Hating Your Career To Success

Have you ever heard that for you to succeed you must do what you love and love what you do? That is utter bull poopie! Well, at least according to Andre Agassi’s autobiography titled ‘Open’. In this book, excerpts of which have been featured in Sports Illustrated the tennis icon reveals he hated tennis! Quite oxymoronically!


Amid confessions that he used crystal methamphetamine recreationally, the eight grand slam winner reveals that he hated the game that he made so many people love. In his auto published this week, Agassi says, "I play tennis for a living even though I hate tennis; I hate it with a dark and secret passion and always have." Here is where am not thrown off balance, am hurled downward from whatever see saw I was on. My previous beliefs about loving my career come into question if they are not entirely shattered. While many online discussions carry on about what to do about the crystal meth sniffing confessions, I retreat to my inner self and consider my newly discovered strategy to hate my career till I find success.

Why would a great sportsman hate his career? He has earned over $30 million in prize money and over $25million a year in endorsements in his career. With all the glitz and glamour that accompanies the bank account, how would you really hate your job!? Former British tennis professional Barry Cowan says, “It becomes more than a job, it takes over your life. …I know this for myself – it's something you've done since you were six years old, and there's a sense that if you stop giving 100% you are doomed to failure, and that is unacceptable. No wonder so many players hate their sport – the surprise is that so few admit it."

Once they have begun, usually from a tender age, the desire to win becomes an addiction itself. One needs to be mentally strong to handle the pressure that comes from themselves and from their fans ant relatives to survive. Fear of failure and personal insecurities soon also manifest and reduce the stars into personalities that feel misunderstood. Fellow sibling stars Serena and Venus have also been said to have undergone pressure and probably abuse from their father and coach to succeed. Outside of sport, Michael Jackson has been known to have deteriorated into a drug dependent and insecure person after a lifetime of success. Even at his death, he remained estranged to his father and former talent coach.

Granted that Andre may have hated his job, he says he hated it with a passion. That remains the constant. One must be passionate about what they do to succeed. Whether that passion is steeped in love or in hate seems not to be relevant. Yet again, we may all define success in quite a variety of ways.

The Tin Man.