#411 Tortured Into Greatness: The Life of Andre Agassi

Not all that unusual, I've spent half my life not knowing.

Still this feels different. This confusion is more frightening, more total. I look up, I'm lying on the floor beside the bed.

“I remember now, I moved from the bed to the floor in the middle of the night.”

I do that most nights, better for my back. I count to three, then start the long difficult process of standing. With a cough, a groan, I roll onto my side, then curl into the fetal position, then flip over onto my stomach. I'm a young man, relatively speaking, 36, but I wake as if I'm 96.

After three decades of sprinting, stopping on a dime, jumping high and landing hard, my body no longer feels like my body, especially in the morning. Recently, my mind doesn't feel like my mind.

Upon opening my eyes, I'm a stranger to myself.

I run quickly through the basic facts. My name is Andre Agassi. My wife's name is Steffi Graff. We have two children, a son and a daughter, five and three. We live in Las Vegas, Nevada, but currently reside in a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel

in New York City, because I'm playing in the 2006 US Open. My last US Open. In fact, my last tournament ever. I play tennis for a living, even though I hate tennis.

“Hate it with a dark and secret passion and always have.”

As this last piece of identity falls into place, I slide to my knees and in a whisper, I say, "Please let this be over."

Then I say, "I'm not ready for it to be over."

Hate brings me to my knees, love gets me on my feet. Gil, my trainer, my friend, my surrogate father, explains it this way. Your body is saying that it doesn't want to do this anymore. My body has been saying that for a long time, I tell Gil, almost as long as I've been saying it.

My body doesn't want to retire, my body has already retired. My body has moved to Florida and bought a condo, so I've been negotiating with my body, asking it to come out of retirement for a few hours here and a few hours there. Much of this negotiation revolves around a quarter-stone shot that temporarily dulls the pain.

Before the shot works, however, it causes its own torments. I got one yesterday, so I could play tonight.

“It was the third shot this year, the 13th of my career, and by far, the most alarming.”

The burning sensation made me bite my lip. Then came the pressure. The tiny space in my spine where the nerves are housed began to feel vacuum packed. The pressure built until I thought my back would burst. Pressure is how you know everything's working, the doctor said.

Words to live by doc. I limp out to the living room of our sweet. My son, Jaden and my daughter, Jazz, see me and scream, Daddy, Daddy. They jump up and down and want to leap on me. They stop just before leaping because they know Daddy is delicate these days.

Daddy will shatter if you touch him too hard. Jaden asks if today is the day. Yes. You're playing? Yes.

And then after today you retire? Not if I win son, if I win tonight, I keep playing. He hopes Daddy loses. Hopes Daddy experiences the disappointment that surpasses all others. He doesn't understand and how will I ever be able to explain to him the pain of losing,

the pain of playing. It is taking me nearly 30 years to understand it myself to solve the calculus of my own psyche. I sit quietly at the table looking around the sweet. It's like every other hotel sweet I've ever had, only more so. Clean, chic, comfortable.

It's lovely but it's still just another version of what I call not home. The non-place that we exist as athletes. I go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. I stare at my face. A face totally different from the one with which I started.

But also different from the one I saw last year in this same mirror. Whoever I might be, I'm not the boy who started this Odyssey and I'm not even the man who announced three months ago that the Odyssey was coming to an end. I'm like a tennis racket on whichever place to grip four times and the strings seven times. Is it accurate to call it the same racket?

Somewhere in those eyes, however, I can still vaguely see the boy who didn't want to play tennis in the first place. The boy who wanted to quit, the boy who did quit many times. I see that golden-haired boy who hated tennis and I wonder how he would view this bald man who still hates tennis and yet still place would he be shocked, amused, would he be proud?

I'm not ready for it to be over. That is an excerpt from the book that we talked about today which is open, the autobiography of Andre Agassi. This is the book that over the years has been the most requested book for me to cover on the podcast.

I had a hard time putting it down. It turns out as good as everybody told me that it was. I want to get right to the central point of the book which is Andre's relationship with his father. But before I jump into that, there's just a lot of great random ideas in this first chapter

“that I think are also related to athletics and entrepreneurship.”

So he talks about tennis is the sport in which you talk to yourself. Tennis players talk to themselves and answer. In the heat of a match, tennis players look like lunatics in a public square, ranting and swearing and conducting debates with their alter egos. Why? because tennis is so damn lonely.

The amount of founders that have told me that they talked to themselves out loud. They answered themselves. They're constantly negotiating with their own psyche, have lost count of. And then they also talk about how it's so damn lonely. And one of the interesting byproducts of all this self talk and talking to yourself is actually

you come with a lot of good ideas this way. And for Agassi it was no different. For him a lot of this self talk also happens in the shower. He says tennis is the closest to solitary confinement which inevitably leads to self talk. And for me, the self talk starts here in the afternoon shower.

This is the most important sense of this paragraph.

This is when I began to say things to myself crazy things over and over until I believe them. I have one 869 matches in my career fifth on the all time list and many were one during the afternoon shower. And he tells us parts of the conversation he's having with the self and I think a lot of

this is just excellent advice. I give myself strict orders. Take it one point at a time. Take your opponent work for everything. No matter what happens, hold your head up and for God's sake enjoy it, or at least try

“to enjoy moments of it, even the pain, even the losing if that's what's in store for”

you. I close my eyes and say control what you can control, control what you can control. He repeats that line over and over again throughout the book. I say it again, aloud, saying it aloud makes me feel brave. Which you feel doesn't matter in the end, it's what you do that makes you brave.

And then he ends the chapter trying to answer the question he gets us all the time like you have a very unusual life. What does this like?

People often ask what it's like this tennis life and I can never think how to describe it.

But this word comes closest more than anything else. It's a wrenching, thrilling, horrible, astonishing world. And then I would say maybe the first fourth of the first third of the book is all about the relationship, this torturous relationship with his father. There's a line from the founder of Nvidia Jensen Wong.

He said that he doesn't like to give up on people he rather torture them into greatness. And when you read a book about Jensen, you realize he did the same for himself.

