Randomly today I came across moving words spoken by Andre Agassi after he lost his last match before retiring in 2011.
To a crowd who had given him an extended standing ovation after losing, with eyes moistened by tears, he stood at mid-court and said in a microphone what was in his heart:
“The scoreboard says I lost today, but what the scoreboard doesn’t say is what I have found. After 21 years [of playing tennis], I have found loyalty. I found inspiration. You have willed me to succeed sometimes even at my lowest moments. And you have given me your shoulders to stand on to reach my dreams. I could have never reached them without you.”
Here’s the video of this scene:
With more raw emotion than most athletes, Andre Agassi would let you know how he was feeling. While an elite tennis phenom, he was one of us, just another human being. Everyday life, what this all means, wasn’t a simple tennis match; it was much more complicated than that for Andre.
Unlike most tennis prodigies, he admitted times were growing up when he didn’t like playing tennis. At times it didn’t enthrall him. For real.
Aren’t we all that way? Even if we love what we do, we go through stretches where the work we love gets monotonous. We question why we’re doing this, whether it matters, whether we should be spending our time on other things more important, perhaps, or just be more balanced instead of playing tennis eight hours a day for 21 straight years.
Or writing virtually every day even when you don’t want to, when no one is reading, when you lose sight of why you’re doing it when the whole notion of writing seems self-indulgent and a time-waster.
But to get good we must keep practicing even when we don’t feel like it. Andre fought those demons of “Why am I playing tennis” and it’s how he dealt with this I will always remember.
Mid-way through his pro career he fell far down in the rankings. For him, tennis had lost its allure. He slammed into a career crossroads. Should he just quit or re-dedicated himself with more determination and effort to become the best player he could be, to find out how high he would climb if he actually worked harder at being great than he ever had before?
He chose to find out the answer to that question. I remember hearing he would work out so vigorously he would vomit. Ran long distances.
Lost weight, got quicker, more fit, and up he climbed, back to elite status. Instead of jumping off the train wondering the rest of his life how great he could have been, he found out.
Because he went all in on this pursuit of tennis self-actualization and peak performance.
I love this kind of story. Just strive for greatness. It matters not if you get there; it only matters that you commit and put in the work to get there.
For the rest of his life, he hasn’t had to wonder what would have happened had he worked harder. He gave all he had to be the best tennis player he could.
It’s extreme. It’s intense. It’s admirable. It’s risky. It’s emotional.
It makes you cry.
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