Chad Dunn Interviews David Sammel: Mindset, Discipline & Turning Pain Into Power

What is one of the biggest mental hurdles that tennis players have to overcome in the game of tennis? Do you train mostly just tennis players or do you train athletes of of all types? Mostly tennis players, yeah. And I think, I think the, the, the other tough thing about tennis is it's very gladiatorial. And and the athletes really also have to learn to not tie their whole identity to winning and losing. And you know, the number one tennis player in the world is winning about 54% of their points.

So now it's your turn to put me in the hot seat and ask me a few questions. Yeah. And, you know, you opened up with some great questions for me, you know, and I loved everything that we had. And you know, as I always do, my due diligence too. You know, I've got a therapist. Like I would say that he's from Australia, tennis player, moved out here when he was 17. What is what is one of the biggest mental hurdles that tennis players have to overcome in the game of tennis? Do you train mostly just tennis players or do you athletes of all types?

Mostly tennis players, but I work, I work on the mindset with a lot of other athletes. I mean, I don't, you know, I wouldn't have a pretend to coach somebody in another sport because that's not my expertise. But in the mindset, I definitely work with athletes across a number of different sports, which is which is fascinating. I think the, the number one aspect for a tennis player is when they're on the court, it's very lonely out there. It's a it's a harsh environment because what happens out there is all on you.

And when, when you're in a sport that the number one in the world is losing 46% of the points that they play, that is difficult because a good tennis player is losing, you know, arguably 50 or 51% of their points. So there's a lot of losing in tennis. So therefore, the self talk has to be Chad, welcome back your turn to put me in the hot seat. I really enjoyed our chat. And what I do feel from you is, you know, great energy, positivity and really a very good person. And I'm sure you're helping a lot of people recover from some serious situations and a lot of athletes succeed in in what they're trying to do as a physio.

So without further ado, you're kind of bushwhacking me here. Some people give me advance notice. I like this, some people don't. And it's your turn to ask me a few questions. So you know. It's like the rapid fire, right? Let's see what comes to, let's see what comes forward. You know, I get like I was saying, you know, I've got a, I've got a therapist here, tennis player, you know, and we were talking about the 1%. You know, I think the real 1% comes from tennis is what, from what he's telling me, you know, so, so from the mental aspect, when you're working with your tennis players, what is it that you're trying to keep them focused on as they go through all these games and sets and matches?

You know, how do they become out victorious? I think one of the, the important things to learn as a tennis player is it's very lonely out there on the court. You know, everything's on you. And you know, the number one tennis player in the world is winning about 54% of their points. So they're losing 46% of their points. And you know, you know, less than a godly player like an Alcaraz or Sin or whatever, they're probably winning about 50% of their points and sometimes even less. So it's a game that is has built in, it baits into it a lot of losing, a lot of losing points.

You know, you can have somebody who's 50 in the world is only winning maybe 4950% of their matches. Sometimes less winning streaks are the important thing. So it's it's, it's getting rid of this myth in their head that one day this problem of losing points and losing matches is going to disappear. They've got to come to terms of the fact that it's part of the sport. Don't Rage Against something that is never going to change. You're not going to change. The beauty of the sport is nobody can change it.

You're going to lose a lot of points, you're going to lose a lot of matches. Rather than always seeing it as I've got to bounce back from these losses, if they're part of the sport, then why do you see it as bouncing back? Why don't you just see it as this is part of the process and part of the sport? And all I do every day is just go out there and do my very best to win points, win matches, and if I don't win enough points, lose the match. Sometimes you can win even though you've lost more points though.

But overall that they come to terms with this in their head that the sport is being able to handle the losses and the wins and just keep going it. Was like, forget that. You got to forget the last point, right? You got to forget the last point and keep going. Have you seen? Yeah, this. You can't bring it back. And The thing is, in a sport where you're gonna lose so many points, it cannot affect you that badly because if it does, you will never get to the place where you're mentally tough ready for the next point.