“I think Augusti after reading and re-reading all these parts about his relationship with”

his dad was tortured into greatness against his will. This is a very unusual autobiography where you have somebody who literally becomes the person that's the best in the world at what he does and he hates the thing that he does. And you could never possibly understand that unless you understand the relationship that he has with his father.

I'm seven years old talking to myself because I'm scared. And because I'm the only person who listens to me. Under my breath, I whisper just quit, Andre just give up, put down your racket and walk off this court right now. But I can't, not only would my father chase me around the house with my racket, but

something in my gut, some deep unseen muscle won't let me. I hate tennis. I hated it with all my heart and I still keep playing. Keep hitting all morning and all afternoon because I have no choice. No matter how much I want to stop, I don't.

I keep begging myself to stop and I keep playing. And this gap, this contradiction between what I want to do and what I actually do, feels like the core of my life. My father yells everything twice. Sometimes three times, sometimes ten harder he says harder.

Every ball I send across the net joins the thousands that already cover the court. Not hundreds, thousands. My father says that if I hit 2500 balls each day, I'll hit 17,500 balls each week.

And at the end of one year, I'll have hit nearly 1 million balls.

He believes in math. Numbers he says don't lie, a child who hits 1 million balls each year will be unbeatable. He's yelling directly into my ear, day and night yelling in my ear. He turns around, sees me watching, what the hell are you looking at? Keep hitting, keep hitting.

My shoulder aches, I can't hit another ball, I hit another three. I can't go on another minute, I go on another 10. The gliers, what the fuck are you doing, stop thinking, no fucking thinking.

of doing.

I often think about how I can stop thinking.

I wonder if my father yells at me to stop thinking because he knows I'm a thinker by nature. And so let me pause right there.

“I think that's one of the benefits of reading this book.”

Andre is obviously a very introspective person and it takes him decades of deep introspection to figure out who he is. And that takes him more than three and a half decades of life, and part of the reason it's taken him so long, even though he has very high levels of introspection is because he had to suppress who he was and what he wanted his life to be because of this domineering

father that tortured him into greatness. My father looks at this as a backyard tennis court. I look at it like a prison. No one ever asked me if I wanted to play tennis, let alone make it my life. My father decided long before I was born that I would be a professional tennis player.

Violent by nature, my father is forever preparing for battle.

He's shadow boxes constantly.

He keeps an axe handle in his car. He leaves the house with a handful of salt and pepper in each pocket and case he's in a street fight and needs to blind someone. And this is such a perfect line to describe somebody like this. Of course, some of his most vicious battles are with himself.

So Andre's constantly telling the stories about the violent nature of his father, probably why one of the reasons why he refused or maybe couldn't resist his father and even though he hated what he was doing, felt the need and the deep need to please his father. It's obvious how confusing this is for Andre's young boy. He has his deep love for his father, but he's deeply, deeply scared of him and you would

be scared of him too. Here's an example. They're in a car. He gets into a shouting match with another driver. My father stops his car, steps out orders the man out of his because my father is wielding

an axe, the man refuses. My father whips the axe into the man's headlights and tail lights, sending sprays of glass everywhere. Another time, my father reaches across me and points his hand gun at another driver. He holds the gun level with my nose.

I stare straight ahead, I do not move.

“Such moments and many more come to mind whenever I think about telling my father that”

I don't want to play tennis, besides loving my father and wanting to please him, I don't want to upset him. I don't dare. Bad stuff happens when my father is upset. If he says I'm going to play tennis, if he says I'm going to be number one in the world,

that is my destiny. All I can do is nod and obey. Before we get back into the story, I want to tell you about this conversation I had with John Mackey, who's the founder of Whole Foods. I spent a much time with John, and he told me when the craziest thing that anyone has ever

said about this podcast. By the time I met him, he had listened to over a hundred different episodes, and he said that if founders existed when he was younger, Whole Foods would still be an independent company. Since this podcast and all of his huge great entrepreneurs, constantly emphasize the importance

of controlling expenses, he would have put more of a priority on it, especially during good times. During boom times, it is very natural for a company in really for human nature to just not watch your costs as closely because everything is going so well. This is something that his greatest founders would warn against, Andrew Carnegie would repeat

this mantra time and time again. We would say profits and prices are cyclical, subject to any number of transient forces of the marketplace. Costs, however, could be strictly controlled, and any savings achieved in costs were permanent. This is something that I'll talk about with my friend Eric, who's the co-founder and CEO

of Ram. Ram is the presenting sponsor of this podcast. I've gotten to know all the co-founders of Ram, and spend a bunch of time with them over the last two years. They all listen to the podcast and they picked up on the fact that the main theme from

the podcast is on the importance of watching your costs and controlling your spend and how doing so can give you a massive competitive advantage. That is a main theme for Ram.

“The reason the Ram exists is to give you everything you need to control your spend.”

Ram gives you everything you need to control your costs. Ram gives you easy to use corporate cards for your entire team, automated expense supporting and cost control. There's a line in Andrew Carnegie's biography, says cost control became nearly an obsession. Hope helps you make it an obsession, if Carnegie was alive today, he be running his business

on Ram. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to ramp.com to learn how to help your business save time and money today that is Ram.com. So now, Andre is seven years old.

I win my first seven tournaments.

My father has no reaction. I'm simply doing what I'm supposed to do. And even as an eight year old, when he's down a set, in a tournament that means nothing listen to Andre's reaction, I'm stunned, I'm scared my father is going to kill me. After years of hearing my father rant at my flaws, one loss has caused me to take up his

rant. I've internalized my father, his impatience, his perfectionism, his rage until his voice doesn't feel like my own. It is my own. I no longer need my father to torture me.

From this day on, I can do it all by myself.

why does his father like this? Where did this come from?

“And the difference between Andre and his father's Andre's search to try to fix Andre's”

not like this with his own kids.

His father learned this from his mother and never stopped the cycle.

My father's mother lives with us and she's a nasty old lady. She's saying the same nasty thing she said yesterday and the day before and the day before that and she's saying it to her son to Andre's father. This seems to be the reason grandma was put on the earth to harass my father. She nagged him since he was a boy and she often beat him.

My father's past was sad and lonely and helps explain his odd behavior and his boiling rage. This goes on day after day, year after year. I hit for a half hour, my head throbbing, my eyes tearing. Hit harder, my father says, God damn it, hit harder, not in the fucking net.

