Quotes from "Born to Win" by John Bertrand

Born to Win was written by John Bertrand - winning Skipper of Australia II which won the America's Cup after 132 years of American dominance. It tells the story of what it takes to create history - a team of individuals who are willing to dream, be inspired and work their butts off for a common goal!

Quotes from Born To Win

P76

“My formula for winning was imbedded in my mind. Give me a boat that will make us equal, and then let me harmonise the crew. Let me motivate them. Let me bring everyone together, thoughtfully, with respect for each other. Just let me form a great democracy that a big racing-boat crew should be. Let me instill in them that feeling of self-reliance and reliance on each other. Let me use all my sports psychology lessons. Just give me the chance to make them pursue excellence as I myself pursue it. My team will be totally involved in my own entire reason for living – to be respected and admired by your peers. I want them to be assailed by the feeling that the only thing in the world you can never do is to let each other down.

That is how I perceived the America’s Cup being won – by a fantastically tight team. Men who would go to the wall for each other, inspiring, covering, supporting, helping out everywhere, each backing up the others, watching each other through the difficult areas, each ready to jump in and help, to slave away at whatever was necessary. I wanted a team of winch-grinders who would pound those steel handles until their arms felt they would collapse. And then they would go back and do it again. And again. Not because they had to but because they wanted to. Because the prospect of letting down their mates was so utterly, so humiliatingly unthinkable.”

P81

“I had made  indelible mental notes of those critical aspects of the path to success that cannot be ignored – team spirit, sensible, experienced, well-liked, and respected leadership; brutal testing of the boats; a methodical technical program; and a feeling of solid cameraderie among the crew.”

P112

“I need something you cannot buy, cannot learn, and cannot train for. I need men who, in addition to all of the [skills], have a God-given killer instinct to win, who naturally perceive themselves as winners, who believe unquestioningly in our own invincibility.”

P129

“In the absence of stars, there was but one commodity we could develop, and that was team spirit. In every walk of life, a tightly grouped, determined, well-trained team will so often overcome pure genius. All they need is an explicit belief that they can fight and win, that they can overcome opposing cleverness with unshakable determionation, tireless work, and the desire to back each other, to cover each other’s mistakes, and ultimately to triumph through sheer sense of communal purpose.”

P130

“This type of communication therapy has major advantages. It gives us the combined strength of 11 brains rather than one and it breeds a powerful camaraderie, somehow making each person feel that it was up to him, that to fail would be to let everyone else down.”

P131

“Team spirit is a one way street. It evolves only when people want to fight for each other.”

P131

“So I pursued a course of psychological training that would bring them, through a series of winning concepts, to an obdurate truth that they were as good as, if not better than, their American opponents. They needed to learn arrogance, to strut their stuff before the world – not necessarily in a bombastic way, but with the pure inner confidence of men who knew they would win.”

P134

“As we proceeded with our training, I told them of people who inspired me, of people with attitudes and philosophies that worked. Finally these seeds began to fall on fertile ground. The approach was working.”

P135

“I never stopped trying to break down those myths about the Americans and their invincibility. I tried to downgrade the Americans in the eyes of the younger crew members.”

P136

“WINNING sportsmen are aggressive in competition. Losers are not. Under stress, enhanced aggression promotes superior winch-grinding, more initiative, more eager wind-shift searching, more creativity in tactics, tuning, sailing the yacht. On the other hand, lack of aggression leads to poor starts, lack of fine tuning coming off the starting line, and a general ‘lay down and die’ attitude.”

P136

“The key to motivation is that it comes from within the group. Extremely important that this is recognized and worked on. Assuming all our other bases are covered… then the final mental toughness and approach through the 45-odd races will be the difference between winning and losing.”

P137

“STRESS INNOCULATION. To set up stress conditions beyond normal limits, ie., to operate in the ‘Red Zone’… Once the Red Zone is experienced and tolerated, when the going gets really tough and we are stretched to the limit, each member will become confident in his ability to compete successfully. The main aim is to achieve inner confidence under all race conditions.”

P144

“Remember, you cannot go anywhere, if you have not first imagined yourself there. People achieve that which they have imagined themselves achieving over and over in their minds. That which you have never dreamed of is that which you will never attain.”

P145

“The antidote to history is logic”

P145

“I talked to the crew about the psychological ability to back off a little and not force a decision under pressure…. If you can step back for a split second, the decision will still come very quickly, but it will not be forced and off balance. You must give your natural reflex a chance to come through, and you must be aware when you have it. If you train long enough, and hard enough in a winning frame of mind, your reflex will always save you, as long as you are not too hasty.”

P146

“Every night before I went to sleep, I shut myself away and lived in my own mind the feeling of being out in front, in the quiet, in the midst of the tension. And as I dreamed my separate dreams, it became easier. The power of the mind is enormous, and together we sensed ourselves making it happen.”  

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History shows that Australia II skippered by John Bertrand was 1-3 down in a best of 7 series. At breakfast before the final race having already leveled the series at 3-3, Bertrand addressed the crew:

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P335

“I told them that this was a time that would test our mental discipline. I went over with them one of great maxims – when the moment comes, we will do what great teams always do. We will call upon our proven capacity to slip into overdrive as soon as our backs are pushed to the wall. ‘We have discussed it long and often, and today we are going to be required to do it. To hit the switch and raise our game, like great champions, like men who deserve to be recognized as the best in the world. We are going to sail our boat as it has never been sailed before. Nothing is going to stop us.’”

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There are seven legs in an America’s Cup Race and in the final race, after 5 legs, Australia II found herself behind by 57 seconds. This is a huge deficit to make up against a world class opponent – undefeated for 132 years!

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P341

“The only tactic I can employ is one that wins Olympic Gold Medals: Keep hanging in there, do whatever we have been trained to do, don’t give up, don’t panic, and don’t do anything rash.”

P352

“I found my own mind racing, groping back through the years, searching through a thousand memories of big international competitions for the moments when I had coped with anything like this before. And of course there were none. All I could do was to fall back on the words Rasa had spoken to me: ‘You can win this race, John, if you let your natural talents flow.’ I know what to do. All I must remember is to relax, relax, let it flow, let it flow.”

In the end, the crew of Australia II outsailed the Americans and won the race – and the Cup - by 41 seconds. A turnaround of 1 minute and 38 seconds!

 And history was made - - - by an outstanding TEAM!