THREE BOOKS WITH A GOOD TEACHING FOR THIS ISOLATION SEASON
Applicable learnings from amazing careers.
In these times of keeping, staying at home and trying to operate our jobs from and through the adversity that the COVID-19 has generated, increased by the challenge of forcibly leaving the comfort zone through extraordinary actions or omissions, such as (i) not being able to go to our offices; (ii) to the limitations to make our life conventional; (iii) to being locked up at home; (iv) sharing time and space with the family for longer than we are used to, which for some represents a major challenge; (v) the lack of seeing friends; (vi) the lack of habitual outings; or (vii) the absence of fraternal embraces that are part of our days, it is important not to lose sight of the final goals, keep the spirit of victory, trust in good, eliminate negative thoughts, believe ourselves capable enough to leave go ahead, put our resilience into practice and from the bottom of our hearts with love reinventing ourselves every day if things are not going well. And to achieve that, it requires discipline, self-esteem, perseverance, and tenacity.
The following three books are recommended because from a sports and business perspective, approached from different point of views and whose protagonists come from different origins, shortcomings and circumstances tell us about overcoming, pursuing dreams, fighting against adversity, the value of discipline and perseverance, resilience in the face of bad times, betrayals or lack of affection, also speak of the value of sacrifices, the value of the hours and feasts sacrificed, among many others.
Agassi, Nadal and Phil Knight come from very different backgrounds, were raised in very different environments and lived their years of growth under a world, sports and business scene at very different times.
The three are joined by the sport of tennis, although of course in the case of the shoe dog, tennis is only part of his sports reign and in fact his training in the construction of his philosophy and the bases of Nike, come from athletics, but beyond the sport or arena in which they built their success, the three are joined by the hunger they had to overcome obstacles and get ahead, and again all three did so under completely adverse and very different circumstances.
Originally from Oregon, Phil Knight did it a little on his own, of course with the secondary support of the whole team that little by little was adding up, and of course Bill Bowerman (award-winning athletic trainer and obsessive seeker of improving the soles that help his athletes) was a basic piece for the gear to work, despite the idea, the zeal, the humility of looking for a complement in Bowerman himself and the hunger and vision of flying and flying to Japan to convince entrepreneurs to sell their Tiger sneakers in the American market were decisions made alone by Knight, whose hunger stems from a journey of isolation and self-discovery imposed by himself, and perhaps in these times of mandatory isolation is an extraordinary opportunity to reflect, introspect and think in our dreams and ideals. Make a plan.
Agassi and Nadal on their own are part of the select group of eight (men) who have risen with the four Grand Slam trophies, honor in which they are accompanied by Fred Perry, Donald Budge, Rod Laver, who is the only one who has won them in the same year and in fact the one that won them twice in the same year, first in the amateur era and then in the professional era (1962 and 1969 respectively) Roy Emerson, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. By the way, Rafael Nadal is the youngest player to achieve all four titles in the open era, an achievement he achieved at the age of 24 and 101 days when he was crowned at the 2010 US Open.
It should be said that although both share this honor, their origins, training circumstances (Agassi son of a very unconventional Armenian father hitting thousands of balls against a machine and with certain shortcomings / Nadal on the soft court, one by one, with personal trainer) and motivations to achieve it are abysmally different, but both coincide in mental strength and greatness of heart that allowed them to undergo strong routines and moments of stress and overcome them through discipline, perseverance, consistency, persistence, resilience and hunger to keep a goal alive. And I believe that these principles are necessary so that we can all come out ahead in a positive way, rebuilt and raised with greater strength from this pandemic and its terrible consequences.
Rafael Nadal wrote his book RAFA my story, in conjunction with John Carlin, author of Incvictus / Playing the Enemy (Mandela and the game that made a nation). On the other hand, André Agassi (OPEN: An Autobiography (2009) and Phil Knight (Shoe Dog (2016), did the work holding hands with the magnificent pen of the author of The Tender Bar (2005), winner of the Pulitzer in 2000 , John Joseph "JR" Moehringer.