How to win the game of life
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
what did you do
on april 25th 2000
i was driving from valencia the north of
france to brussels
they had put me in a studio and to my
surprise
i was drafted as the number one of the
wnba
i was chosen as a european to go and
play basketball in the best competition
of the world
in the united states it’s like a soccer
playing
player being transferred to real madrid
i remember my agent telling me very
seriously and your life is gonna change
dramatically from now on little
did i know first pick of the 2000 w
nba draft the cleveland rockers select
and waters from belgium
congratulations on being the first
choice the
obvious question is how do you feel
being the number one choice for the wnba
draft
it feels very great i mean i’m very
excited to come to uh
to america and uh
now on the first stick i mean i’m so
glad i’m very happy
i’m excited well
i wish he had prepared my first life
american interview a little bit better
but i dared i jumped into the unknown
and my agent was right
it has been an amazing adventure
and 16 years after signing i became the
first belgian
who won a wnba championship with the los
angeles parks
so was it a fast lane to success was it
an easy walk in the park a piece of cake
no it was a road with a lot of bumps
some curves
and even sometimes a roadblock
there i was starting my journey with my
sports bag
filled with my jersey a towel
and something else something else that
is far more important than the other
things
something that is needed to win the game
a big chunk of resilience
more than education more than experience
more than training
a person’s level of resilience will
determine who succeeds
and who fails this is true in the cancer
wards
it is true in the boardroom and it’s
definitely true in sports
in the olympics it’s like our boxer
rocky would say in his famous movie
it’s not about how hard you hit it’s
about how hard you can get hit
and keep moving forward it’s about how
much you can take and still move
forward
but what does resilience mean resilience
is about making meaning of hardship
instead of crying out in despair
with a box of paper tissues it’s about
improvising solutions from thin air to a
better
fuller constructed future with a lot of
creativity
resilience is the skill and the capacity
to be robust
under conditions of enormous stress and
change
so how can we practice resilience how
can we teach it to our kids
because we’re not born resilient we can
definitely learn
how to become resilient i started to
play basketball when i was about 12
years old
and it felt really nice to finally meet
other tall people
and i was that kid i was way too tall
shy
i wanted to be like everybody else i
didn’t want to stand out
and playing basketball felt great from
the beginning
i loved being on a team i felt accepted
and finally being that tall was a huge
advantage
very quickly i asked for a hoop at home
which was installed against our garage
and there i started to play games
and to practice on my own i started to
play games in my head
i imagined myself playing in a huge
arena
with a big crowd and of course it was a
close game the tension was rising
i have to make a move a couple seconds
to play i find some room and i’ll take
the shot
and yes i make it we win we’re
celebrating the crowd is going crazy
but what can we really learn from this
particular practice
it’s like kids and athletes they talk to
themselves a lot
and usually in a very positive way
we visualize as achieving amazing things
it’s like that sucker playing who sees
himself
hitting that penalty to become the world
champion
it’s a tennis playing who sees himself
hitting the the winner to be roland
garros
champion it’s that ski jumper who sees
himself making the perfect
landing we dare to dream
we’re there also to fail we learn how to
think
in solutions instead of obstacles
and that requires a lot of persistence
perseverance
and endlessly repeating but
with that determination and courage
you start to believe in your dream and
there’s
always a cognitive interaction with
yourself
with an optimistic attitude
it’s that inner voice that will lead you
to achieve amazing things
because if you fail in your head you
will definitely fail in real life
positive self-talk is crucial in
building resilience
so winning in your head is important but
it’s not enough
i learned something else along the way
with our national team we were playing
at our first world championship
and we knew that our second game against
japan would be crucial in advancing to
the next round
we had won our first game against puerto
rico and our whole
preparation we had focused on beating
japan
we start terrible we play a terrible
first half
but slowly we get our g we get ourselves
back into the game
we even get a last offense to try to win
the game but we take
a rush shot we get blocked the game goes
in overtime
we end up losing we were so disappointed
this was our biggest shot in advancing
to the next round
i remember the icing silence in the
players bus
going back to the hotel but we had to
change
our mindset very quickly and look at the