Tennis is his life, his reason for getting out of bed, his obsession. My father lies in bed and sees a court on the ceiling. He says he can actually see it there and on that ceiling, he plays countless imaginary matches and this is when he hits you in your reading the book. He's tormenting his son to live out his own unfulfilled dreams.

And Andre realizes that he has to do this because he's going to help his family, which doesn't have a lot of money, make money. They live in Las Vegas as a casino captain. It's my father's job to see people at the shows. This way, Mr. Johnson, nice to see you again, Mr. Jones.

The MGM pays him a small salary and the rest he earns in tips. We live on tips which makes life unpredictable. And his father starts using his eight-year-old son as a tennis hustler. They go down to the local courts. They see Jim Brown, who just how it happens to be one of the greatest football players

of all time. Jim Brown is a big, hooking man and Andre's father goes up to him and tells a my kid is going to beat you. Let's play for money. And this is the conversation.

My son will play you for money. I feel a beat of sweat starting down my armpit. Yeah, how much my father laughs and says, I'll bet you my fucking house. I don't need your house, Mr. Brown says, I've got a house. Let's say 10 grand.

So they go back and forth. They wind up betting 500 instead of 10 grand. But an eight-year-old hundred legacy plays his grown man. One of the greatest football players of all time and beat some I beat Mr. Brown 6-2, sweat running down his face.

He pulls a wad from his pocket and counts out five Chris Hunters. He hands them to my father and then turns to me. Great game son, he shakes my hand. My father tells him he's going to be number one in the world. I wouldn't bet against him, Mr. Brown says.

And then this gives you more insight into his father's personality than not long after being Mr. Brown. I play a practice match against my father. I'm up 5-2, serving for the match.

I've never beaten my father and he looks as if he's about to lose much more than $10,000.

Suddenly, he walks off the court. Get your stuff. He says, let's go. He won't finish. He rather sneak away than lose to his son.

And so now he's 10 years old. He loses a tournament. He says, how can losing hurt so much? How can anything hurt so much? I walk off the court wishing I were dead.

He gets this consolation trophy. It's called a sportsman trophy. And this is what his dad does. I walk out to the car, clutching the trophy to my chest. My father's a step behind me.

He says nothing. I say nothing. Finally, break my silence. I say, I don't want to stupid thing.

“I say it because I think it's what my father wants to hear.”

My father comes alongside me. He rips the trophy from my hands. He liss it over his head and throws it on the cement. The trophy shatters. I don't say a word.

I know not to say a word. Andre hates tennis. He hates playing an individual sport. He starts to play soccer, which he loves. He wants to be on a team.

His father at first allows him to play soccer because he thinks the conditioning would be good for tennis. But then realizes that there's a risk of injury by playing soccer may keep him away from practicing tennis. And so his father literally yanks him out in the middle of a soccer game and says, you're

never playing soccer again.

I beg him for a second chance. I tell my father that I don't like being by myself and I huge tennis court. Tennis is lonely. He shouts at the top of his lungs. You're a tennis player.

You're going to be number one in the world. You're going to make lots of money. That's the plan and that's the end of it. His father is insane. So he did this with his other Andre, I think, has three older siblings and he tried to turn

them into professional tennis players too. His older brother is named Philly. Listen to this conversation. Remember, Andre's around 10 years old. One night Philly asked me to promise him something.

Sure, Philly, anything. Don't ever let pops give you any pills. Pills.

“Andre, you have to hear what I'm telling you.”

This is really important. Okay, Philly, I hear you. I'm listening. Next time you go away to nationals, if pop gives you pills, do not take them. These pills are tiny, white, round, do not take them whatever you do.

I can't say no to pop.

“If you have to take the pills, if he makes you take them, play a bad match.”

Tank. Then as you come off the court, tell them you were shaking so bad that you couldn't concentrate. Okay, Philly, but what are these pills? Speed. What's that?

A drug gives you lots of energy. I just know he's going to try to slip you some speed. How do you know Philly, he gave it to me. Sure enough, at the nationals, my father gives me a pill. Hold out your hand, he says, this will help you.

Take it. He puts a pill in my palm, tiny, white, and round. Andre's dad has this vision of how his son's life's going to be and he doesn't care. He couldn't care less. What his own son's vision is.

And Andre says, having no choice, having no say about what I do or who I am, makes me crazy.

So he sends Andre away to this basically this tennis boarding school.

And so Andre describes this school, when we're not drilling, we're studying the psychology of tennis. We take classes on mental toughness, positive thinking and visualization. We're taught to close our eyes and pictures ourselves winning Wimbleton, hoisting the trophy above our heads.

This is when he starts to rebel. No one seems to notice my antics. I've mutilated my hair, grown my nails. I've pierced my body, broken rules, busted curfew, picked fist fights, thrown tantrums, cut classes.

And slipped into the girl's barracks after hours. I've consumed gallons of whiskey. I chew tobacco and smoke weed.

“What new sin can I commit to show the world I'm unhappy and I want to go home?”

And yet as you can imagine, if he's been forced to pick up a tennis racket when he's

four, forced to hit a million balls a year, now he's sent off to this completely rigorous

tennis boot camp. A decade in, he's really good and even though he hates what he's doing, he likes being great at what he does, I'm 15 years old and I'm beating grown men, I'm beating them senseless. I'm churning my way through the ranks everywhere I walk, people are pointing at me, whispering, there he is.

That's the kid I was telling you about, the prodigy. It's the prettiest word I've ever heard applied to me. And so he's playing all these tournaments, he's winning them or he's getting to the final and they offer him money. And so far up until this point, he hasn't accepted any of the money because the minute

he takes a dollar for playing tennis, he's no longer an amateur and he's got to turn pro and so he's offered this check of $1100 at this tournament and he calls his dad to figure out what to do. I phone my father back in Vegas and ask him what I should do. My father says, what the hell do you mean?

Take the money. If I take the money, there's no turning back. I'm pro. So what? If I cash this check pops, that's it.

He acts as if we had a bad connection.

“You've dropped out of school, you have an eighth grade education, what are your choices?”

