How a renowned tennis coach can help you unlock your greatness!
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Andre Agassi is an American former world №1 tennis player. He is an eight-time major champion and an Olympic gold medalist, as well as a runner-up in seven other majors. Agassi is widely considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time. However, in 1994, he found himself at a crossroads.
He was young, one of the brightest stars in tennis, but had underachieved in his career. So Agassi and his manager approached Brad Gilbert, a fiery, veteran tennis player of good ability known as an overachiever, to offer him the job as Agassi’s coach.
But first, they wanted to hear Brad’s assessment of Agassi’s abilities. In this excerpt from Andre Agassi’s autobiography Open, he provides some very interesting insight:
“When Brad is finally settled, half a cold Bud Ice down his gullet, [my manager] starts...
“So, listen, Brad, one reason we wanted to meet with you is, we want to get your take on Andre’s game.
“Say what?
“Andre’s game. We’d like you to tell us what you think.
“What I think?
“Yes.
“You want to know what I think of his game?
“That’s right.
“You want me to be honest?
“Please.
“Brutally honest?
“Don’t hold back.
“He takes an enormous swallow of beer and commences a careful, thorough, brutal-as-advertised summary of my flaws as a tennis player.
“It’s not rocket science, he says. If I were you, with your skills, your talent, your return, and footwork, I’d dominate. But you’ve lost the fire you had when you were sixteen. That kid, taking the ball early, being aggressive, what the hell happened to that kid?
“Brad says my overall problem, the problem that threatens to end my career prematurely — the problem that feels like my father’s legacy — is perfectionism.
“You always try to be perfect, he says, and you always fall short, and it f**ks with your head. Your confidence is shot, and perfectionism is the reason. You try to hit a winner on every ball, when just being steady, consistent, meat and potatoes, would be enough to win ninety percent of the time.
“He talks a mile a minute, a constant drone, not unlike a mosquito. He builds his argument with sports metaphors, from all sports, indiscriminately. He’s an avid sports fan and an equally avid metaphor fan.
“Quit going for the knockout, he says. Stop swinging for the fences. All you have to be is solid. Singles, doubles, move the chains forward. Stop thinking about yourself, and your own game, and remember that the guy on the other side of the net has weaknesses. Attack his weaknesses. You don’t have to be the best in the world every time you go out there. You just have to be better than one guy. Instead of you succeeding, make him fail. Better yet, let him fail. It’s all about odds and percentages. You’re from Vegas, you should have an appreciation of odds and percentages. The house always wins, right? Why? Because the odds are stacked in the house’s favor. So? Be the house! Get the odds in your favor.
“Right now, by trying for a perfect shot with every ball, you’re stacking the odds against yourself. You’re assuming too much risk. You don’t need to assume so much risk. F**k that. Just keep the ball moving. Back and forth. Nice and easy. Solid. Be like gravity, man, just like mother f#@king gravity. When you chase perfection, when you make perfection the ultimate goal, do you know what you’re doing? You’re chasing something that doesn’t exist. You’re making everyone around you miserable. You’re making yourself miserable. Perfection? There’s about five times a year you wake up perfect when you can’t lose to anybody, but it’s not those five times a year that make a tennis player. Or a human being, for that matter. It’s the other times. It’s all about your head, man. With your talent, if you’re fifty percent game-wise, but ninety-five percent head-wise, you’re going to win. But if you’re ninety-five percent game-wise and fifty percent head-wise, you’re going to lose, lose, lose.”
There’s a lot of wisdom in what he shared with Agassi and a lot we can learn from what he said. First, perfection is not attainable. There are no perfect tennis players and there are no perfect human beings. More often than not, we chase perfection at the expense of everything. Instead of perfection, our process should be about striving for excellence. and
He referenced Vegas and the casinos and how the house always wins. The house always wins because the odds are stacked in their favor. We need to stack the well-being odds in our favor. We do that by consistently making well-being choices, habits, and routines that help us achieve better well-being.
He also mentions that you don’t have to be the best in the world every time. Agassi only had to be better than his opponent. We don’t have to be the best in the world every day. We need to be better than we were the day before.
We have to put our energy into chasing excellence. We have to stack our well-being odds in our favor. We are competing against ourselves, we have to be better than we were yesterday. Forward, always!