Tonight I watched the gold metal game of the World Junior Hockey tournament and witnessed Canada give up 5 goals in the third period blowing a 3-0 lead losing to Russia 5-3. What a disastrous collapse. Canada was playing very well up until they let in that first goal. Then Russia scored less than 20 seconds later making it 3-2. At that time I was shouting at the TV for the Canadian coach to call a time out. After Russia scored again to tie the game, then the idiot calls a time out. "Too late you jerk" were the words that came out of my mouth. What had happened to team Canada was a total mental collapse. It wasn't so much that Russia started playing better, (which they did)....it was more so that Canada played worse....a whole lot worse. Those two quick goals terrified them. You could see in their body language. They were badly rattled and as a result they played timidly backing away from their opponents instead of challenging them. If the coach would have called the time out after those two quick goals I think it would have made a material difference. I think he's responsible more than anyone. How in the blue hell can you not call a time out after your team got scored on twice in less than 20 seconds in the 3rd period of a gold metal game? The coach is often unjustly blamed when a team preforms poorly but in this case he's guilty. He had a chance to stop the bleeding before it became fatal.
I've played competitive sports all my life and through the years I've learned the importance of having the right attitude and being mentally resilient. In sports you need to be confident in yourself and believe you get better but you need to have steady, grounded confidence. When you're playing really well you need to tell yourself that maybe this means you're getting better but you're probably not as good as your recent performance suggests. When your in a slump or made a bad play you need to tell yourself that you're not as bad as your recent play suggests. You need to accept and prepare for the fact that you will make mistakes, get into slumps and get unlucky bounces so that when they happen it doesn't rattle you. You need to keep that upper middle ground mentally - upper in the sense that you not just neutral about yourself....you're solidly confident but not euphoric.
The problem that young athletes tend to have is that they are more prone to having their confidence swing from euphoria to depression instead of finding that upper middle ground and staying there. I remember myself going through these swings. I remember at one point when my confidence was completely shattered. I was playing poorly because I had not played for several months due to injury and I was badly out of shape. Instead of cutting myself some slack I took my poor play pretty hard. I had so little confidence that it got to the point where I was hoping nobody would pass me the ball out of fear that I would screw up. When I saw how team Canada was playing after the Russians got second goal and especially after they got that tying goal, I could see the exact same collapse in confidence and fear. Canadian players were afraid to get engaged. Instead of challenging any oncoming Russian attacks they timidly backed away. They made several unforced errors from simple routine plays. If I was coaching team Canada I would have called a time out after the Russians scored those quick two goals and tried to settle my team down. I would remind them that they are the better team because they had them dominated the whole game. I would tell them to get angry and play hungry as if the score is 0-0. Unlike in my case when my poor confidence was the result of me being in bad shape and therefore somewhat justifies the poor confidence, the team Canada players should not have had this collapse in confidence because they were indeed the better team. The coach failed miserably.
Another phenonemun in sports is that the veteran loaded teams tend to win championships compared to teams loaded with younger players even though they may be more skillful. This is due to experience, not just because of having played more games, but more importantly because of the mental edge confidence wise the veterans have over the young players which was aquired as a result of experience. They don't get rattled as easy, they don't get too high they don't get too low. They don't get nervous under pressure situations not only because they've been in them before and therefore more desensitized to the pressure but also because over the years they have developed a near unshakable belief in themselves which would remain unchanged no matter what the outcome. Therefore they play with no fear, they play to win.
When it comes to trading all the above regarding confidence and metal fortitude applies just the same if not more. You must be confident in yourself but not euphoric when things go well. You must be prepared for the inevitable mistakes, slumps and bad luck that is bound to occur, this way they don't get you down too much when it does actually occur. But your confidence has be legitimate. Do you have the ability, experience and results that justify you being so confident in yourself?
You also need to have the right attitude. The right attitude is that you and only you are responsible for your results and there is no blaming of others. The right attitude is that you accept the market for what it is rather than what you think it should be. I see tons of bad attitudes out there ranging from the "pro" to the retail schmuck. Some pros are so full of themselves with their dogmatic, self righteousness that they often invest in a way that says "I'm right and the market is wrong" refusing to change their mind no matter how strongly the market has moved in opposition to them. Others, typically retail schmucks, become permanently bitter/angry at the market after getting burned. They become so in denial and even delusional that they start weak or false arguments. Examples of this is how I commonly see people scoff at this bull market by saying things like "it's all due to fed money printing", "It's all on low volume", "it's the PPT", "It's GS bots who are buying". If only these people could see how pathetic they are saying these things.
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