflessness ultimately ushers in personal fulfillment.
Deng Ming-Dao, Tao Wisdom
IN CHAPTER 10 , you learned that Sun-Tzu believed the key to victory in battle was unity of purpose and heart. At the root of this unity is the virtue of selflessness, an unconditional willingness to put the team or group before any individual or self needs.
In athletics or business, championlike teams have a high degree of unity, which is dependent on the selflessness of each of their members. Individualism detracts from team excellence; selflessness brings personal and collective fulfillment, creates peace, and conserves energy, all of which contribute to higher levels of play. As you will begin to see, the most important question to ask as a champion is not “What can I get? Points, goals, attention, recognition?” The deeper, more relevant question is “How can I give? To my team, coach, sport, opponent?”
In a society of achievers, most tend to be self-absorbed, with a more selfish “What can I get?” attitude. Such an approach to life is contrary to nature, to the Tao, which teaches that when you give you will receive. Rather than get, try to give. Be kind, caring, and generous. This is a champion. Such athletes make those around them greater. Jordan, Gretsky, Montana, Pelé are perfect examples of the selfless champion.
Selflessness is an essential ingredient in team harmony, and that’s why I devoted an entire chapter to this virtue. Here’s what two well-known writers have said about selflessness.
Walt Whitman wrote, “When I give, I give to myself.” Giving to others takes us away from ourselves and either puts our own difficulties entirely aside or at least helps us gain a better perspective.
In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl gives us a vivid, dramatic example of the spiritual sustenance provided by being selfless. While incarcerated in a Hitler death camp, Frankl noted that the people who kept their strength and sanity the longest were not the ones who managed by force or cleverness to obtain more than their share of scarce food. Instead it was those who aided other prisoners and shared selflessly with them the little food they had. Their physical and mental condition seemed to be strengthened by their selflessness and kindness, by the focus they placed on their fellow prisoners rather than themselves. The outcome is no different when champions adopt this virtue as a way of being with a team.
SURRENDERING SELF-INTEREST
The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack.
ACCORDING TO THE TAO, those who place themselves last will be brought forward. The soul of a team or group is established in an environment of unselfishness. The strength of any team is the byproduct of its group members’ willingness to modulate their enthusiasm for personal gain. Lao-Tzu encourages action without self-interest. In a society where there’s a premium on individual achievement, it’s not easy to get beyond self-indulgence.
You may recall the exciting play of the USA women’s soccer team in World Cup competition. They were able to set self-interest aside. Following their victory over China for the world championship, we learned how they each accepted diminished roles, refused to gripe, and were willing to do anything they were asked. Placing self-interest aside for the greater good of the team was a big factor in their sweet success. They had what the Tao calls tz’u, which means caring for others’ performance.
As I said in the opening of this chapter, and I believe it’s worth repeating here, the problem for many athletes is that they are, by nature, achievers, and achievers ask the question: “What can I get?” not “How can I give?” The paradox is that true achievement is attained by giving. Notice what happens in your life when you continue to give to others. You can’t stop them from giving back. Rather than ask: “How can I get more points, goals, rebounds, assists?” ask “How can I give more support to my teammates, more time and effort in practice?”
Phil Jackson understands the Tao paradox that when you let go of the need to get, you will receive in great abundance. As head coach of the NBA Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, he had to develop two superstars who were racking up the points each night but never won a world championship. On two separate occasions, he asked Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal to consider giving to their teams, to contribute by helping others to raise the level of their game, to help bring out the best in their teammates. Both athletes “bought into” this request from their warrior leader, and the very next season they led their team to the world championship and were unanimously voted MVP for the entire season.
Bill Bradley, basketball star with Princeton University and the New York Knicks, knows about the impact of selflessness on winning two world championships. In his beautiful book, Values of the Game, Bradley claims that “championships are not won unless a team has forged a high degree of unity, attainable only through the selflessness of each of its players. Untrammeled individualism destroys the chance for achieving victory.”
