“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
Bruce Lee
Good morning peeps, meditation done.
Quote for the day:
“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
Bruce Lee
When Muhammad Ali beat Sonny Liston February 25th, 1964 to become the youngest heavyweight champion of the world, when Bob Beamon jumped over 29 feet at the Olympics in Mexico on October 19th, 1968, when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon on July 20th in 1969, when Barrack Obama was elected President of the United States on 5th November 2008, or when Usain Bolt smashed the 100m record at the Olympics in Beijing with a time of 9.72 and then took it down to 9.58 a year later.
How many people would have told them their goal was unrealistic and unattainable before they achieved it?
How many people would have told Andrew Murray and his mother Julie that it was not possible to be Wimbledon champion, the US Open champion, the Olympic champion and then lead the Great Britain team to their first Davies Cup title since 1936, with his brother Jamie in the same team, who has also two grand slam titles; he won the mixed doubles title at the 2007 Wimbledon Championships with Jelena Janković and the men’s doubles title at the 2016 Australian Open with Bruno Soares?
So many people told them it was impossible that when Andrew was 15, Julie moved him to Barcelona to train at the Sánchez-Casal Academy.
Carrying on with the tennis theme, what about the dreams Richard William’s had for two of his daughter Serena and Venus?
Richard Williams once took tennis lessons from a man known as Old Whiskey, and decided his future daughters would be tennis professionals when he saw Virginia Ruzici playing on television.
He says that he wrote up a 78-page plan, and started giving lessons to Venus and Serena when they were four and a half, and began taking them to the public tennis courts of LA.
The Compton area of South Central L.A. is not noted for producing tennis champions. Instead, this neighbourhood consists of some of the most economically deprived people of the USA. With a homicide rate eight times the national average, Venus and Serena grew up and learned to play tennis in a modern day war zone, where violent Black and Hispanic gangs carried out drive by shootings, and where drug addiction and prostitution were the norm.
Soon he got them into Shreveport tennis tournaments. In 1995, Richard pulled them out of a tennis academy, and stopped sending his daughters to national junior tennis tournaments when Williams was 10, since he wanted them to take it slow and focus on school work.
Another factor was racial, as he had heard white parents talk about the Williams sisters in a derogatory manner during tournaments. At that time, Williams had a 46–3 record on the United States Tennis Association junior tour and was ranked No. 1 among under-10 players in Florida.
In 1995, when Venus Williams was in the ninth grade, her father pulled his daughters out of Macci’s academy and, from then on, took over all coaching at their home.
When asked in 2000 whether having followed the normal path of playing regularly on the junior circuit would have been beneficial, Williams responded:
“Everyone does different things. I think for Venus and I, we just attempted a different road, and it worked for us.”
Venus Williams is a seven-time Grand Slam title winner (singles), and Serena Williams is a twenty-one-time Grand Slam title winner (singles)
Both sisters have won four gold medals at the Summer Olympics Games, one each in singles and three in doubles — all won together — the most of any tennis players. As a duo, they have also completed the Career Golden Slam in doubles.
Serena Williams holds the most major singles, doubles, and mixed doubles titles combined amongst active players, male or female. Her record of 36 major titles puts her fifth on the all-time list and second in the open era with: 21 in singles, 13 in women’s doubles, and two in mixed doubles. She is the most recent player, male or female, to have held all four major singles titles simultaneously (2002–03 and 2014–15), the fifth woman ever to do so and only the third player, male or female, to achieve this record twice after Rod Laver and Steffi Graf. She is also the most recent player, together with her sister Venus Williams, to have held all four Grand Slam women’s doubles titles simultaneously (2009–10).
Her total of 21 Grand Slam singles titles is third on the all-time list behind Margaret Court (24) and Steffi Graf (22),and second in the Open Era, behind only Graf.
She is the only tennis player — female or male — to have won singles titles at least six times in three of the four Grand Slam tournaments. She is also the only tennis player to have won 10 Grand Slam singles titles in two separate decades. She has won an all-time record 12 Grand Slam singles titles on hardcourt. Williams holds the Open Era record for most titles at the Australian Open (6) and shares the record for most titles at the US Open with Chris Evert.
The Williams sisters have won 13 Grand Slam doubles titles together, and as a pair they are unbeaten in Grand Slam tournament finals.
Too many people place limits on themselves or are are influenced by the limitations others i.e parents, friends and teachers transfer from themselves on to them and settle for being ordinary, people who become World Class at anything use the limitations placed on them to challenge themselves, grow and define new boundaries.
Serena Williams is popularly regarded as the greatest female tennis player of all time and arrival of the Williams sisters has been credited with launching a new era of power tennis in the women’s game.
What can you achieve if you break free from the restraints and limitations you and other people place on you?
I never thought I would see a black president of the United States of America in my lifetime, my parents were not allowed to rent a property together back in the sixties, confronted by signs of No Blacks, No Irish and No dogs.
Growing up I never thought I would see a black Wimbledon Champion, or a white Scottish one either, or a black US Masters golf champion or a black Formula one world champion.
I was told I could never be a ballet dancer, because I was black and too old, because I only started dancing when I was 19.
Then, when I was dancing with Louie Spence in our twenties, we never thought he would become a national tv star and a few years later when I was modelling with Jason Statham and he said he was going to give this acting lark ago, neither of us imagined that he would go on to become a global movie star.
There are no limits to who or what you can become, you can be who or whatever you want to be, if you have a strong enough faith, belief and dedication in your own ability and find people who will share this belief and dedication to work hard and want to share your goals and dreams with you.
If you want to push yourself to new limits in your health and fitness then contact me at steve@steveagyei.com or go to steveagyei.com
Have a fabulous Friday peeps and a wonderful weekend
Breathe, Believe and Achieve
Be Happy, Healthy and Wise
Keep on Winning, Smiling and Living the Dream
Namaste
Steve Agyei
Founder of Beyond Lifestyle Secrets
Author of Celebrity Training Secrets