I was recently at the French Open tennis tournament. Not the televised matches with the famous players- but at the qualifiers. The qualifiers are for people who may not be in the top rankings or ranked at all, but have won the chance to compete to enter the tournament. In other words, they are not yet in the money, but they have slogged along, working their butts off to get in. The stakes are high- if you lose in the qualifiers, you never make it into the tournament- even though you have spent the time, effort and money to get yourself there to compete.

I love the qualifiers because you get to watch these amazing players competing with all their heart- and you get to do it close up. The outer courts have small grandstands- mostly bleachers- where you can sit and watch. You feel like you can almost touch the players- they are that close.

We were only there for the day, but in that one day I saw two really incredible players fall apart in two different matches. I’m no tennis expert, but the first was a match between two players who seemed to be relatively close in skill level. They took turns falling apart- missing their serve and committing unforced errors. In one case, one of the players started making negative comments out loud- seemingly to himself. He looked pretty mad. Who do you think lost that one? Yep, the guy who was making comments to himself about his own performance out loud. He literally went down talking shit to himself. The only difference I saw that day between the two players was that one held himself together a little bit better. Two talented players, two great athletes, two guys struggling to hold it together mentally- and the guy with the discipline to move through it without badmouthing himself won that day.

In another match, we watched a veteran who had once been in the money. He had fallen down through the rankings and was stuck in the qualifiers trying to get back in. He appeared to be a better player than his opponent- but he was playing poorly. And he was mad. He was openly glaring at the crowd when it clapped for his opponent. And by the way, when I say crowd- I’m talking about a relatively small amount of people in the bleachers- not some big stadium. Then he started yelling at the crowd, telling us to be quiet. All that was happening was a couple people were saying “allez” or “go” to their buddy- his opponent. It didn’t seem to be unsportsmanlike. Granted, when I was young, I was taught not to cheer when the other guy made an unforced error. But it seemed okay to just tell your guy to get going as the last point was wrapping up and before the next point started-and the ref was not intervening. He kept complaining out loud to the crowd in between homicidal glances, and went down in flames in the second set, losing a major lead in the tiebreaker. But after the break, he came back and (quietly) wiped up the floor with his opponent, winning the set 6-1 and the match.

So what’s the lesson to take away. Well, first of all- even the highest level atheletes struggle playing their own game. Everybody gets frustrated and mad. Everybody has times when their performance falls short. You will have difficult moments in whatever you do or are hoping to achieve- whether it’s something you have your heart and soul invested in for the last 20 years- or it’s a new business you have been working on for a year. Second of all- when self-doubt or anger infects the process, no matter what you are doing, your energy is diluted and your chances of failure increase. What can make the difference between success and failure is what you do when you catch yourself in the middle of it. Can you detach from the moment and focus on the bigger goal? It seems to me that’s what these elite athletes can do. They can’t do it every time- but my guess is that they do it more often than the rest of us.

So how do you detach and look at the bigger picture while you’re in the middle of anger and disappointment. Develop your third party perspective on yourself. Visualize yourself floating up and outside of your body and looking at the situation impartially. Make some decisions about how you are going to address the difficulty in the short term and the long term. In the moment, the immediate short term, you may need to practice some anger management techniques, breathing and visualization. It’s most important to interrupt yourself from the heightened emotion of a situation. Give yourself permission to do your best without judgment and complete the task, the negotiation, whatever it is, calmly- even if that means walking out of the room. Then- later- judgment must come when you are out of the heat of the moment. That’s the time to review the play, and figure out how you can do better. But in the performance, the best thing you can do is let go of the result- and stick to the game plan whether you win or lose that particular round. There will be many more rounds to come.

I went back to look when the tournament ended, and the guy who pulled it together was eventually defeated in the round of 64. Maybe not the best finish. But- the round of 64 losers made €79,000 ($92,987). So the guy who got control back over himself in that critical match pulled in almost a hundred grand- while the guy who went down in flames got zero. Over time this sort of thing adds up. Usually it’s not quantifiable in such a clear way, but for the rest of us, working toward the consistency of self-control will also bring our best results.