Strange but true, when the name on the front of the jersey is more important than the name on the back, magic happens. When you shift from a “me” focus to a “we” consciousness, you achieve much more. I’m not sure where I heard this, but I use it often: T.E.A.M. is an acronym for “together everyone achieves more.”
Surrendering self-interest is similar to a good investment. Invest in your team, in each other. As the “heart” account grows, and you refuse to withdraw from it for selfish purposes, you accumulate dividends payable down the road. The rewards are certain; you just need to trust.
And trusting this is not easy for any of us. It’s natural to fear that you won’t get what you deserve. You might even feel insecure, jealous, or even angry at others. But in time, you will begin to see that this higher road of selflessness and giving is the one you will always want to take. Yet in sports, business, and life, you will be tested frequently on this topic. Know that you will never master the art of service and giving. Just try to be more conscious of it and serve more often.
When you find yourself hesitating to give, for whatever reason, think about this story: The most selfless act one can perform is to risk one’s own life trying to save the life of another. When San Antonio Spurs star Sean Elliot was in dire need of a kidney transplant, his brother Noel selflessly stepped up and saved Sean’s life.
UNCONDITIONAL SERVICE
GOOD TEAMS have good servants. According to an old Chinese saying, “To rule is to serve, and to serve is to rule.” By taking on a role of service, you nurture the environment and help create an effective group or team. You serve by doing and giving... doing what is expected and giving it your all.
The word samurai in Japanese means servant. The samurai warrior knew that by serving others, all was possible. As champions, you can take this to heart by serving your teammates your best shot, best move, best defensive posture, best all-out effort. In this way, you give to them the opportunity to become better, to raise their levels. Give them your passion, your integrity, your courage, your tenacity. Challenge each other in ways that make it so difficult that everyone improves. Refuse to let up.
Like the samurai warrior, give your loyalty, respect, patience, and acceptance of differences. Give to others, who you are and what you represent. In these ways, all benefit, including yourself.
Prior to each practice, game, or meeting, answer the question “How can I best serve my team, coach, group, or opponent today?”
In order to best serve, you must know your role. When your role is clear, giving is an offshoot of that role. Good leaders and coaches make sure that all players and group members have well-defined roles that can be demonstrated. Your role may be to come off the bench with high energy in order to give your team a boost. Maybe your role is to play tenacious defense in a game, or to be a tough practice player every day. If your role is unclear, ask those in charge. Your contribution is important, and if you do it well, you are a champion.
Think of a beautiful, powerful Porsche. It has a terrific, strong, high-functioning engine that runs the car. Then there are the wheels, whose role is to enable the car to move smoothly on the road. Without them, the car doesn’t go. If you lose a lug nut, the car is essentially immobilized. The wind-shield helps you to see clearly by keeping the rain and snow from hitting your face. Without the wipers, you come to a halt. Everything has a role, equally as important. The driver, in this case, is the coach. The best, strongest, most powerful engine goes nowhere without the key, the wheel, the oil, or gas. A good team functions like a good car. Your role, whatever it is, is crucial to the overall mission of the team. You are vital—and never forget that.
All have a role whether it’s the head, tail, or guts; all respond to help based on what’s needed... for the good of the team, be willing to do anything.
Perhaps you want to serve in a different way from your specified role. Maybe you want more playing time. While you fulfill your present role, go to the coach or powers that be and ask the question: “How can I change my role to playing more minutes, playing a different position, having more responsibility in the organization?” Find out what it takes, and give it your all.
PLAYING SECOND FIDDLE
BEING A TEAM PLAYER on the bench is not easy. I mentioned earlier that sometimes, if you’re not playing in a game, you’ll feel insecure, envious, jealous, and angry. These are natural feelings. You may even hope that those you love will fail or get injured. We all have these thoughts. You must accept them and put them aside and cheer anyway. Focus on your vital contribution, the important role you do play, and make sure you are ready to go in and step up if someone gets hurt or is not doing the job. Then, continue to give teammates the best opponent in practice, without which, the team wouldn’t get better.
