I recently finished reading Open: An Autobiography by tennis legend Andre Agassi. It was an entertaining book but I also came away with a few lessons and reminders for my own life that I’ll share here.
Back to Basics
From the time Andre Agassi was young, his father drilled him with a fearsome ball machine he called The Dragon to keep improving his hitting stroke. Hours and hours of practice, just hitting. Hitting harder. While he hated it, it was this focus on the fundamentals that would benefit him throughout his career. He no longer had to think about the mechanics of hitting the ball and could focus on the strategy and mindset of winning matches.
Several times throughout his career, he would effectively start over. Working on the basics of his game, focusing on his physical health and endurance. Each time, fighting his way back to the elite level. Each time, coming back stronger.
It’s a good reminder that much of what we do is not the flashy superficial stuff. It’s the boring, basic activities that serve us the most. If you’re a musician, this is the work of scales, arpeggios, etudes, and technique builders. In the software world, this means writing readable code, writing unit tests, learning to use your IDE effectively, following SOLID development principles, etc. These are important skills to develop, regardless of whether you’re working in a monolith, writing microservices or building functions in the cloud.
Build Your Team
As talented as he is, the number one tennis player, eight-time major champion and Olympic gold medalist didn’t reach these heights by himself. Throughout his career, he was very deliberate about putting the right people around him. When he first started, he just fell in with the people who happened to be around him. But one by one, over the years, he replaced the default person with one he chose: His trainer, his coach, his business manager, his wife.
Each of the people he put on his team was laser focused on excellence in their area of expertise. For example, his trainer, Gil Reyes, carried a notebook around with pages and pages of notes, learnings, and drawings about how to get Agassi into peak physical form and readiness.
We all need a team of people to help us and to support us. Maybe it’s a group of friends to encourage you when life knocks you down. Maybe it’s that team of rock stars that will help you build the next great thing. Even those of us who are introverted by nature, need the support and advice of those around us in order to succeed.
Know What You Want
Like most of us, Andre Agassi had his ups and downs throughout his career. In those times where he was not doing well, it was typically because he wasn’t sure what he wanted, or was trying to achieve something that others wanted for him. But every time he focused on something he wanted, great things happened. You can see this when he decided to beat Boris Becker, win the French Open or attracting the attention of Steffi Graf after his marriage to Brooke Shields fell apart.
Having a goal or vision for what you want and where you want to go, and aligning your team around that goal is powerful. Knowing what you want allows you to prioritize how you spend your time and resources.
Lessons of Sport Life
We often look to sports as a metaphor for life lessons. Reading about the life of Andre Agassi is no exception. For me, it reinforced many ideas I’ve learned over the years: Keep going back to basics. Make sure to have a team around you. Know where you’re going and what you’re trying to achieve.
Hopefully you’ve found these lessons as powerful as I have.
Question: If you’ve read Open, what lessons did you learn?