Paddy Upton and Gary Kirsten. Pics courtesy/Paddy Upton

2. Start from scratch
It can be easy to get caught up in the warm glow of success after a high in your career. Instead, it's a better idea to start from scratch straight away and focus on the next goal. Upton talks about tennis champion Rafael Nadal's concept of "getting back to zero". The idea is to treat winning a tournament as plus-five, and losing in the first round as minus-three. Either way, you have to get back to zero and reset the mind and body for whatever the next challenge might be. The Indian national cricket team, for instance, failed to do that after the incredible rush of winning the World Cup in 2011. They spent too long on the top of the mountain, metaphorically speaking, and thus tumbled soon after to suffer a string of defeats.

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The Indian team after winning the 2011 World Cup, a success in which they basked for too long

3. Be the right alpha leader
Most leaders by nature are alpha persons. They have a sense of dynamism that puts them at the head of the herd. But this strong personality can assert itself in a negative manner sometimes. In the corporate world, that would be the definition of a bad boss. This person would treat his employees merely as resources who help him achieve his own selfish ends. As a result, his subordinates would go into survival mode and fail to work as a unit, which — in cricket — would translate into a batsman looking to stay at the crease at the cost of sacrificing his wicket for the greater good of the team. Healthy alpha leaders, on the other hand, would place high demands on juniors, but the latter would experience that as being fair. That's because this leader also embodies the crucial quality of empathy, since he is willing to listen to others and is sensitive to what they might be going through. Upton cites Graeme Smith as an example, under whose exemplary captaincy the South African side was a happy cricket team.

(From left) A happy frame of Indian cricket greats Virender Sehwag, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman

4. Let the feeling of failure go
It might seem like a clichéd phrase, but "this too shall pass" is an effective way of dealing with failure. Upton writes about a certain chat that he'd had with Kyle Mills, after the New Zealand cricket team had suffered a string of seven consecutive defeats, four of which were against cricketing minnows Bangladesh. The fast bowler's energy had been so morbid when he had been shaking hands with Upton at the end of their latest defeat, against India, that the Indian mental conditioning coach felt compelled to have a quick chat with him later on, even though he came from the opposing team. Upton told Mills that cricket is just a game, and for that matter, so is life. He told him, "Take yourself one year ahead of today, and tell me what you would say about this experience." Mills initially looked confused as "he tried to extract himself from the moment and project into the future". But after a few moments, he realised that the losses wouldn't feel as bad later on, and that he might even gain some valuable lessons from the experience. "This too shall pass," Mills understood.

Quick singles with the barefoot coach
How best can a person in a high-profile job put blinkers on to ward off the constant attention they have to deal with?
It's difficult for high-profile celebrities to separate their three lives — personal, public and professional. Some get too caught up in the public lives, basking in the glory of the limelight. These individuals run the risk of compromising their professional life, and if they fall into the easy trap of merging their personal and public lives, it could leave them vulnerable to post-career difficulties and even depression. Those who do best place their personal and professional lives as the priority, and avoid all the traps and attractions of living the public life as a celebrity. In this way, they maintain their professional processes of training, preparation and sleep. Players like Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman are excellent examples of this.

How would you say that the impact of playing a sport like cricket professionally affects the way a teenager evolves into a person in his mid-thirties?
An athlete who goes into professional sports at a young age, and remains there for say two decades, will have varying degrees of ease or difficulty when exiting the career and returning to 'normal' life. This will be dependent on the degree to which they remain with their feet on the ground versus adopting the values and expectations that fans and the society places on them. The ideal way is for them to work on advancing their professional life as much as they work on being a good human being, of sound personal values. They should ideally not attach their personal identity to the talent they have, and the results that flow from it.

What are some ways for players to deal with the separation anxiety of being away from their families on lengthy tours?
Being on tour looks amazing from the outside, but from personal experience, living for long periods in a hotel room can be very lonely, even for the most celebrated public figures. What's important is that players have a strong connection to something important in their personal lives, and away from the game. It's probably best to have good friends and family relationships [or hobbies], where cricket is not the main focus of conversation or attention. Many players spend their hours on PlayStation or on social media. This temporarily hides the experience of loneliness, but does very little to overcome it when they walk away from that temporary distraction.

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