Because you're still worrying about how many points you've lost or the, you know, the matches that you've lost previously. I have an analogy for that if you want to hear it. But I always say this, that when you, when you lose, you obviously learn. And if you have an orange, the learning is you squeeze the orange and the juice comes out. And that juice is the knowledge that you need to learn from the loss. Now, so many players are very, very good at squeezing the orange and getting the juice, but they're eco friendly these days.

They've got a backpack on their on their shoulders and the peel, they put it in the backpack. Well, this is going on and on and on. And after a while, they've learned a huge amount, but the backpack is so heavy they can't move forward. So The thing is, this is you've got to take the knowledge from the lost. Pills are biodegradable. Throw it away, throw the peel away. You can't take all of this baggage along with you. Just take the juice and get rid of the baggage. And that way you not only learn, but you're moving forward free of baggage.

Sure. Wait, you know next when I opened up move, when I first opened the move, nobody knew. It wasn't until about 2000, 2020 one that my whole story came out. I had an old friend that I used to to go to elementary school with. He had a podcast. It was called Make the Difference because I didn't want people to know about my past, being a convicted felon, being in prison as I'm out here trying to train kids and I have families bringing people. But like you said, I had a backpack full of oranges on my back.

It was weighing me down. It was. And so when I did that first podcast and I released it all my even Jackie, she said, don't I don't want you to put this with move and don't relate them all together just due to the fact of what I would about my real identity coming out, but at the same time, getting rid of that backpack that let me that allowed me to move forward and become who I am today. And so, again, I love that analogy, you know, because again, it's just not about business in sport. It's about life.

Yeah. Have you listened? Have you listened to the Have you listened to the interview that Federer did over at Dartmouth for the commencement speech? Yes, yes, I have. Yes, unbelievable, unbelievable. And that's what I like about the tennis. You know, we talk about that, you know, the how it sets you up for that failure and keep coming back over and over and over again. It's a great, great, great lesson. Yeah, and I think, I think the, the other tough thing about tennis is it's very gladiatorial and and the athletes really also have to learn to not tie their whole identity to winning and losing.

They they need to understand that it's, you know, first of all, don't take losses personally. You do if you've done your best, you've done what you can. And if you've lost, you just need to get better so that the next time you face that opponent, you have a better chance of beating them. But you also get to the point where you, you know, you can win and lose against the same opponent because it's all on the day. Nobody shows up every day exactly the same. We all operate within a band. And you might be, you know, supposedly a lot better than somebody else, but if you're playing at your worst and their top band overlaps yours, So in that band there, it's a very competitive match.

So most days it might not be. But on given days, it can be very competitive. So never be complacent or feel like you should win or you should lose. Take it on the day and see, see where they're at and where you're at. And you never know. But I think with, you know, tennis, do you do you shoot for your, your athletes that you work with? And not just in tennis, but let's just say all the others, you know, everybody wants to shoot for the ceiling or they want to go and climb to the ceiling. You know, your ceiling, it's high.

Your Sky's the limit, you know, But people want to raise the bar. You hear this all the time. Raise the bar, raise the bar. I try to raise the floor. Let's set the floor higher. So that way when I do happen to fall backwards, the floor is already higher than my opponent. So now my bar becomes higher. You know, is that something that you you're kind of seeing with your athletes, you know, is, you know, let's let's make that, let's make our bottom the highest. I think that's yeah. Abuse. Yeah. Well, you know, I was telling that the the top moves very, very slowly.

The place that you got to work at is raising the bottom. That's the. Floor and narrowing the band with which where you operate. So the very best in the world are operating a very narrow band. They're best and worst. They are very, very much closer together. And, and, and, and if if you're operating a bigger band, yes, you can bring the great stuff, but you can also bring some really bad stuff. And, and, and so it's exactly the same thing. It's a very, very true saying that, you know, raise the floor because that that narrows that bad.

