Marcus Rashford is a resurgent Manchester United’s player of the season. He’s been scoring many goals with impressive regularity and celebrating with a finger pointed toward his head. He was recently asked why.
To this, he said – “Football is probably 95% to do with your mentality,” he said. “For me, that’s everything, that gives you the baseline to go and perform. Without that side, you’re just playing off ability. There are a lot of players that have ability, that’s why they play at the top level, but what sets them apart is the mentality. I’ve been on both sides of it.
I understand the strength of it and the value of it. I’m just concentrating a lot more on keeping myself in that headspace and I think it’s needed in order to go and win games and trophies.”
I think this is true in every profession. When you work in a top company that gets to hire great talent, everyone around you has raw ability – often a combination of intelligence and emotional awareness. However, the differentiator is nearly always mentality.
Grit, persistence, equanimity, and the ability to be constructive when things go wrong (and they often go wrong) make the difference at the highest level.