What the hell else are you going to do? Be a doctor? None of this comes as news to me, but I hate the way he puts it. I tell the tournament director, I'll take the money. As the words leave my mouth, I feel a shelf of possibilities fall away.

I don't know what those possibilities might be, but that's the point.

I never will know that man hands me a check.

And as I walk out of his office, I feel I'm starting down a long, long road. One that seems to lead into a dark, ominous forest, it is April 29, 1986, my 16th birthday. My Jacob says it's a great line in the book that he wrote, which is called How to Make a Few Billion Dollars, it's episode 335 of Founders. And he says so much of success in business comes from keeping your head in a good place.

And I kept thinking about that because I think one of the benefits of reading this book is you see Andre's struggles mentally. And you see him working his way through. This is really a story of redemption. He has this crazy father, this terrible childhood, where he has no control, no autonomy, no

choice about what happens to him at all. He somehow gets to be the number one tennis player in the world, then he's going to have this crazy fall to the point where he's smoking meth falls so low that he has to start from the very bottom. He starts playing like local tournaments at tennis courts and parks and at community colleges

and has to fight his way all the way back, which he does. And all along the way is you're following this life story. He's sharing and then analyzing what the hell is going on in his head. So again, when you read it that one of the benefits of reading biographies and autobiographies, these are life stories, but you're not thinking about that person.

You're thinking about you, you're thinking, oh, I know exactly how that feels or I don't want to be like that. And you're just fasting as you see this push and pull between you for it and terror. They're being proud of himself because he's really skilled at what he does to be completely depressed in an agony, emotional agony, especially with losing something that Andre,

I guess he has in common with a lot of great entrepreneurs, is they hate losing more than they love winning. And there's so many times like there's one time when he loses an attorney man and he goes to this park and he says, I find myself surrounded by a group of homeless men. I dump out my tennis bag, I pull out all the rackets.

Each of them is worth hundreds of dollars and I pass them around. He's handing out his tennis rackets, the much a homeless guy's in a park. Here, help yourselves. I sure as hell won't be needing them. I've had it.

I cannot do this anymore and he has a great line about this.

And so he's rebelling this entire time. He's got a Mohawk. He's dying his hair. He's got these earrings. He's wearing these crazy outfits.

He's yelling at himself. He's cursing in himself.

“He's in some cases he gets in many cases.”

He's kicked out of tournaments because of all the profanity he's yelling. But the unexpected commercial business benefit of this is he is a singular property. He has turned himself into a completely differentiated property. He doesn't look or dress or act like any other players. And as a result of this, the fans start imitating him and then his sponsors are able

to move a lot of product. This happens throughout the story and it's not something he was doing intentionally. I noticed something on their faces of the fans too. The way they watch me and ask for my autograph, the way they scream as I enter in arena. This makes me uncomfortable but also satisfy something deep inside me.

Some hidden craving I didn't know was there. I'm shy but I like attention. I cringe when fans start dressing like me but I also dig it. I'm flattered by the imitators. Embarrassed, thoroughly confused.

I can't imagine all these people trying to be like Andre Agacy since I don't want to be Andre Agacy. There's a story in the book later on where he goes out when I get's completely drunk and it's completely hung over the next day and has to play in a tournament. So he wears Oakley sunglasses to hide the fact that his eyes are bloodshot and he's hung

over. It's up winning. There's a great picture of him. It's put on the cover of magazine. It sells a ton of Oakley sunglasses and the founder of Oakley without telling Andre

beforehand has a brand new Dodge Viper delivered to Andre's house as a thank you. And again he does not hide at any step along the way that he's just very confused. He doesn't know who he is. He's talking about the fact that he has to sit for all these interviews, media is a huge part of his job.

Journalists are always asking questions and he says you're asking about the subject that

I understand the least. Me. And even though he hates himself, even though in many cases he's deeply depressed, he likes the response that he's getting millions of fans like me apparently. I get sacks full of fan mail, including naked pictures of women with their phone numbers

scrolled along the margin. And yet each day I'm vilified because of my look because of my behavior. I absorb the role of the villain. I accept it. I grow into it.

I am the villain in every match in every tournament.

“And so one thing that Trilly Munger says, I think is really important.”

He says, you know, anybody engaged in a difficult work needs somebody they can organize their thoughts with that person should be somebody you know, you like an admire and trust. Some people do this to friends, coaches, therapists, some turn to religion. And so Andre considers some Christian, but he never felt that he was close to God. He couldn't find the right church.

And one day he stumbles into this church with a pastor who doesn't want to be called a pastor. A.P. J.P. is going to be one of Andre's lifelong friends. Somebody that will travel the world with Andre and somebody Andre will talk to and call

when he has difficult times in his life.

And this is the first time he meets him.

He insists that we call him J.P. He says he wants his church to feel unlike a church. He wants it to feel like a home where friends gather. He doesn't have any answers he says. He just happens to have read the Bible a few dozen times front to back and has some observations

to share. The A.P.'s church is the first one where I felt truly close to God. And so they spend a lot of time together. They have these long conversations. Andre usually feels better after he talks to somebody.

He says it must be bizarre to have strangers think they know me and love me beyond reason while others think they know me and resent me beyond reason. All while I'm a relative stranger to myself. What makes it perverse I tell him is that it all revolves around tennis and I hate tennis. He has this conversation so many times in the book and every time the person says, "Yeah,

okay, but you don't actually hate tennis." And he says, "Yes, yes, I do. I talk about my father. I tell J.P. about the yelling, the pressure, the rage, the abandonment." J.P. gets a funny look on his face.

You do realize don't you that God isn't anything like your father. You know that don't you? God he says is the opposite of your father. God isn't mad at you all the time. God isn't yelling in your ear, hurting on your imperfections.

The voice you hear all the time, that angry voice, that's not God. That's still your father. I turn to him. Do me a favor and say that again. He does.

Word for Word. Say it once more. He does. I thank him.

And this is the most one of the most important relationships of Andre's life.

And to me, one of the most interesting in the book, fast forward to Andre talking to J.P. After this devastating loss, I stare into the river and ask J.P. What if I'm no good? What if today wasn't a bad day, but my best day? I'm always making excuses when I lose.

