In a prior comment, I posited that tennis is a great guide to leadership. Yesterday, I met a female [French] pro in Nice (Beaulieu) who at the age of 23 had a career ending injury (ruptured meniscus, operation, infection, re-operation…). At the time, she was ranked 20th in France. Now, at age 54 (estimate), she was still going after the ball with vigour and hitting nice shots on both sides despite limited movement in the affected leg. Afterwards, we got to speaking about how her approach to tennis has helped craft her approach to life. Here are some of the pearls from her experience:

  • life is constructed day by day, like a point is constructed shot by shot.
  • life is like a tournament of 5 set matches, not a warm up.
  • life is everything tennis is not, or rather life is not just tennis (relaxation, good food, etc.) but even those non-tennis activities help your tennis.
  • winning isn’t everything, but it sure is worth fighting for.

That said, we had a great sweat and a philosophical chat; in short, a great game of tennis.

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