Lesson From Dravid's Lesson

[I hate to be proselytizing on the blog; but I'll use my bronze bullet for this exception :)]

Dravid, as we all know is perhaps the most technically accomplished batsman in the world cricket today; one amongst the best ever and perhaps the best in contemporary. However, some three years ago, he was struggling as an One-day bat; apparently he went and talked to Bobby Simpson and asked for help. When Simpson asked him to talk about his mindset, Dravid talked about how mentally he prepares himself before every inning, taking in the cricketing environment, ground conditions, pitch conditions, wind conditions, brightness so and so forth. Impeccable preparation - no one can fault those. A standing example of how perfection and excellence could be achieved by practice and devotion to what one is doing. Since Dravid was not a big hitter, he needed to rotate the strike and run singles and twos; In spite of his technical brilliance (and poetry if I may add), Dravid wasn't able to articulate why he cant be successful at OD cricket. In the course of discussion, Dravid also explained to Simpson that he had the mental map of the environment and had the unaagi/awareness of what was around him; his peripheral vision was strong. Then came the root of Dravid's travails. He told Simpson that he exactly knew where the fielders are even while concentrating on the ball being bowled and still could not get the ball past them.

Simpson asked Dravid to make a slight adjustment. He asked him to redraw his mental map with the gaps between the fielders highlighted rather than the fielders themselves. Dravid did just that. The result is obvious. For someone who had a strike rate in early 60s those days, has now a healthy career strike rate of 70; this would mean since changing his mental map, his strike rate would be around 80+, which would be with the best amongst best, considering he is averaging 40+ in One day format...

There was a lesson in there for me here... Am I focusing on the constraints or on the opportunities. I believe (and have personal experiences) that when I start focusing on the gaps, invariably the things I've set out to change have changed. Opportunities appeared to me. When I saw the fielders, I got stuck by the constraints and invariably ended up frustrated...

In the end, maybe we should look at constraints as what they are - to do a job they are put in the world to do :), but no more. If we could have a refractible vision around them, may be there are opportunities and miracles waiting for us there - It may be worthwhile to discover, to know those; That to know that what we do can touch people, change things, in ways that we do not know or we can ever imagine…!!!

Ps: Maybe this is an apocryphal story; but that’s missing the woods for the trees :)