Yeah. We fall backward, right? We fall back, OK, We don't have to fall that far, right? Yes, I like. That tell me about cricket. I looked at some stuff. I see you got some cricket stuff. You know, I'm fascinated. I don't really know anything about cricket. You know, we obviously we don't have it over here in America. What not are you? Are you South African? I'm South African originally, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I hear a little legal. Played a lot of cricket when I was young. Yeah, so, you know, that just seems an interesting sport we're talking about with Kobe, you know, again, our guy from Australia, you know, so give give you some mental stuff with cricket.

I mean, is very much a mental game often between the batsman and the bowler and they're both trying to get in each other's heads. So yeah, I, I think in an international cricketer that I, that I worked with, he had a problem with a, with an English bowler called Jimmy Anderson, who is one of the greatest ever. And he couldn't play against him every time. You know, he came up against Jimmy, he had his number and he said, you know, I hate this guy. He's in a way destroying my career because if we play against England and, and I do, well, it's only if Jimmy's not playing.

And so, you know, all the good things I can do. This guy's really, you know, hurting my career in terms of how I'm perceived as a batsman because, yeah, he's really good, but he can't play Jimmy Anderson. So I said to him, I said, that's interesting. You do realize that Jimmy's your best friend. And So what are you talking about? I said, well, think about it. He is there to teach you to overcome your biggest obstacle. And every time you face him, he is there as a friend to teach you what you need to know in order to become that much better that you can play against him.

So rather than fearing him, welcome him, have him come in, you know, want him, seek opportunities to play against him. Make him your best friend. Because once you do that, you will see him as something different and somebody there to help you learn to be better. And that way you can start to actually solve the problem of what does he actually do to get you out. Not like he's got my number. I can't play against this guy. No, this is my best friend who's going to teach me how to play against him. And yeah, I mean, it wasn't like the problem disappeared completely because this was the best bowler in the world.

But he did soon after that score his 1st century when he was playing and was able to score runs off him and not go out against him. And after that, it was a little more of a level playing field. You know, he still had some bad moments against him, but overall it changed. There's a lot of psychology that you know, in in all sport, you know, you know, I think Arnold Schwarzenegger said it was, you know, he used to train with Vince Ferragamo. I think it was the guy, I'm pretty sure. And and he said the last time I won the world title or whatever, Vinny was better.

But every day in the gym, I'd say to him, hey, Vinny, who's the best? And you go you Arnie. And he said when we were in the finals of the World Championships, just before they went out there, he said, Hey, Vinny, who's the best? And he said, the moment he said, I knew I'm going to win, I knew I was going to win, you know, so he like planted seeds. And I think that's that's also important, that talk in a way that can plant seeds in other athletes minds. Well, you know, and I got down the back on the back of my book right here, it says, you know what if your biggest failure could become your greatest strength?

And like you say, yeah, we learned from our, you know, I always say keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? Because you're going to learn from the enemy. You're going to learn, like you say, the enemy's your best friend at times. You know, you never know. Yes, that's where you were talking. So again, it's your the vision, I guess, perspective, right? We look at somebody that's constantly beating me, you know, but what do I have to do? And again, study your opponent, you know, I talk about the bull riding.

You know, I've got Cowboys and I've got the bull. Well, which one of those guys is the athlete? You know, I always say the bulls, the athlete, you know, because the Cowboys got to stay on, but the bulls trying to get them out. And so you got to you got to study your opponent, you know, and you got to learn to dance. You got to learn to dance with them, you know, and when the time is right, you get them off rhythm. So it's, you know, a lot of tempo, a lot of rhythm. You know, there's a lot of tempo work, rhythm with.

If you can stay on rhythm and you get somebody off rhythm, I think today is yours. Yeah. I think Muhammad Ali was a master of that. You know, he created, you know, I mean, he even said himself, you know, when he was 19 years old, he was saying, you know, I told the world I was the greatest before I knew I was. Yeah. I figured if I told them often enough, eventually they would believe me. Yeah. And and for an Xbox. You know a 19 year old to have that. Is unbelievable. But now again, when you have that have that vision though, and I think that's the kid things, you know, and you might see what, what do you see with your young athletes nowadays?