I could have beaten him if I did such and such if I'd wanted it. If I had my A game, if I'd gotten the calls, but what if I'm playing my best and I care

“and I want it and I'm still not the best in the world?”

J.P. responds, well, what if?

I lean against the railing, sobbing. J.P. has the decency, the wisdom to say and do nothing. He knows there's nothing to say, nothing to do, but to wait for this fire to burn out. That's a great line. And a great way to describe some of these emotions that are uncontrollable.

You just have to wait for the fire to burn out. And the very beginning of the book, he talks about this guy, Gil, who's his trainer, his friend, but really a surrogate father. And even at this point in his career, Andre's making a ton of money. He's famous, he's winning a lot of tournaments, and he goes over to Gil's house on Christmas

even Gil can't understand it.

“It's like, wouldn't you be happy at a party, aren't you?”

You're young, aren't you? You're hanging out with your friends. And Andre says something that's very revealing here that he finally clicked for me what he's doing.

I tell him my life has never, for once, day, belonged to me.

My life has always belonged to someone else. First my father, then Nick, Nick is the guy that ran the tennis academy in Florida. And always, always tennis. One of my body wasn't my own until I met you, because he's his trainer, who is doing the one thing that fathers are supposed to do, making me stronger.

So being here, Gil, with you and your family, I feel for the first time in my life that I'm where I belong. And that's when you realize what Andre is doing. He's looking for a father. He wants a father.

And Gil plays that role of protector. Andre's talking about a child who's spent my childhood in isolation chamber, and my tea and my teen years in a torture chamber. Sometimes a workout with Gil is actually just a conversation. We don't touch a single weight.

There are many, many ways Gil says of getting strong, and sometimes talking is the best way. And so he talks about Gil, how disorienting this experiences. He's on the road, you know, tennis players on the road or something like 10 or 11 months out of the year.

It's all very groundhog day, same venue, same opponents, only the years and the scores are different. I tell him the central truth, the fact that he hates tennis. If that's true, he says, "Why play? I'm not suited for anything else.

I don't know how to do anything else."

“This is the only thing I'm qualified for, and my father would have a fit if I did anything”

different. Gil scratches his ear. This is a new one to him.

He's known hundreds of athletes, but he's never known one who hated athletics.

He doesn't know what to say. I reassure him that there's nothing to be said. I don't understand it myself. I can only tell him how it is. And then Gil thinks about this for a while, and sometimes later, he passes along some words

that his mother would tell him, as pieces of advice to Andre, how lovely it is to dream while you're awake. Dream while you're awake, Andre. Anybody can dream while they're asleep, but you need to dream all the time and say your dreams out loud and believe in them.

And what they're referencing is even though Andre is one of the most talented tennis players alive. His head, the inner game of tennis, the mental aspect is keeping him from winning. He is self sabotaging. He is lying to himself, saying it's not really important that I win this when it is.

And so as he begins to work on his body to make it stronger, he does so on his mind. In this mind, again, you're working on your mind. It's not a straight line. It's a ton of peaks and valleys for the next decade and a half of his life. As the fifth set begins, I run in place to get the blood flowing and I tell myself one thing.

He's playing in the finals at Wimbledon. This is what's happening right now. You want this. You do not want to lose, not this time. The promise in the last three slams was that you didn't want them enough and therefore you didn't bring it.

But this one you want.

“You need to let your opponent and everyone else in this joint know that you want it.”

The crowd rises.

I call time to have a talk with myself aloud saying, when this point or I'll never let

you hear the end of it, Andre, don't hope he double faults, don't hope he misses. You control what you can control, return this serve with all of your strength. And if you return it hard, but miss, you can live with that. You can survive that. One return, no regrets, hit harder.

I jump in the air, swing with all my strength. Somehow he misses the easy volley. His ball smacks the net and just like that. After 22 years and 22 million swings of a tennis racket on the 1992 Wimbledon champion. I fall to my knees, I fall on my stomach.

I can't believe the emotion pouring out of me. After the match trembling, I dial my father in Vegas. Pops, it's me. Can you hear me? What did you think?

Silence. Pops. You had no business losing that fourth set. Stunned. I wait.

Then I say, good thing I won the fifth set though, right? He says nothing, not because he disagrees or disapproves. But because he's crying, faintly, I hear my father sniffling and wiping away tears. And I know he's proud. He's just incapable of expressing it.

And then throughout the book, I think Andre is really affected by what they write about him in the media. He reads articles about him, most of the people are criticizing him, so he's talking about the sports writers now. He says, after two years of calling me a fraud, a choke artist, a rebel without a cause,

They declare that I'm a winner, a player of substance, the real deal. They say, my victory, a Wimbledon forces them to reassess me, to reconsider who I really am. But I don't feel that Wimbledon has changed me. In fact, I feel as I've been letting on a dirty little secret, winning changes nothing. Now that I've won a slam, I know something that very few people on earth are permitted

to know. A win doesn't feel as good as a loss feels bad. And the good feeling doesn't last as long as the bad, not even close. And so there's all these people that are just going to meet, he's going to make them part

“of his team and they really help him on this journey of, but again, I think this is just”

a story of redemption. It is the classic arc of like the hero's journey.

In fact, he's got this call to adventure and at first, he resists and doubts himself.

Then he crosses over the threshold into the unknown, along the way he's going to face trial, setbacks, and gets help from mentors or allies. He gets to the peak. He reaches a crisis, he falls, and then he changes through the struggle. So it's a game wisdom, strength, and clarity about his own life and what he actually wants.

And at the very end, he has a new way of being. And so one of these allies that he's going to meet is going to help him along the way. This is a guy named Brad Gilbert, who's also a professional tennis player. At the time, Agacy is looking for a new coach. And his friend says, "Hey, why don't you check out this guy?

He's just written a book about tennis." It's called Winning Ugly. And Andre knows the writer and the tennis player Brad Gilbert says his game is the opposite of mine. Meaning he mixes speeds, uses change of pace, misdirection, and gile.

He has limited skills, and takes it conspicuous pride in this fact. If I'm the classic underachiever, Brad is the consummate overachiever, rather than overpowering opponents, he frustrates them and praise on their flaws. Brad's book contains the kind of practical wisdom I need. And so he's one of the most entertaining characters in the book.

