MESSAGE #751 JUST IN…FROM 1959

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Today’s message is especially dedicated to Lisa Steenstra, Kerry Gallagher and Danielle Weiss.

The great Rob Gilbert, Ph.D., is one of the world’s top sports psychologists and motivational speakers. He is also a good friend and mentor.

If you walk in to Dr. Gilbert’s house, you wouldn’t know if you were in his house or the library. He may have the biggest motivational library on the planet.

Well, last year, Dr. Gilbert left me a voicemail saying, “Ed, I have $10,000 worth of books and I’m getting rid of them – you have the first crack at them.”

So we met at his storage facility (yes, he has a separate storage facility for just books). I actually went three times, for an average of three hours each visit. I was only able to go through about 75% of them. He had books from the world of sports, music, business, academics – you name it. He had first editions signed by the authors. He had duplicate and triplicate of books. I walked away with probably 200 books.

This morning I was looking through my library and found something called, “Your Lifetime Memo Book” from April 1959. It is a small, thin book that was probably a free give-away from Waghorne-Brown Co., a warehouse at the time, in Merrimack, New Hampshire. This promotional book had a motivational quote for every day of the month.

Here’s one from Sunday, April 26, 1959…

“The muscles of an athlete atrophy when not used; the fingers of a violinist stiffen when not exercised, and the mind softens when it looks only at pictures.”
-BISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN

What a great quote, and so true.

You need to use what you have, or you will lose what you have.

Great quotes and great books from history are still around, like Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

Why?

Because the principles still apply today.

You don’t need to figure everything out on your own.

Learn from the greats and do what they did.

Use it or lose it.

Do you have a favorite quote or book?

Leave your comments.


Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #750 TEACHER IS STUDENT, STUDENT IS TEACHER

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“Though he acts as a teacher, within himself, he should be a learner.”
-B.K.S. Iyengar

Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great B.K.S. Iyengar in Prune, India.

I’m a tennis teacher. I’m also a tennis learner.

Yes, I teach tennis – the strokes, strategy, preparation, character, fitness, nutrition and mental training.

But it goes deeper than that.

My students learn from me, but I also learn from my students. On a daily basis.

I believe that part of teaching is learning and re-learning.

The last thing I want to do is be on automatic. I don’t want to be a parrot. Every student has different needs and challenges, therefore, I learn from them – I learn new ways to teach. This also helps me customize the lesson for my student. It’s like playing a match – sometimes you have to make adjustments. Conditions will never be exactly the same, so why do we act like they are?

“There are many unknown things to be known.”

I even look at my opponent as a teacher. They are attacking my weaknesses in order to win a point, so they are teaching me how to improve. I, on the other hand, am doing the same to them.

In the past, I used to think of my opponent as the enemy. Someone I wanted to beat. But once I realized that there was another way to look at it, my game changed. I thought of my opponent as a teacher and student. I started to relax. I started to play to my potential. And I started to really have fun. The result was no longer an issue. It was all about the present moment.

This may be strange or a paradigm shift for you, but try to think about this for the rest of your day. Think about how you are a teacher and how you are a student. In the end, we are really all the same.


Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #749 ACTION!

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“You will get no more out of life than you put into it.”

Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great Ruben Ganesh.

Three frogs are sitting on a log.

Two of them decide to jump off.

How many frogs are left?

Answer: Three.

Just because the frogs decided to jump off, doesn’t mean they did.

What are you deciding to do, but not doing?

“Oh, I’ve decided to go on a diet.”

“I’m going to practice five days a week.”

Talking isn’t good enough. We need to take action.

Last night I attended a Princeton tweetup meeting at Salt Creek Grill, organized by Hilary Morris. It was a networking event for local business professionals that use Twitter.

I walked away with a pocket-full of business cards. I’m sure most people walked away with even more, but I already knew some of the attendees.

But here’s the point…

When people attend networking events, they accumulate business cards and that’s pretty much where it ends.

People are satisfied with just getting and giving cards.

Most people that buy a book don’t read past the first chapter.

We tend to relax and think that we’re done after that first step.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

We will see how many emails I get from people I met last night. I have a feeling I won’t get many. I’ve attended dozens of networking events and it is rare that people follow up. You can be sure that I will be sending out personal emails to each and every new person I met last night.

It’s not about trying your best – Do whatever it takes.

I don’t care what you tell me you’re going to do, I only care about what you do.

The great Angie Holmberg in Oklahoma was feeling bad about her tennis game yesterday. She read my blog and saw that it was dedicated to her. She didn’t care.

But then she thought to herself, “Why not? You have to think great before you are great.”

Well guess what?

That changed her whole attitude.

She said, “I took that attitude to my practice this evening and it was a very fun and productive time on the court!”

Confidence is not a feeling, it’s an action.

Do it today. Tell me about it tomorrow.


Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #748 WE NEED GOALS…

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Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great Tina Odisho in Elizabeth, NJ.