What do you think or what do you see is the biggest hold up on them becoming the best version of themselves they can be, whether be on the field of play or whether off the field of play. What do you have for your young athletes? I think the biggest obstacle I have is always say, you know, people that paint the dream, what's the dream? OK, and then forget about it. So it's in there. But then you got to forget about it because, you know, down here you got to start building, you know, one day at a time.

What you say in a row, the one in a row is what you've got to keep building. And this vision or dream, actually, I do this a lot where I can't show it in here, but if you look at my bottom hand, you can't see the top hand and the top hand. The bottom hand has to rise until the top comes in view. So you know, there's a lot of athletes that are trying to jump steps very, very quickly and, you know, dive up to the to the dream when really and truthfully, you almost got to plod your way there and just take it, you know, one at a time until that dream comes into vision.

Then that becomes a reality for you. Because the the other thing I've learned as a coach is you can't pre prepare people for different levels. So in other words, if someone's at this level, you know, and when I was a young coach, I thought, well, you know, I know what it takes to get here. So if I can teach them all things to get there, they can't see it. You need to teach them the things to get to the next level, and then they're ready to hear the things for the next level. And you can't really shortcut that process much.

Occasionally people will jump two or three levels with confidence and everything like that, but they have to learn each phase and be ready for each phase as they progress. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. You, because I look at Eddie, my paralyzed guy, you know, obviously the grand picture was to be able to walk, right? That was a good thing. But there's steps that have to be taken first. I have to be able to get you to stand out of the wheelchair. Then I have to get you to be stable before, you know, I would say stability before mobility.

You got to be able to stand before you can walk, right? And so there's steps. Well, there was not one step that we could cheat or that we could skip because it wasn't going to happen, you know, So as you connect the dots and you, you put this whole picture out there, you know, if you do every step directly and you have the patience, I think the biggest thing you might be saying too is the patience to be able to take every step and complete them all. I always go back to the video games when we were on level 12 and we died back in the day, we had to start over at level 0 or level 1.

Nowadays they just get to start over at level 12. So there's no, there's no repercussions for failure. So they always want to just keep climbing, but they never want to fall back. Yeah. And I have this philosophy and saying, which is in my book, the locker room power is do the work and good things will happen. You just never know when. And that's The thing is I see too often that athletes fall into the trap of working incredibly hard and then the expectation of getting the result that they won grows and grows and they think they're ready often before they actually are.

And then that expectation starts to become a burden, which is like, you know, I've done all this work, I've worked so hard towards us. How can it not happen now? How can it not happen now? And, and that starts to become a problem. Rather than saying, look, I will just keep working until it happens. And when that is, I just don't know because we actually do not know. No, we don't. Why we say do what's right, not what's easy. You know, everyone's easy. I want to skip steps. I want to get to the next one.

It's easy to go to the next step. Sure it is if you're not tested on the step prior, you know, but you have to do what's right. You have to build on it, you know, and we kind of put that hand in hand. Is it? It is. You have to go step by step. I love it. Brilliant. Good. Well, thanks very much. I don't know if you've got any more questions for me. That's all the way. You know, I was interested about the cricket stuff and like I said, I'm very interested with the 1% with tennis, you know, and I've been doing some more study because you hear that I do have one trivial thing.

I'll leave you with one trivia thing. As we talk about the 1% or we talk about things, and I've been asking people this just to get them moving a circle. In a circle we have how many degrees? 360 as we talk about growth in people, circle of life, and you have to complete the next one to be able to go on. When the earth travels 1 revolution around the sun, that is called a year. Yeah. How come there's not 360 days in a year? There's 365 because the circle is 360° year is 360

5 Thank. You so much for I look forward to catching up with you. Thank you again. Thank you for being on my show. I'm glad I got to interview you. Yeah. Brilliant. Thank you very much. Awesome. Have a good day. Take care. Yep. Bye bye for watching Locker Room Power with David Samuel. If you enjoyed the episode, hit subscribe and leave a comment on your favorite platform. See you in the next one.

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