They invite him to dinner, and they're going to ask Brad to be a hundredies manager. And they're asking him to say, "Hey, what do you think of Andre's game?" And he goes, "You want to know what I think of his game?" That's right. You want me to be honest?

Please. brutally honest? Don't hold back. It's not rocket science, he says. If I were you with your skills, your talent, your return, and footwork, I'd dominate.

But you lost the fire you had when you were 16. That kid, taking the ball early, being aggressive, what the hell happened to that kid? Brad says my overall problem, the problem that threatens to end my career prematurely, the problem that feels like my father's legacy, is perfectionism.

You always try to be perfect, he says, and you always fall short, and it fucks with your head.

Your confidence is shot, and perfectionism is the reason. You try to hit a winner on every ball when this is so good. When just being steady, consistent, meat and potatoes would be enough to win 90% of the time.

“Stop thinking about yourself and your own game, and remember that the guy on the other side”

of the net has weaknesses, attack his weaknesses. You don't have to be the best in the world every time you go out there. You just have to be better than one guy. Instead of you succeeding, make him fail, better yet, let him fail. By trying for a perfect shot with every ball, you're stacking the odds against yourself.

You don't need to assume so much risk. Fuck that, just keep the ball moving back and forth, nice and easy, solid. Be like gravity, man. Just like motherfucking gravity, when you chase perfection, when you make perfection the ultimate goal, do you know what you're doing?

You're chasing something that doesn't exist. You're making yourself miserable. Perfection? There's about five times a year when you wake up perfect, when you can't lose to anybody. But it's not those five times a year that make a tennis player, or a human being for that

matter. It's the other times. It's all about your head, man. With your talent, if you're 50% game-wise, but 95% head-wise, you're going to win. But if you're 95% game-wise and 50% head-wise, you're going to lose, lose, lose.

Put it this way. It takes 21 sets to win a slam. That's all. You just need to win 21 sets. Seven matches, best of five, that's 21.

To simplify, simplify every time you win a set, say to yourself, "That's one down. That's one in my pocket." At the start of a tournament, count backward from 21. That's positive thinking. And so Andre realizes that that dinner this is the guy for me, and Brad is super important

to his story. Andre is currently on a losing streak. Brad appears smiling. Good things he says are about to happen. I stare incredulous.

He says you have to suffer.

“You have to lose a shitload of close matches, and then one day you're going to win a close”

one, and the skies are going to part, and you're going to break through.

You just need that one breakthrough, that one opening, and after that nothing will stop you

from being the best in the world. You're crazy, I say. You're learning, he says. You're nuts, I say. You'll see, he says.

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people on the planet, you're outsourcing the way you feel about yourself to a stranger that doesn't have your best interest in heart.

Obviously how you feel about yourself is most important and if you do need an outside perspective

you know he has a small circle of people that he trusts that he knows and it is amazing especially because he's got this real fragile mindset at the time. How somebody else's opinion of him can absolutely destroy him. I see this column is about me, I shouldn't read it but I do. He writes that the U.S. open is mine to loose but you can count on the fact that I will find

a way to lose it. Odyssey this writer says simply isn't a champion. I close the paper and feels if the walls are closing in as if my vision is narrowing to a pin prick. The writer sounds so sure as if he's seen the future.

What if he's right? What if this is my moment of truth and I'm revealed to be a fraud? And the opposite of the criticism from random strangers that don't care about you are people that love you that are happy for your success and so he winds up winning this final. And this is a great paragraph that says a lot about humanation, the people you want around you.

“You know everything you need to know about people when you see their faces at the moment”

of your greatest triumph. I believed in Brad's talent from the beginning but now seeing his pure and unrestrained happiness for me. I believe unrestrainingly in him. And so this is when he's winning all the time he gets to be the number one player in the world

and he has another surprising reaction. I've knocked Pete off the mountaintop so he has this huge rivalry with Pete Sampress. It's a massive part of the story. It makes me want to read Pete Sampress's biography because I was actually recording an episode with Toby Luke.

The reason I decided to read this book this week is because last week I was in Toronto Canada at Shopify's office and I recorded this great multi-hour conversation with Toby Luke, which I really enjoyed. And during our conversation he mentioned the difference between Pete Sampress and Andre Agassie. In Andre Agassie's book he's tormented, he hates tennis.

And then Toby read Pete Sampress's biography. And he says it's a complete opposite. He's like Pete just like playing tennis. It was just very simple. I just like to do this.

And so if I like to do something I'll do it all the time. If you do it all the time you get really good at it. And that's exactly the story of Pete. It's very different from the struggles of Agassie.

This is the first time that Agassie gets to the number one.

He says I knocked Pete off the mountaintop. After 82 weeks and number one, Pete's looking up at me. The next person who calls me is a reporter. I tell him that I'm happy about the ranking that it feels good to be the best that I can be. This is a lie.

This isn't at all what I feel. It's what I want to feel. It's what I expected to feel. It's what I tell myself to feel. But in fact, I feel nothing.

And this goes back to his interest. And he's trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with me. What is going on? Wondering what the hell is wrong with me? I did it.

I'm the number one tennis player on earth. Yet I feel empty. The problem all this time is that I've had the wrong goals.

That was just something other people wanted for me.

I never cared about the rankings.

“And I never cared about the number of slams I won.”

And again, I need to make this point like the reason you read this book is because he figures out away to not feel empty, to not hate his life. But he's not there yet. He's got to fall. I've won 63 of 70 matches this year, 44 of 46 on hardcore.

Reporters ask if I feel invincible. And I say no. They think I'm being modest. But I'm telling the truth. It's how I feel.

Pride is good. Stress is good. I don't want to feel confident. I want to feel rage. Endless, all-consuming rage.

And so one of the things that he realized himself.

He could be number one tends to play in the world. He could win on these tournaments. He feels nothing when he feels the best is when he's helping other people. And so at the time, he's dating the Supermodel Prok Shields. They wind up getting married and then getting divorced.

But they would go to the same restaurant over and over again. And the manager of this restaurant in New York is his guy named Frankie. And him and Brooke build a good relationship with him. And Andre says, Frankie's chief virtue in my book is the way he talks about his kids. He loves them.

