A lesson from the tennis court that applies in business and life; Federer, my dad and me

1) My dad and I attended the Laver Cup tennis tournament in Boston on Friday (see picture below), which reminded me of a fun tennis experience and a great story, with an important business and life lesson...

In November 2015, I met tennis legend Andre Agassi at a corporate retreat in Bermuda. (Here's a great video of his career.) He was an outstanding dinner speaker, sharing many stories and lessons from his raw, heartfelt autobiography, Open.

During the day, Agassi conducted a tennis clinic, during which a handful of us got to play four games each with him as our doubles partner. I like to joke that we were quite a team! 😂  Here are a few pictures of us:

Agassi is a big fan of charter schools (he started one in Las Vegas), and I've been on the board of KIPP charter schools in New York City for more than two decades, so we had a nice chat about that.

While walking onto the court, I told him a funny story that Mark McCormack, the founder of International Management Group – a talent management company serving sports figures and celebrities – shared in his 1986 classic (and the first business book I ever read), What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School, which goes something like this...

McCormack was playing in a pro-am tennis tournament, which pairs a professional player with an amateur. His partner was a notorious bad boy, Ilie Năstase, and their opponents were Björn Borg and some other amateur CEO.

As they were walking out onto the court, Năstase asked McCormack, "So, do you want to win, or do you want to have fun?"

Being a type A, competitive guy, McCormack said, "I guess I'd like to win."

To which Năstase replied, "Well, then get the hell off the court!"

Agassi had never heard this story and was cracking up as I said, "Just to be clear, I want to have fun!"

He said, "Great, you take the forehand side and let's do that" – and we did!

The reason I've always remembered this story is that there's a profound lesson here that applies both in business and in life: If you find yourself in a situation in which you're the worst player on the court or the least experienced/knowledgeable person in a meeting – that's OK... as long as you: a) recognize this... and b) act accordingly.

Let me give you an example...

I've played in a handful of charity pro-am tennis tournaments. It was laughable that a middle-aged hacker like me was even on the court with world-class players like my partners and the pros on the other side of the net, but with thousands of dollars of prize money at stake, I wanted to win. And we did – we won one tournament and finished second in another.

So did I rise to the occasion and play the best tennis of my life?

Absolutely not!

The key to our success (beyond the tremendous skills of my partners, of course) was that I put my ego aside and knew my role: to hit as few balls as possible.

Of course, our opponents tried to hit everything to me. But when they succeeded, rather than trying to be a hero, I just tried to get the ball back any way I could – ideally, hitting a junky, deep lob – which would give my partner another chance to hit a winner.

I make a similar assessment every time I play pick-up basketball (which used to be two to three times a week before the pandemic). If I'm one of the better players on my team, then I'll look for my shot, but more often, I'm not, in which case I'll rarely shoot and try to contribute by passing, rebounding, and playing defense.

These lessons apply in the business world as well. Few people have ever accused me of being a wallflower, but if I'm in a meeting in which other people are clearly more knowledgeable and/or experienced, then I do my best to shut up, listen, and learn. (It reminds me of the old saying, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.")

This seems pretty obvious. But how many times have you seen guys (these egomaniacs are almost always men) hoisting up terrible shot after terrible shot on the basketball court or running their mouths in meetings despite having no idea what they're talking about?

Don't be one of those guys...

2) Thanks to generous friends, on Friday, my dad and I had seats in the same section as Roger Federer – that's him between/behind us:

If you're a tennis/Fed fan, I highly recommend the new biography about him, The Master: The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer.

Best regards,

Whitney

P.S. I welcome your feedback at WTDfeedback@empirefinancialresearch.com.