Influences

There is a lot of talk always about role models. I Youtube videos on serving motions and footwork drills and volley racquet position to show my students all the time—watch this guy, Andy Roddick, as he serves. Watch this guy, Roger Federer, as he hits a slice. Role models are who you look up to in your life, but sometimes, it is important to just turn your head around side to side to find influences in your life, because while role models are what you strive to be, influences in your life affect your mindset, your personality, and how hard you work day to day, and influences make a large impact on your life, an impact that you only start to see when you get older and either appreciate people for what they showed you through their own actions or appreciate when you let them go as a friend or mentor, to see how much better your life and your actions become when they leave your side as a negative influence.

I told you in my recent blog about the book “How to be like Mike.” The author writes a chapter about influences—he says, “People do as people see.” It is important to surround yourself around people that not only make you happy, but people that you are willing to acknowledge to be similar to you, or what you want to be. Check to see who you are hitting with—it doesn’t matter how they play, but how much effort they put into playing. Do you want to be as disciplined as they are? Are they a good influence on your tennis? Look around at your coaches. Do you aspire to be like them? I can tell  you that I always aspired to be like my parents, and my parents were my coaches my whole life. I had the positive influence that I only felt the consequences of when I left home to go to college, because the work ethic that they instilled in me to this day I replicate on a daily basis, and often with high rewards from people that aren’t used to seeing such effort regardless the task. 

Sometimes you’ll have a negative influence in your life. These people drain you of your energy, and support actions and behaviors of yours that you are not okay with. Sometimes a positive influence in your life has to hit you upside the head to realize these things, to push you harder—a positive influence isn’t necessarily your best friend, or even a person  you like, but a person who will continue to make you work to be a better you. A negative influence may be fun, but drags you down to a level that is not a better you, and this is important in tennis and in life. A hard worker always beats talent—it might not be so right away, but work ethic and the environment around you, the influences of your coaches, your parents, your friends, make an impact on your tennis on a daily basis that a role model does not. A role model is what you aspire to be, but your surrounding influences get you there.