Serena Williams: On the Line
I just finished reading Serena Williams’ autobiography “On The Line” and I was pleasantly surprised by the business lessons that I learned from her book. I mean, her book is meant to be an autobiography chronicling her life and the role tennis played in it. It’s a very quick and comfortable read due to the conversational quality that it maintains throughout the book. Serena is very honest about her faults, failures and motivation to be the best tennis player, and as she matured, best person that she can possibly be. And from her life lessons she’s taught me a few things too.
- The importance of having a plan. A real plan. One that you write down and hold yourself accountable. I tend to have fly by the seat of my pants. I have a running list in my head of what I want to accomplish, but let’s face it, between the demands of motherhood, being a wife and working from home, my memory isn’t always up for the challenge. So I plan on going to Wal-Mart this Monday and write down my goals — long-term, short-term and daily. Serena’s dad had them compile a strategy list (for life, not just tennis) every evening in their journal, something that I plan on following with my own children.
- The importance of self-talk. Throughout Serena’s book she shares with us the self-talk that she used while at tennis matches. She writes her own self-talk on post-its that she sometimes sticks to her racquet. One example of her self-talk follows:“… It all happens now!!! Release and go. U don’t have to hit every ball hard. Just relax & focus. U don’t have to be perfect. Just be strong and brave …” — Quote taken from “On The Line”
Regardless of how much external support we may have in our lives, if we don’t focus our attention on what we want to accomplish and encourage ourselves it will all be for nothing. People who do well in business have to have a healthy ego if they’re going to survive the ups and downs that life throws us. So take a minute and think about why you’re “The Best” and pat yourself on the back.
- “You don’t drown by falling into the water. You drown by letting yourself stay there.” Serena’s dad has some interesting and valid insights about life and business. Sometimes as small business owners when we hit a wall (as I did earlier this year) it is so tempting to feel sorry ourselves and stop doing the things that we need to do to fix our situations. We use the economy as an excuse or whatever is else is our particular challenge to stop striving. But as Mr. Williams stated, you’ll only drown if you don’t try to save yourself. So don’t ever stop reaching for your goal. I know I won’t.
- Change it up! This a title in her book that I think definitely applies in my life. I’ve been working on a gabillion transcripts — proofreading, styling, typing, etc. for the past two weeks. So I finally got to the point of being unproductive. I didn’t want to listen to anymore transcripts. I was getting annoyed at the “silly” errors I kept finding and just working myself up into a funk. But that truly wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I was pushing myself to get everything done so that I can do what I want. But in the process I ended up taking longer to finish what I could have flown through with a better attitude. So, I’ve changed it up. I’m proofreading from paper rather than the screen and I’m giving myself play breaks in-between sessions. How do you change up your routine to avoid burnout?
- Always be charitable. While on a trip to Africa, Serena decided to make donation to the children of Africa through a program called “Build African School”. She decided to donate her money overseas because she her money would get more accomplished there than it would in the United States because things are much cheaper than here. During these challenging economic times we sometimes pull back from sharing what we have with others because of our perception of lack. But really, even when we feel we’re drowning in bills would sending that $10/mo. or $25/mo. stand between us and survival. And in most cases, the answer is “no”. So one of my goals is to select a charity to donate to on a regular basis.
So, although I really can care less about tennis, Serena’s story was an interesting and valuable read for my downtime from doing all of these transcripts. If you get a chance you should check it out.
