and for those of you who complain about being born outside of the USA, or living outside of the valley - Djokovic grew up practicing tennis in empty swimming pools in Belgrade while the city was being bombed by Nato and the entire region was at war
his parents bankrupted themselves multiple times and borrowed money from anywhere they could, including the mafia, to support him and to get him on a tennis court and into a camp in Germany.
I read that Djokovic chalks up his awesome winning streak to a change in diet, particularly a no-wheat diet (I think he said he was allergic).
But more to the point, I don't necessarily think that making small improvements in my "game" are going to make much of a difference because I know that I'm nowhere near the top of my game, in any aspect of life. I'll strive to be better at any rate.
But the real question for me is what to concentrate on? Do I improve my current skills and get even better at it, or do I spend my time going over weak areas, to bring up my "average" of knowledge? The answer is it depends on whether I want to be generalist or an expert at a few things. Figuring that out is half the battle.
Edit: to tie it back to the tennis analogy, it's probably better to improve ALL aspects of one's game, like Nole, than to be a specialist like Roddick (great serve, but not much else)
Feynman would probably say establish a rock solid base, fill in the gaps in your understanding, and explore all of the components surrounding your areas of interest (e.g. read the sources cited in the footnotes :-).
"It's not quite true that Feynman could not accept an idea until he had torn it apart. Rather, the idea could not yet be part of his way of thinking and looking at the world. Before an idea could contribute to that worldview, Feynman wanted to turn over the idea, to see why it was true, from any angle that he could find...In other words, he wanted to connect a new idea to what he already understood and thereby extend his understanding" (http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/04/08/how-richard-feynman-t...).
Feynman wanted to understand problem from all angles and understand why something was true, not just that it merely was true. His approach resulted in a tight mental framework that enabled him to connect new ideas and build upon insights from the outside in -- breadth before depth (see http://jamesthornton.com/blog/how-to-get-to-genius).
Watch this TED talk by Sal Khan, the founder of the Khan academy, to see how filling in gaps of understanding can significantly accelerate your rate of progress (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM95HHI4gLk).
If I were to rank the attributes that changed him the most, it would be:
1. Confidence
2. Diet
3. Skills
he used to be depressed about playing the same era as Federer / Nadal but he realized late last year that he can beat these guys, and has rarely set a foot wrong since. The diet helped build his stamina, but most of the games this year stamina hasn't played a part (I would say the final in Miami was an exception).
he always had the skills - before this streak he was able to beat Nadal and Federer. I think it just came down to being confident enough to knowing he can do it all the time. He is also tactically the most brilliant player I have ever seen, but that has always been the case as well.
While this blog post is well written and has a good point, I have seen several interviews with him and for some reason, every time the reporter quizzes him on the effects his new Diet/Fitness have had on his tennis, he is very quick to change the direction of the interview to his actual play. It is either something personal (perhaps change of diet does not give much street cred) or some PR person telling him, however it is quite obvious that he is trying to direct the public opinion........I have no basis for this, however it almost feels like his nutritionist was doing a bunch of interviews taking all the credit and when everyone started asking him for comment he feels compelled to take the credit back.
An explanation could be that it is not a good idea for sportsmen to say that they improved rapidly after a diet change. It is very easy to get associated with a rumor of being 'liberal' in diet choice, but almost impossible to get rid of it.
Because of that, diet, although an essential part of one's preparations, is best avoided as an interview subject.
Bravo. Well said! I especially liked "Learn a new language, or a new paradigm, and change how you see the world."
I believe the key to life lies in your ability to continually change how you see the world. To continually expand your perspective, grow with epiphany, and raise your level of awareness. As Alan Kay is fond of saying, "A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points."
Djokovic said "hard work" was behind his success several times while taking to McEnroe. So his few percent here and there were not easy to come by, but obviously well with it.
his parents bankrupted themselves multiple times and borrowed money from anywhere they could, including the mafia, to support him and to get him on a tennis court and into a camp in Germany.