In my book, “Game. Set. Life.” I wrote how only about 3% of people have goals. Those are all the successful people in the world.

Imagine this scenario…

You’re getting ready to play a game of soccer. Then, all of a sudden, they remove the goals and the referees say, “Play ball!”

What do you do? Maybe kick the ball around a bit? After a short period of time, you would get bored, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t get anywhere. You’d be running around in circles. You might give up.

Life is the same way – are you just going through the motions? Just kicking the ball around? Goals will give you a purpose; they will keep you motivated.

Figure out what you truly want to accomplish in this world – what you want to leave behind.

Be specific.

Take action.

Start today.



Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #747 IN-MIND BANKING…

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Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great Mike Deblase. Happy Birthday to a true peak performer!

“I use all the brains I have, and all that I can borrow.”
-WOODROW WILSON

I love learning.

I make time to read every day. I love learning from others. Here’s something I just read at 5:19AM…

A 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud man, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with his hair fashionably combed and shaved perfectly, even though he is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today. His wife of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, he smiled sweetly when told his room was ready. As he maneuvered his walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of his tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on his window. ‘I love it,’ he stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

‘Mr. Jones, you haven’t seen the room; just wait.’

‘That doesn’t have anything to do with it,’ he replied.

‘Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged .. it’s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. ‘It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.’

Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I’ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I’ve stored away. Just for this time in my life.

Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you’ve put in.

So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories!

Thank you for your part in filling my Memory bank. I am still depositing.

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.

Have a nice day, unless you already have other plans.

(Thank you, Paul Cannon)

How can you apply this today to sports, sales, or school?


Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #746 A BITTERSWEET DAY…

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“Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”-SPECIAL OLYMPICS MOTTO

Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great Angie Holmberg in Edmond, Oklahoma.

It is a bittersweet day for me. Eunice Kennedy Shriver has just passed away. She was the sister of John F. Kennedy, but more importantly, she was the founder of the Special Olympics.

“She started the Special Olympics Games in 1968 to foster fitness and self-esteem for those with mental retardation. Her concern for the mentally handicapped was attributed to her relationship with older sister Rosemary, who was said to have been mildly retarded and spent the majority of her life in long-time care facility after a lobotomy.

‘I had enormous affection for Rosie,’ Shriver said in a National Public Radio interview in 2007. ‘If I never met Rosemary, never known anything about handicapped children, how would I have ever found out? Because nobody accepted them anyplace.’ “
-Yahoo News

To this day I think that they still are not accepted.

I have been a volunteer tennis coach for the Special Olympics for almost ten years now and it has been one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done. One of my good friends, Brad Abouchedid, is a Special Olympics gold medalist. I have learned so much from Brad, and the other special athletes. Brad also wrote the forward of my book, “Game. Set. Life.”

I am one of their coaches, but I have learned more from them than they have from me.

They have unconditional love.
They give it their all.
They smile, even with a last-place finish.
They are polite.
They cheer each other on.
They inspire greatness.

Joey Clawson, another good friend of mine and Special Olympics gold medalist, played on the Ewing High (NJ) tennis team and was accepted to The College of New Jersey, a top school in the state.

If Joey can make the high school team and get accepted into a good college, with a mental disability, imagine what you can do?

Thank you, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, for showing me and millions of others what we all have inside.

Anything is possible – trust me, I’ve seen it.

Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #745 DO YOU GET IT?

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“You cannot discover new oceans until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
-Anonymous

Sometimes people get it.

Sometimes they don’t.

There was an overwhelmingly positive response to yesterday’s message. People who I didn’t know were loyal blog readers told me that they enjoyed reading my daily messages and that they were applying it to their own lives.

They get it. They are taking action.

But sometimes people don’t get it.

One of my students had a match recently and I was going to stop by, free of charge, to show my support and give some tips. So I called the mother to ask what time the match was. She told me and then I said, “I will try to stop by.”

There was a pause, and then she said, “Ed…can you not stop by?”

“Because last time you stopped by, she was very nervous and couldn’t play well. And this time, she actually has a chance of winning.”

I agreed to not stop by and after I hung up the phone, I started to think about what she had said. And it disturbed me.

First of all, when a coach offers to stop by a tournament, at no charge, to support a student and offer advice, you say, no thank you?!

Okay, let’s take my ego out of the equation.

She should not even know if I’m there. She should be focused on the match.

This player is already ranked in the state and on her high school tennis team. She needs to be put in pressure situations, whether it’s dealing with his coach being there, or something else. This wasn’t the US Open, and even if it was, would you say, “Hey coach, this is the semis of the US Open, can you not come?”

I think the main thing that concerns me is that the mother is coddling this girl and she cares more about the results than the improvement. She is conditioning her daughter by saying, “Oh, you’re nervous? Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

It’s like training a puppy. When you train a puppy, you don’t pick them up or give them attention when they cry, because then you’re telling them that it’s okay to be scared of everything.

