Venus Williams: THIS Is How You TRAIN YOUR MIND For SUCCESS, CONFIDENCE, & FULFILLMENT

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11I think a lot of people want to win at whatever game they're playing in life or their career or their business or their sport. They want to be more successful. They want to win. The more people I interview and ask about this who have fame, wealth, and success, they talk about the pressures that come with that. Did you feel like you were mentally and emotionally prepared when you became, you know, a world icon in your sport and you started to gain popularity, fame, success, money? Did you feel you were mentally and emotionally prepared or was it a lot of pressure at first? I started really young.

0:48My first pro match was 14. So a lot of it, though, the youth and the inexperience is in some way a protection. You just don't really, really get it. You don't now, yeah. But also it can go the other way, too. I think there were some matches where I felt pressure to perform up to maybe what I was supposed to be, like this hype. But at the end of the day, I failed sometimes. And then the failure was a lesson. And I learned from it. Even though I failed, it was still a step up. It wasn't a step down because I learned something. And I got more determined. So I think that a lot of what people want today is based on what they think other people have in social media.

1:36I think that's a lot of pressure for young people, too, to be successful, like, immediately. No one's successful that young. I was successful young, but I started playing tennis at four and I put in a decade before I even, like, went pro. So, yes, it was young, but there was millions of hours of work that happened before that happened. Nothing happens that fast. Really, the process is the most joy I find, right? When you can't figure something out or you do figure it, once you figure it out and you've put in the work and you find the right process and you're able to repeat that process over and over and over again, the sense of pride and accomplishment that you get, not from the success, but the work you put in to get there, that's where the happiness comes from.

2:25Wow. And I think there might be a generation now that doesn't understand that, that there's so much pride in your work. Like what you do, work is a part of your happiness. You don't want to circumvent that. That's a part of who you are, that accomplishment. Accomplishing things gives you confidence and happiness. And so if you are empty or because you haven't, you skipped that process, then it's something to look at. It's interesting you say this. You say you were kind of young and maybe innocent and wasn't aware of certain things. but, and that's maybe why it didn't impact you or create a lot of overwhelming stress.

3:01But there's a lot of, you know, either child stars or actors or young musicians who have a lot of fame and success and money quickly and then go through years of depression or drug addiction and, you know, and fall apart. So there was something that you had that a lot of people at your age never figure out. Yeah. Do you think that a lot of that was just, you know, the community you had with your parents and just the process you were in and the values you developed? Or was it something else? Two things, just having a great support system, my family. Because when you're winning, everybody's texting you.

3:39There's people that I call them the finals mongers. They're like, oh, if you get to the finals, I'll come. And I'm like, you absolutely will not be coming to the finals. We'll come to the first round. Like the first rounds have to be played. you know there's the first and the second and there's there's moments for the final it's like no you won't come to the final show up in the beginning and then you can stay at the end exactly so everyone's there for you when you're winning when you're winning everyone's sending you a text you lose a match there aren't that many people who are there and those people were my family those people were my sisters who believed in me every time and they said you'll get the next one when you're feeling sad and low and you feel like you could have done better those moments they were there for me.

4:21And I knew that it didn't matter what happened. I had something else to fall back on. So a strong support system is so important. And knowing that like the effort you give is so much more important than the result. Right. You could sleep at night if you just left it all out there, you know? Absolutely. Those are the values that are super important. So that way you don't feel like that sort of confusion where you kind of lose it. So I had that. And like I said earlier, with a strong spiritual background. And my dad, when we walked on the court, he would always say, have fun. He would say, sometimes he'd say, look at the ball too, which weirdly enough is extremely important.

5:00You and the pros will not look at the ball because you're like looking where you're hitting because you want to hit a good shot so bad. You have to look at the ball. But sometimes he'd say, look at the ball, but he'd always say, have fun. And so I had that support of, that I could possibly have fun, more fun you win. but like that was the only expectation and i knew that they wanted more for me but of course that i didn't have to come off the court and like you know hear yelling or i've seen players where they you should have done this yeah yeah none of that it's just a hug

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6:29Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.