No, really curious. Not many hit that status. What sport?
Not too keen on telling my story here, but I'll allow that it was motorsports. Let your imagination fill in the rest...
Imagine Crash Davis in
Bull Durham on the bus - that was basically me. I spent way more time working for pros than I spent being one.
What I've learned from that pro sports ecosystem about criticizing pro athletes is that there are basically three categories that most athletes have to face:
1) Trolls. These are people who want to watch the world burn. Pro athletes can tune these people out very easily because it's obvious who they are and what they're after.
2) Peers. This is the most complex category, because you're always suffering cognitive dissonance between believing you're good, great, or even the best, and then having to reconcile that with evidence to the contrary from people you're competing against. You also constantly have to be on your toes to know whether one of your peers is criticizing you in good faith or trying to throw you off your game. Generally, most of the athletes I know tend to try and let most of this roll off of them, with varying degrees of success, but the best take the criticism and either use it as fuel or self-examination to try and improve (although if it works, they rarely credit the source
).
3) Fans. Anytime a pro gets fan criticism, there is a quick and deep desire to fall back on the Appeal to Authority - "
You haven't done the thing at my level, consequently f*** your opinion," etc. You can't be that direct because you know that that person is one of the many indirectly paying your salary... but you want to be. But the dangerous part here is that sometimes, a fan will say something insightful that attacks you right at the core of your insecurity. You won't want to admit it for a million bucks, but they will be right, and it will
grate on you because by rights they shouldn't have the ability to see you that clearly. The fortunate thing is that, except in rare circumstances, you are never close enough to the person levying the criticism that it leaves a lasting mark on you. But I have seen some pros, in very rare and specific circumstances, quietly reach out to someone who seems to have an insight and engage them.
I think the TL;DR of all of this is that professional athletes in all disciplines do represent the peak of their pursuit, but the very best never let their arrival at that level be an excuse to coast or to say, "I've made it." Reaching that level does not guarantee
staying at that level, and it
certainly doesn't become a guaranteed insulator from criticism or, indeed, signal the end of learning to be better.