How many minutes you play, or how many jobs you’re assigned at work, or how much you are paid should be no indication of how much you are valued. A good coach and team’s commitment to you should be the same as it is to all others, regardless of minutes played—and that commitment is to facilitate your total development as an athlete, and as a person as well. You must realize that not all players are equal in terms of their commitment to the sport. If all were treated equally with regard to playing time, that would undermine those who make a deeper commitment. So, if you are in this position of wanting more playing time, you need to:
1. Give yourself adequate time to develop; have patience.
2. Talk with your coach: “What might I do differently?”
3. Are you willing to pay your dues (be involved, encourage others, serve the team, work more)?
4. Make the most of your situation and see what the future holds for you. Decide what’s worth it and go from there.
5. Understand that there’s more to being part of a team than minutes. Discover what that is and decide if it is enough.
6. Do the best you can do and see where that takes you.
I will tell you that I played second fiddle early on in my career before getting my chance at center stage. I initially fought it... thought I deserved better. In retrospect, I now understand that I needed to mature, improve, and evolve into a first stringer in my professional game. I achieved it the old fashioned way—I earned it, through lots of practice and hard work. I became, over time, willing to do anything I was asked to do, regardless of what it would take to be good and to get the recognition I deserved. My heart and soul were employed for this purpose.
ONENESS OF VISION
TEAM SPIRIT is enhanced and strengthened through the efforts of everyone working together for a unified purpose. Selflessness promotes this “oneness of vision,” a healthy collaborative association that strives for a spiritual togetherness of uniting hearts and minds. The Tao Te Ching reminds us of how the Earth and Heaven merge and cooperate to create soft rains and gentle flowers. So it is in athletics and life, as team or group members come together, one heart, one mind, to create higher, more proficient levels of play. Corporations, families, and other connected groups join together to reap the benefits of selfless, cooperative action while “raising the barn” together.
Selfless teams cooperate with coaching strategies and fellow teammates. The Chinese calligraphic symbol for cooperation represents a oneness of vision sharing one heart and one reason. This idea is blemished in environments where individuals are self-centered and absorbed in “me” rather than “we.”
Another characteristic of selfless teams is their sense of interdependence, the notion of one for all and all for one. In Chinese, it is called hsiang sheng, or “mutual arising.” This is a way of creating stronger mutual support when the going gets tough; and, because of this connectedness, the tough, indeed, get going together. Teams and groups aligned with this principle of mutual fulfillment become like family, intimately related to one another, connected within the greater whole to something much bigger than any one member.
Selfless, unified, and connected athletes or business partners perform at higher levels. I think about my work over the last ten years with the University of Maryland’s women’s lacrosse and field hockey teams, winners of numerous national championships. It’s no accident that those who have had oneness of vision, selflessness, and cooperative, connected efforts are those who became crowned champions, able to demonstrate high levels of performance day after day. Creating successful teams is, indeed, a spiritual act of forgoing self-indulgence for the higher purpose of team, clan, family.
Sun-Tzu believed that victory is ultimately the byproduct of unity of purpose and heart. It goes beyond simple winning on the scoreboard. Such connectedness creates emotional and spiritual victory in the development of strong bonds and the discovery of our unlimited potential. It’s comforting when you begin to create the awareness that everything in life is connected. The tree provides the paper for the author to use for writing; books teach others to care for the trees; the Earth and the Heavens exist for each other, and, therefore, they are eternal.
LESSONS AS AFFIRMATIONS
The question to ask each day is: “How can I give today?”
When I let go of my need to get, I receive in great abundance.
Together, we all achieve more.
I accept my role; my heart and soul are in it.
My value to my team is related to so much more than how much I play.
With patience, I give myself time to develop; I make the most of the situation.
Cooperation and connectedness are crucial to strong teams and organizations.
I look for all the ways in which we are interconnected, and as a result, we experience mutual fulfillment.
QUESTIONS ON THE QUEST:
What four specific actions or behaviors will help me demonstrate how to give to my team, group, or family?
What is my role on this team, in this organization, and what do I need to do to fulfill it?
How am I being selfish each day? What do I need to do today to demonstrate selflessness in my relationships?