He brags about them. He pulls out photos of them at the drop of the hat. He tells me his kids are only in grade school, but he's already stressed about college. He groans about the cost of higher education. He doesn't know how he's going to make it.

Days later, I talked to my manager and ask him to put aside a nest egg of Nike stock in Frankie's name. The next time I'm in the restaurant, I tell Frankie about it. The shares can't be touched for 10 years. But by then, they should be worth enough to significantly lighten that tuition burden.

Frankies bottom lip trembles. Andre says, "I cannot believe that you did this for me." The look on his face is of complete shock. When I saw what it meant to him, I was the one who got educated. Helping Frankie provides more satisfaction and makes me feel more connected in a live and

myself than anything else that happens this year. I tell myself, remember this, hold on to this. This is the only perfection there is, the perfection of helping others.

“This is the only thing we can do that has any lasting value or meaning.”

This is why we're here.

This is one of the most important lessons that he learns.

He also learns, people see him dating brook shields at the time one of the most beautiful women on the planet, a supermodel. And even though he has doubts about them getting married, he doesn't do anything about it. He desperately wants to get married, he desperately wants to have kids.

He desperately wants to stop having he basically has just a bunch of like casual relationships with women. Let's put it that way. And he says, "I'm determined to change. The 26th, I believe this pattern needs to be broken, or I'll be 36, looking back on a

series of relationships that went nowhere. If I'm going to have a family, if I'm going to be happy, I've got to break the cycle, which means forcing myself to commit." And even though he knows a brook is not the right woman for him, he can't stop himself. This is the reaction that they both have to when he asks her to marry him.

She's pulling me to my feet. I'm kissing her and thinking, "I really wish I thought this through." Is this the right person for me? The person I'm supposed to spend the next 90 years with.

“She says, "Yes, yes, yes, wait, I think, wait, wait, wait."”

And so he plays in the 1996 Olympics for Team USA, and this is where he's learning about himself. If I make things about myself, that is deeply unfulfilling. When I'm playing for something bigger later in his life, he wants up marrying a divorcing brook shields, gets married to stepping graph, he starts playing for his family, he has this

great school that's really important to him, so he starts playing for that. But he's starting to realize I need a mission bigger than myself. And so he winds up winning the gold medal, and he feels great. The national anthem starts. I feel my heart swell, and it has nothing to do with tennis or me, and thus it exceeds

all my expectations. This moment is special precisely because it is not mine. And so now we're going to get to the fall. You can think about it's career this way. Peak dominance is from like 1990 to 1995 thereabouts.

Sharp decline is going to happen. The end of '96 to '97, rock bottom is going to be '97, and then he's got this legendary comeback in '98, '99. And during this fall, this is where he loses motivation, he has no self-control, he's got a bunch of injuries, he starts doing drugs, he stops training seriously, he's depressed,

and he goes all the way from number one, all the way down to 141. And he starts to have to play these Challenger tournaments, which literally, unheard of. There was no former number one in the world playing these Challenger tournaments that he starts again at the very, very bottom. And one of the sources this uncontrollable anger reminds you a lot of his father.

So he's playing an tournament, his opponent just broke his serve, and he says, "I cannot let go of my southern anger. I look up at the sky and fantasize about flying away." Since I can't fly away, at least this tennis ball can fly away. Be free little ball, I whack at high above the stands, and out of the stadium, automatic

warning. The Empire says into the microphone, "Code violation, warning abuse of ball." Fuck you, I say. He calls over the ref, he tells the ref that Augusti said, "Fuck you."

Yes.

Then this match is over, "Find, fuck you too."

And he just starts to lose and lose and lose and get more depressed, rock, and this is what he says. It's very fascinating. Rock bottom can be very cozy, because at least you're at rest. You know you're not going anywhere for a while, so he feels he has no control over

his professional life and is a very same time, he feels he has no control over his personal life. He is engaged. His soon-to-be-wife is, of course, planning the wedding, and yet he cannot muster the courage to put a stop to it before it happens.

My wedding looms. I think about it all the time. I think about postponing it, about calling it off together, but I don't know how. And so his friend and assistant offers him a way to deal with this stress and, you know, obviously, depressed is what's going on here, and he says, "Hey, do you want to get high with

me?" "High." He says, "Yeah, on what? Gack." What the hell is Gack?

Crystal Myth. Why does he call it Gack? Because that's the sound you make when you're high. Your mind is going so fast, all you can say is Gack, Gack, Gack. That's how I feel all the time.

What's the point? This will make you feel like Superman dude, I'm telling you. And as if they're coming out of someone else's mouth, someone standing directly behind me. I hear these words.

You know what? Fuck it. Let's get high. He cuts it. Snorts it.

He cuts it again. I snorted. I'm seized by an urge, a desperate desire to clean. I don't sleep for two days.

“Think about how different the perception of his life is at this point than what it actually”

is. World's famous tennis player, former number one, grand slam winner, engaged to one of the most beautiful women on the planet. This guy's got it all and really hate what I do. I hate myself.

I don't want to marry this woman and I'm smoking and snorting crystal meth. And so he winds up getting married because they're super famous. There's paparazzi everywhere. And so before they leave the church, they have a decoy bride. So somebody looks like Brooke dressed like her.

They leave first to throw the paparazzi off the sun. And he says, now as I see the Brooke look like leaving, I have a thought no man should have on his wedding day. I wish I were leaving too. I wish I had a decoy groom to take my place.

He pulls out of all the tournaments. His wife goes to work in Los Angeles. Andre goes back to Vegas, hangs out with his assistant and friend's slim and they just spend their days getting high. And anytime he does play, he embarrasses himself.

And this is again why you need people that care about you in your corner. People that you trust that have your best interest in heart.

And this is why Brad is one of the most important characters in this book.

Brad is seen enough. He's not going to stick around and let Andre destroy himself. Andre, we've got a big decision to make and we're going to make it before we leave this room tonight. What's up? What do you mean?

We're not continuing like this. You're better than this. At least you used to be better. You either need to quit or start over. But you can't go on embarrassing yourself like this.

What? Let me finish. You have game left. At least I think you do. You can still win.

Good things can still happen. But you need a full overhaul. You need to go back to the beginning.

