In a commencement speech Roger Federer gave at Dartmouth in June 2024, he shared an unsurprising statistic: he won 80% of his matches. Makes total sense for the GOAT. He shared something else, though, that people don’t necessarily equate with being the greatest tennis player ever: Roger won only 54% of the total points he has played as a professional. That means he “failed” 46% of the time.

Here’s what Roger said…

“When you challenged my thinking by asking why I was thinking so small, it hurt.” Is this statement positive or negative? 

One of the many reasons to work with me as your executive coach is to gain a fresh perspective—a perspective that challenges you to see when you’re holding yourself back from reaching your full potential. The saying goes: You can’t read the ingredients on the cereal box from the inside. In other words, you often can’t recognize the limits of your mindset when you’re “in it.” A recent coaching session with a law firm CEO offered a vivid reminder of this truth.

In the high-stakes world of law, particularly for litigators, the mindset you bring to the table can be the difference between thriving in your career and burning out. The debate between performance and mastery orientation isn't just for athletes—it's crucial for legal professionals as well. In this post, I’ll explore the profound impact of these two mindsets and why adopting a mastery orientation can lead to sustainable success.

One of the conditions I see repeatedly in the beginning of many of my coaching engagements is, what I call “stuckness.” This condition has a host of symptoms: failure to take advantage of the right opportunities when they reveal themselves; grasping at shiny objects which, in fact, do not move my client or their business forward in a meaningful way; shying away from their worth as an advocate and human being, just to name a few. Many believe being stuck is the failure to take action. This isn’t so. Stuckness is both the failure to engage in necessary action and engaging in the incorrect actions for achieving your goals.

Every coach has their core philosophy. For example, Nick Sabin, who some consider the GOAT (greatest of all time) of college football coaches, had a core philosophy around “the process” and “being in the moment.” Bill Belichick, who won a slew of Super Bowl championships with Tom Brady and the New England Patriots (but never against my New York Giants!), had core philosophies surrounding “do your job” and improving performance by doing just that, repeatedly. My triathlon coach, Michelle Wiens’s philosophy was “train like you race.” 

Let’s be 💯. When we don’t think something is achievable, it is virtually impossible to fully commit to the work necessary to achieve that thing. Once we shift from a “can’t be done” to “what if it’s possible” mindset, the possibilities we can imagine are virtually endless. Once we come to this understanding and, more importantly, are able to not only accept it, but lean fully into it, we create clarity of action our competition lacks. That means we’ll generate results, including a full marketing pipeline with high-quality prospects and a increase in revenue. A recent client success is proof-positive of this reality.