When I was training my puppy, I remember taking her outside to “do her business.” It was raining, thundering and lightning. At the first boom of thunder, she cowered, came near me and looked at me. I immediately looked away and acted like everything was fine. We kept walking, she did her business and we went inside. And now she has no problem with thunder and lightning. I conditioned her.

Baby elephants in Asia are tied to a stake by a rope. They quickly get conditioned that they cannot go past a certain point. But as they get older, and become large, strong animals that can easily break free, they don’t. They have been conditioned.

People are the same way. How we condition ourselves (and our children/students/pets) is how they will turn out. By no means is this permanent, but it can be.

In what ways are you conditioning yourself?

It is your choice if you make it positive or negative.

“She actually has a chance of winning this one?”

She may win a trophy.

But she loses much more.


Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #744 EXCUSE ME, DO YOU HAVE THE TIME?

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“Lost time is never found again.”
-BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great Craig Brotman, racquet stringer for the pros, in Sarasota, Florida.

Have you ever noticed that the greatest athletes in the world are able to slow the game down to their speed? Don’t they make everything look effortless?

We all know that there are 24 hours in each day, but why do some people feel like there aren’t enough hours to get everything done? Why do some people always seem like they are in a rush?

Well, there are many reasons, but time really is subjective. Most of us don’t appreciate time. When we are experiencing something unpleasant or difficult, time seems to go by so slowly. But if we are having a blast, it flies by. But there is also something called, being in the now, where time seems to stand still.

I know in my own life, once I started having gratitude for all the big and little things in my life, time started slowing down. Once I started setting goals and making the best out of every day, my world changed. Time changed. Let me put it another way…

“If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with US currency in the amount of $86,400, and every evening cancelled whatever part of the amount you failed to use, what would you do? Of course, you would draw out every cent of the deposit!

Well, time is such a bank. Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost whatever of those seconds you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries no balance forward to the next day. It allows no overdrafts. Each day it opens a new account with you. Each night it burns the record for the day.

If you fail to use the day’s deposit, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against tomorrow. You must live in the present – on today’s deposit. Invest it so as to get the most in health, happiness and service.”
-Source unknown

So what are you doing with your time? What are you going to do today?


Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #743 ARE YOU NOTICING?

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Today’s message is especially dedicated to my nephew, the great Bryan Michael Ho in Austin, Texas – Happy Birthday!

It’s easy to notice big changes.

But I challenge you to notice the little changes. Be mindful of what is going on around you.

I know people who have walked off the court after a match and didn’t even realize that their opponent was left-handed!

Many people don’t know their opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.

Many people don’t even know their own strengths and weaknesses.

When I teach, I have 140 tennis balls in my hopper, but they’re not all new. I have some dead balls in there, some pressure-less balls, and some foam balls mixed in.

Why do I do this? Because it keeps my players mindful. It forces them to move their feet and focus on each shot. It forces them to notice what is coming to them. If I feed the same ball, at the same speed, perfectly to my student, this is not realistic. They will not encounter this situation in a match. If their opponent is smart, they will hit at different speeds, use different types of spin, hit high, hit low and especially hit it where you’re not.

There was a story about a frog that was put in a pan of boiling water. This frog felt the hot water and quickly jumped out.

Then they put another frog into a pan of cold water with the burner on low. The frog stayed in, but it still got boiled. It didn’t notice the difference, or gradual rise in temperature.

People are the same way, we only notice things when it is obvious, or too late. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Here’s what I do…

Every morning, I meditate and get in tune with my breathing and body. Then, when I take my first few steps, I really notice my feet making contact with the floor. I try to stay mindful and aware while doing ordinary things, like bringing food to my mouth during meals. During matches, or practices, I stay aware of how my body feels and what is going well and not so well. I make adjustments as necessary. Very rarely will be be “in the zone,” but if we stay present, we will still be able to play at a high level.

The more you stay mindful, the more you will notice differences. The more you notice differences, the better you will perform.


Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #742 BE SCARED…

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“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
-ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

I really like this quote.

Most people avoid scary things. But then why do we watch scary movies? Why do we ride roller coasters? Because we love the excitement.

How does this relate to sports?

Well, I call it mental cross-training. If you get nervous or scared before a tennis match or tryouts, put yourself in a similar type of situation more often. Then, when it actually happens, you will be more comfortable.

But there’s more to it. When you face a scary situation and do it anyway, you are flexing your mental toughness muscles. It makes you stronger and tougher. It gives you confidence.

What scares me? Speaking in front of a group and I’m a motivational speaker. It scares me, but I love it. Public speaking is the most feared thing in the world. Even more than death. Last year I gave over 30 talks and I wouldn’t change a thing. It has made me a better speaker, tennis pro and person.

So I challenge you to do one scary thing today and see how it feels.

Leave your comments…

Thanks for reading.