new opportunity
by beating the host spain the next day
we probably played one of our best games
and
we beat the vice olympic champions spain
for the first time ever we bounced back
very quickly after that game we took
some lessons from our loss against japan
and
we refocused on beating spain
and that’s the irony of winning
you cannot control the result or the
outcome you can only put your focus in
the present moment
and then win gets a totally different
meaning
an acronym for what is important
now it’s a form of mindfulness we
constantly use in sports
a lot of times without knowing it we put
our focus
on a task that is right in front of us
to unlock
our full potential and to let go of the
things we cannot control
because the only moment you can perform
is in the present
moment we focus on the things we can
control
for example having a great attitude
giving you maximum effort
and locking in in that present moment
this is true from one game to another
from our game against spain
against japan to spain in a tournament
but this is also true
within a game from one action to another
action
whether that action was unbelievably
great or just a terrible shot you have
to move on to the next one
you cannot get stuck in your thoughts
the power of the present moment is
crucial
in building resilience
positive self-talk the power of the
present moment
they’re very important but there’s
something else that is equally important
and something that is sometimes hard to
accept
it’s feedback i remember i was playing
in valencia
going into my third season my third
professional season
and we finally had beaten our rivals
bourge
we were just ecstatic it was a winter
night but i
always i will always remember the warmth
of our
of our gym we were celebrating with our
fans with a glass of champagne in our
hands
as that was the habit in france when we
finally go back into the locker room for
a debriefing with our coaching staff
it literally felt like a cold shower
our head coach was not at all in a
celebrating mood
he was pointing out all the things we
could have done better
and i was getting upset i didn’t
understand why isn’t he happy
we just beaten our rivals for the first
time
i only understood later on that he was
preparing us not just to beat them once
but to dominate them and to become the
champions
in basketball we get different kinds of
feedback
in our games it’s almost immediate
feedback during our timeouts we get
instructions on what is going well
and what we can do better but also after
our games
we can look at our video we can analyze
it and we can learn
from our mistakes and point out what
went really well
but we also can analyze before a game
our opponents and scout them to be well
prepared
it is a big part of our practice to get
to know our strong points better
and how we can improve
feedback improves performance
it aligns expectations it solves
problems it
develops talent and athletes seek for it
all the time we expect it we demand it
we want to push our limits
and we know that we can improve if we
get constructed
feedback but i also had coaches
who were not good at giving feedback who
were not even good at communicating
and then it gets very easy to become
indifferent and thinking you know better
but if you are determined to learn from
whatever feedback you get
nobody can stop you
feedback is crucial in building
resilience
i was always that player that was a
sponge to any feedback i got
i was stealing with my eyes the moves of
my teammates
and even of my opponents
i was there and i wanted to improve
even now i’m 40 years old i’m still
seeking for feedback
and i know it’s difficult physically
which
coping with knees that have jumped
around for on thousands of courts
but i’m thankful that i still have
people who give me the right feedback
to chase my olympic dream feedback
is crucial and feedback will help you to
improve
and feed seeking for feedback is also
showing respect humility passion for
excellence and confidence all in one
feedback is crucial in building
resilience positive self-talk
being in the present moment and feedback
are all key elements
that will help you to build resilience
but does that mean
that you can go on and on every day
every week
every month every year no resilience is
not
how you endure but it’s how you recharge
maybe life isn’t a marathon but a serial
sprints
and we have to take time for a
recuperation in between those sprints
that’s how we will recharge
finding value and feedback having a
positive mindset
being compassionate with yourself will
help you to be more resilient
everyone has choices in life even in
defeat
we can lose our jobs we can lose our
health our loved ones but
much can be saved because no one
truly can define what is success or
failure for you
only you can do that for yourself and if
you are determined to keep on rebounding
and to bounce back and forward nobody
can stop you only if you give up
so that young woman who got drafted in
2000
well she’s still chasing her olympic
dream
nearly 21 years later still carrying
a bag with her with her jersey her towel
and more than ever a big chunk of
resilience