Sublime

you must derive satisfaction and gratification from winning without letting it define your self-worth, just as you cannot allow defeat to define you as a person. There has to be a balance. You can’t put yourself in a smaller and smaller box where there’s only the infliction or avoidance of pain—a personal torture chamber.

So before I played Petrosian again, less than a year after the defeats described above, I spoke with Spassky, who was playing in the same tournament in Yugoslavia. He counseled me that the key was to apply pressure, but just a little, steadily. “Squeeze his balls,” he told me in an unforgettable turn of phrase. “But just squeeze one, not both!”

It’s what happens to a person once he or she has the desire to win, the intention to win, the expectation to win.

I had to be honest with my players—there were going to be times I didn’t like them or didn’t like what they did. That’s just a reality of human existence; there will be people with whom you click better than others. But I wanted them to know I loved them, and a poor choice or poor playing or poor attitude would never take away my love. They were no

Some of Tim’s strategies: Never dismiss anyone—You never know who might help you one day with your work. His rule was to treat everyone like they could put you on the front page of the New York Times … because someday you might meet that person. Play the long game— It’s not about finding someone who can help you right this second. It’s about establ