“You need to pull out everything and regroup.”

I'm talking square one. You need to get your body right. Get your mind right and then start at the bottom. I say nothing. I stare out the window.

I hate tennis more than ever. But I hate myself more. I tell myself. So what if you hate tennis? Who cares?

All those people out there. All the millions who hate what they do for a living. They do it anyway. So you hate tennis. Hate it all you want.

You still need to respect it and yourself. I say, okay Brad, I'm not ready for it to be over. I'm all in. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. And so Andre makes the decision.

He buys in. He wants to change. Remember he said, I hate myself. I hate when I'm doing to myself. Time to change Andre.

You can't go on like this. Change, change, change. I say this word to myself several times a day every day while buttering my morning toast while brushing my teeth. Less a warning than a soothing chant far from depressing me or shaming me.

The idea that a must change completely from top to bottom brings me back to center. For once, I don't hear the nagging self doubt that follows every personal resolution. I won't fail this time.

I can't because it's changed now or change never.

The idea of stagnating of remaining this Andre for the rest of my life.

“That's what I find truly depressing and shameful.”

Decisions, especially bad ones, create their own kind of momentum and momentum can be a bitch to stop. I've decided to recommit myself to tennis to start at the minor leagues and work my way back up. I'm 27, the age when tennis players start to fade and I'm talking about a second chance.

I'm slow, fat, frail as a kitten.

I've never been so disgusted with myself.

And so at this time, he's reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography and there's one of Nelson Mandela's favorite quotes that Andre would identify with and repeat to himself, "I am master of my fate, I am captain of my soul." And so during this time, he actually gets to go to dinner with Mandela and there's something that Mandela says during this talk that really resonates with Andre.

And Mandela says, "We must all care for one another. That is our task in life." We must also care for ourselves, which mean we must be careful in our decisions, careful in our relationships, careful in our statements, we must manage our lives carefully in order to avoid becoming victims.

I feel, as if he's speaking directly to me, as if he's aware that I've been careless with my talent and my health. And so remember when you talk about being in the shower and having to repeat things to yourself things and make yourself believe things that either other people might think it's crazy

“but you have to believe it and so even though he's still in this downfall, he's being interviewed”

and they're talking about two other players who are fighting for number one. Remember this guy's like a number 141 at the time and they ask him, "Which one of these two do you think will ultimately number one?" And I say neither, they laugh nervously. I think I'm going to be number one.

They laugh a lot. They laugh loudly. No, really, I mean it. They stare and then doodifully write my insane prediction in their notebooks. And so even though he's in the process of rebuilding himself, rebuilding his life, he still

has these these times of insane fear and doubt.

He's talking to JP, which I mentioned earlier is one of his most important confinants

and friends throughout this entire story. One night I tell JP that I feel remarkable confidence in my game and new purpose for being on the court. So how come I still feel fear? Doesn't the fear ever go away and JP says fear is your fire on dry.

I wouldn't want to see you if it ever completely went out and I don't think that fear ever goes away. I remember reading Rick Rubin's book two weeks ago and he was talking about one of the most famous musicians that he was working with, somebody has been touring the world and delighting tens of thousands of fans for decades and even decades into his career.

He was terrified and filled with nerves every night before he stepped on the stage. And he did it anyways.

“JP also gives him great advice and I think it was a great metaphor to really monitor”

thoughts. JP tells me that for the last few years, my mind has been a swamp, stagnant, fetted, keeping in every direction. Now it's time for my mind to be a river, raging, channeled, and therefore peer. And so now in 1999 he fights his way all the way back, he's final of the French open.

He's clawed his way back all the way from out of the top 100 and he finds himself currently losing. There's a rain delay so he goes back to the locker room. And again, I think this goes back to that quote by a Brad Jacobs, like so much of success keeping your head in a good place.

This also ties together something you and I have been talking about, which is the importance of having people around you that want the best for you that will tell you the truth. And so Brad comes into the locker room with Andre. And Andre says he's too good, Brad. He's just too good.

I can't beat him. This fucker is six, five, serving bombs. Never missing. He's hurting me with his serve. He's hurting me with his backhand.

I can't get back in the point on his serve. I don't have this. Brad stares. Then he starts screaming.

Brad never raises his voice to anybody.

You tell me he's too good. How the fuck would you know? You can't judge how he's playing. You're so confused out there, so blind with panic. I'm surprised you can even see him.

Too good. You're making him look good. Just start letting go. If you're going to lose at least lose on your own terms, hit the fucking ball. And if you're not sure where to hit it, here's an idea.

Just hit it to the same place. He hits it. If he hits a backhand cross court, you hit a backhand cross court. Just hit yours a little better.

“You don't have to be better than the whole fucking world, remember?”

Just have to be better than one other guy, just hit, just fucking hit. If we're going to lose today fine, I can live with it, but let's lose on our terms. The last 13 days I've seen you lay it on the line. I've seen you rip it under pressure. Mame guys.

So please stop feeling sorry for yourself and stop telling me he's too good. And for the love of God, stop trying to be perfect. Just hit the ball. Hit the ball. Do you hear me, Andre?

See the ball? Hit the ball. This guy deal with you, make him feel you out there. If you're going down, okay, go down, but go down with guns blazing. Always, always, always go down with both guns blazing.

He opens a locker and slams it shut. The door flaps and clangs. The referee appears. We're back on court, gentlemen. Fast forward to the end of this match, championship point.

Half the crowd is yelling my name. The other half is yelling to be quiet. I hit another sizzling first serve and when Medivev steps to the side and takes a chicken wing swing, I'm the second person to know that of one the French open. Brad is the first, Medivev is third.

Watching it fall is one of the greatest joys of my life.

“I raise my arms and my racket falls on the clay.”

I'm sobbing. I'm rubbing my head.

I'm terrified by how good this feels.

“Training isn't supposed to feel this good.”

Winning is never supposed to matter this much, but it does.

It does. I can't help it.

“I'm overjoyed without all the ups and downs, even the misery.”

This wouldn't be possible. I even reserve some gratitude for myself for all the good and bad choices that led me here. The same court on which you suffer your bloodiest defeat can become the scene of your sweetest triumph.