May 14, 2021

Learn more about how Keynote Speaker JP Pawliw-Fry uses science and research to ignite people to perform under pressure and tackle their biggest challenges, whether in the office, at home, or on the courts.

As a recreational tennis player, I enjoy competing in my club’s tournaments a great deal. My level of play is somewhere between total novice and club professional – so basically, the middle. I do not compete in the upper echelon or the lowest category. After years of muddling through first and second-round losses, I earned my way into a couple of quarterfinal matches and even a semifinal appearance. As I continued to improve my game, I made it to the finals but lost a heartbreaking 7-5, 7-5 nail-biter that was decided on a few points at critical moments. I felt defeated, on the court and in my mind.

I learned a lot from that match and my five-year journey from the first-round knockout to finalist. The biggest takeaway for me was realizing that when technique, fitness, and strategy are in harmony, the big game-changer (no pun intended) is one’s inner dialogue. On the court, it’s not just the strokes that count, but more importantly, managing the ongoing conversation with oneself. I continued to earn a spot in the finals, then another, and another. I lost all of them, feeling that in many of the matches, my opponent was superior. I thought I was the better player for a few of the finals but still fell short. Some of my opponents even said as much, but that was no consolation.

In all, I competed in seven finals over 11 years—still, no breakthrough. No Winner’s Cup held high in the air. It was really starting to gnaw at me. My inner conversation was not empowering me; it was impairing me. I thought, “There must be something I can do differently to produce a breakthrough – but what?”. The same afternoon I lost the seventh final, I had a call with Keynote Speaker JP Pawliw-Fry. JP is president and co-founder of the Institute for Health and Human Potential. He’s a master in high-performance coaching, a world-renowned contributor to science and research, and a powerful keynote speaker. We were scheduled to discuss a potential virtual speaking engagement for a client of mine, but instead, we talked about my recent loss in the finals – the seventh final loss in a row.

JP asked where my thoughts were in those critical moments. After some deep digging, we discovered that I wasn’t playing to win but rather playing not to lose. He asked if I was afraid of winning. “What?” I thought to myself. “I want to win. I want to lift that cup!” That insight did not sit easily with me, but I was committed to reaching a breakthrough. In retrospect, I concluded I was absent-minded during critical points in my matches.

When things got hard on the court, I’d somehow ‘check out.’ I thought I was fully present, but I wasn’t. More importantly, I wasn’t fully present during the critical moments – what JP refers to as “the last 8%.” Simply put, I lost the finals because my inner dialogue was not empowering me when it came time for tough choices on shot selection.

Together, we developed a simple plan that, to this day, includes daily meditation and resetting my mindset to ignite, not impair, my game. I started listening to JP’s podcast, convincing myself that I deserve to win, which isn’t always easy for a guy raised to live by the mantra “you must earn what you want.” According to JP, I was earning it. I was working for it. But more importantly, I was deserving of it. On blind faith, I took his coaching to heart and hit the courts. Six years later, after losing in the finals seven times, I broke through. I finally lifted the Winner’s Cup! The next breakthrough? To protect the title, of course. Stay tuned.