Moving The Wall

Even if you have no interest in tennis, Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open, is a compelling and engaging read. His drive reminds me of that of the very best entrepreneurs: those who move the wall.

This week I met with a friend and entrepreneur who asked me two questions. Did I think that venture capitalists would think his idea a good one and fund it? Second, based on my experience as an entrepreneur, should he keep going?

Whether venture capitalists thought his idea was a good one or not was somewhat irrelevant, I told him. Many of the best ideas are contrarian ones. And smart investors have passed over many of the best ideas.

To the question of whether he should keep pursuing his entrepreneurial endeavor I answered that there was only one person who could answer that question: him.

But I did tell him, from first-hand experience, that to be an entrepreneur, one has to believe. Because for the entrepreneur the wall is the enemy. And one has to believe one can charge at the wall and the wall will move.

What is the wall?
It is all the negatives, the “no’s” that every entrepreneur is faced with on the road to success: no money; competition – especially game changing competition that suddenly pulls the rug out from under your feet; lack of loyalty, lack of direction, lack of customers or users.

But most critically, the wall is self-doubt.

Self-doubt, as Agassi shows in Open, is the ultimate enemy. Entrepreneurship, much like tennis, is a game of decision after decision, and if you let that get to you, you will tense up. Agassi refers to this as pressing. Pressing, he says, “is the tennis term for not letting things flow. Pressing is one of the deadliest things you can do in tennis.”

Entrepreneurs in the groove make decision after decision, seemingly almost without thought. Granted, there is much that goes into those decisions – namely the decisions that have come before them and the hard work to gather data, create great product, recruit great people, know the customer, and, at its core, to have a dream to begin with.

Yet everyone suffers from pressing at one time or another, reverting from operating at light speed, from making decision after decision, from going for it, to being paralyzed. Often, investment capital itself paralyzes the entrepreneur – the perceived pressure of needing to make the perfect decision every time.

The sage Brad, Agassi’s coach, once tells Agassi, “Your confidence is shot and perfectionism is the reason. You try to hit a winner on every ball when just being steady, consistent, meat and potatoes, would be enough to win ninety percent of the time.” That’s great advice for tennis champion and entrepreneur alike.

One night Agassi tells his good friend J.P. that he feels a remarkable confidence in his game, “a new purpose for being on the court.” “So how come I still feel all this fear? Doesn’t the fear ever go away?” he asks his friend. It’s a question I’ve heard over and over from entrepreneurs, in many different ways. Replies J.P., “I hope not. Fear is your fire.”

Ultimately, Open is so much more than a book about tennis. It’s a book about overcoming self-doubt, about finding the perfect balance between caring and not caring that enables the highest levels of performance, about turning fear from a crippling disease into a driving force.

I know what some of you are thinking: that sounds like a page out of a business school interpersonal dynamics text book. But anyone who’s ever faced the wall knows it to be true.

Conclusion
The real insight in Agassi’s book, however, is team. Agassi surrounds himself with a core group of people who coach him, inspire him, give him objective and honest feedback, push him, and fill in his weak spots. People with whom he can be brutally honest and who are – in a supportive way – brutally honest in return. That is perhaps Agassi’s most brilliant stroke.

One of Agassi’s best friends tells him, “Some people are thermometers, some are thermostats. You’re a thermostat. You don’t register the temperature in the room, you change it.” Of course, his friend happens to be telling Agassi this as inspiration for wooing Steffi Graf.

It’s great advice for life and for business. Change the temperature in the room and you will deliver great product, raise money, and recruit great people. Change the temperature and the wall will move.