Bill Belichick & Ray Dalio on Toughness: Part 2

Um, there’s a toughness to run into, you know, two or three guys that outweighing by a hundred pounds or so. At the line of scrimmage, knowing that they got to fight for that extra yard, half yard, whatever it is to get a first down.

So, um, then there’s the mental toughness part of it. You know, guys like kickers that, um, how many times they kick the ball a game? Forget about the kickoffs. I mean, that’s, you know, how many kicks do you get in a game? You know, five, six? Like putts. Like, what if you putt it five times on the golf course and you got to make all five of them? I mean, that’s, you know, that’s a kicker’s job.

So it doesn’t come up very often. When it does, it’s important, really important. Um, but that mental toughness to just show up and make the kick at the right time, um, it’s like a relief pitcher. You come in from the bullpen, you know you got to get the guy out.

Might be bases are loaded. Might be a guy on third, nobody out. Might be a 55-yard field goal, might be a 25-yard field goal. Kickers can’t control that. So that mental toughness to...

And, and one, what was interesting in our conversation is, I don’t know how many different types of toughness you meant. It’s like, uh, Eskimos and snow, you know, how many different ways of saying snow based on the different types of it? You know, that means that in terms... and that was just toughness.

When we talked about different qualities, you referred to all the DI. You know, toughness is one thing. Sure, intelligence, instincts, you know, awareness. I mean, all those communication. I mean, it’s a good list.

Okay, so what struck me in our, when we were going through this is like you would say there would be a formula almost in your head, whether you laid it out or not, but it was in your head. So, you would say, "Okay, toughness and I need this kind of toughness." And then I need, um, intelligence and I need this kind of intelligence for that job and then the next thing and the next thing and all of that.

You got that specked out in your head. So, you’ve got this formula almost in your head for each position. Yeah, as many of those qualities as you can get.

Exactly. That’s right. And the ones that are less important, they kind of go to the side and you try to focus on the ones that are most important for that position. That’s essentially is what... yeah, that’s what we’re trying to do.