3. Lessons on Knowing Your Opponent

Prior to challenging another team or individual, study them; get to know them. Inform yourself about all aspects of the opponents’ environment. Base your strategies on awareness and gathered information, regardless of the time or cost involved. Consult with others who have competed against this opponent. Know about your opponent’s desire, hopes, and aspirations. This information must work together with your intuitive sense of what’s best for the group.

Sun-Tzu

THERE IS ONE THING that all champions agree upon with regard to their opponents: KNOW THEM PRIOR TO ENGAGING IN BATTLE. How much you need to know is not clear and will vary depending upon the situation, the sport, and the people involved. For example, knowing everything about your opponent in individual sports like golf or bowling is not essential. For games like basketball, lacrosse, soccer, and other quick-paced sports, more information may serve you well. How much one gathers often relates to various personality characteristics. Some coaches and athletes are compulsive about knowing all that’s available, while others take the essential minimum information and focus more of their energy and time on their own preparation. There really is not a right or wrong. Roy Williams, head basketball coach of the University of North Carolina, may want his athletes to have extensive knowledge about every opponent. Meanwhile, John Wooden, retired UCLA head basketball coach, wasn’t as concerned about being totally informed about every nuance of the opponent, choosing instead to put more time into his team and what they could do to raise their bar. Both are successful coaches, both with a different approach to seeking information about an opponent. For you, decide what’s best for your comfort level. Acting like a champion, you want to know what to expect and then gear your preparation accordingly. The less surprise the better. And, remember to gather material on the arena or venue where you will be competing or performing. As a competitive distance runner, I made a point of driving the course a day before the race and running parts of it that seemed challenging, particularly the hills. I would even run the last mile and cross what was to be the finish line. Even to this day, if I am performing in an auditorium, giving a talk, or presenting a clinic, I make sure to take in the ambiance a day prior to the event, if possible. I rehearse my presentation with that information in mind. This information relaxes and calms me; I feel comfortable from having been there previously. Champions use prior knowledge about opponent and venue in this same way.

GATHERING OPPONENTS’ SECRETS

Sun-Tzu , in The Art of War, devotes an entire chapter to espionage, the use of well-planned spy tactics to gather the secrets of the opponent. In athletics, we refer to this tactic as scouting the opponent. Everyone does it; coaches and athletes watch an opponent play and record information that could help in their game plan. Teams in conference play may actually trade game videos. When Maryland is about to play Virginia in lacrosse, the coach may secure from Duke the tapes of the game they played against Virginia a week before. It’s not always this cordial, yet I find this sharing to be more commonplace.

Gathering opponents’ or competitors’ secrets is ongoing in everyday life as well. The Thai restaurant sends a manager across the street to have lunch at the Chinese restaurant, in order to discover their secrets of success. He comes back with the big secret—free tea, soup, and dessert included as part of a “lunch special.” The following week, changes are made and business picks up at their eatery. Knowledge is, indeed, power, as I mentioned in the introduction to Part I, “The Way of Self-Awareness.”

Whether competing in a race, playing tennis with your neighbor, or looking for a winning recipe from a chef, if you want to improve your chances for victory, you need to obtain information. The question “What is your secret?” will help to shed light on this. Collect this data and use it to your advantage. Always ask, if you don’t already know, so that your awareness will expand and performance will follow suit.

COUNTERINTELLIGENCE

IN The Art of War, Sun-Tzu talks about counterintelligence as the judicious placing of strategic misinformation into the hands of your opponent. Basically, as a coach or athlete, this means that you find a way to enable your opponent’s spy or scout to pick up erroneous information that seems to “leak out” of the inner, sacred circle of your team. The strategy is to let them know you in this incorrect way. No need to drive the message home; you simply must be subtle about how you do this. For example, an athlete gets injured in a game and the word gets out that she won’t be playing for a while. You make sure that your opponent knows this, because this “leak” could impact their preparation and strategy and give them a false hope going into their contest against you. Come game time on Saturday, your athlete shows up ready to play, much to the chagrin and consternation of your opponent. They begin to feel anxious and confused, which works to your advantage. The truth is, your athlete was not that badly injured, and you let others believe otherwise.

Counterintelligence is the creation of an “appearance versus reality” situation. You want your enemy, opponent, or competition to focus on what appears to be true, when in reality, it is not so. The important point is to make sure the misinformation gets into the hands of those who will deliver the message to the right people at the right time. This takes finesse. I will go into more detail about this in Chapter 4 , “Lessons on Deception.”

THE OPPONENT WITHIN

YOU MAY “know” yourself, but are you aware of the possibility that your greatest opponent could be you? As the comic strip character Pogo once said: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

There is no question about it... I am my own worst opponent. My beliefs, self-imposed limitations, distorted visions, and negative expressions provide enough obstacles and barriers to stop an army dead in its tracks. They impede my confidence and fuel self-doubt. Sometimes I have felt that I wouldn’t want to be part of any team that would have me as a player, to paraphrase comedian Groucho Marx.

Champions have the ability to recognize and identify this inner opponent. They know that phrases such as “I’m no good,” “I don’t deserve to be here,” “I’ll never win,” “I can’t,” “It’s never been done,” “I’m not big enough, fast enough,” “I don’t have the right stuff,” and others like these are in opposition to the direction they desire to go. These phrases become formidable opponents that help to marinate your nervous system in the juices of negativity, defeat, fear, and frustration. When you begin to recognize this opponent, you can take the steps to defeat these demons with phrases and words that contain weapons of the heart: courage, compassion, patience, kindness, persistence, desire, mindfulness, and tenacity, to name but a few. As with any opponent, there is no need to destroy or kill it. Simply acknowledge these unreliable thoughts, and replace them with words that speak the truth—that is, positive, affirmative expressions that support and nurture your journey.

Do not make a mountain out of a molehill, or make a molehill out of a mountain. The truth is, your enemy within is only a group of thoughts; it is not you. Choose your thoughts well, and react quickly when you recognize the opponent. Sun-Tzu’s advice to all of us is “when taking on inner demons be swift, seek out direct, fast routes that keep you going forward... don’t look back. Prune gently as you are not trying to destroy your whole self.” Yes, don’t look back; refuse to analyze the garbage in the “in box” and give it validity. Prune a tree too much and it will die. Just trim the branches. Remember that the opponent within suffocates in the presence of positive, affirmative words of truth. This is the Way of the Champion.

LESSONS AS AFFIRMATIONS

I take the time prior to any event to learn all I can about the arena, venue, and competition involved.

“What is your secret?” is a question I love to ask my opponent.

It’s perfectly okay for my opponent to receive misinformation about me or my team.

I am fully aware that I may be my worst enemy and take the necessary steps to defeat this demon.

Thoughts are only thoughts; they are not me.

QUESTIONS ON THE QUEST:

In what specific ways do you block your own progress in athletics or life?

What five things can you do right now that would unclog that blockage and help you become a good partner to yourself?