Venus Williams - Come to Win: Business Leaders, Artists, Doctors, and Other Visionaries on How Sports Can Help You Top Your Profession

T HE ARC OF AN ATHLETES life is funny. Just when other young professionals are peaking, hitting their stride, and consolidating their skills, were starting, if were smart, to think of our future, one that doesnt depend on our athleticism and our injury-prone bodies to pay the rent. Lets be clear: Im not retiring anytime soon. At thirty, I still have game and can think of nothing more gratifying than traveling the world to play tennis. But I am putting into practice something my mother, Oracene, and father, Richard, who once owned a security-guard company, told me and my sisters, Lyndrea, Yetunde, Isha, and Serena: Think entrepreneurially.

When we were growing up in Compton, California, the whole family would have these sit-down meetings led by my dad, who is a philosopher type. Hed ask questions such as, Why is it that the poor person stays in the ghetto and the rich person gets richer? or Why is it that when you do something for someone it doesnt work as well as when you help them help themselves? We wouldnt always have an answer, but that was, in a way, beside the point. He was training us early on to be independent thinkers. Of course, he was also training us to be financially independent. I remember him talking to us about the mechanics of buying properties out of foreclosure. While I was too young to absorb the details, the basic ideas seeped through. And if he was teaching us about real estate when we were young, you can only imagine how much my parents stressed the importance of education.

I coveted getting a degree as much as I did having my own business. After enrolling in an interior design program through the London-based Rhodec International correspondence school, I launched V Starr Interiors, a commercial and residential interior design company, in April 2002. I received my associates degree in Fashion Design in 2007, the same year I debuted my clothing line, EleVen. And last year Serena and I bought a minority stake in the Miami Dolphins NFL team, a wonderful way to become even more entrenched in the business world. Lets say my parents advice made a lasting impression.

A multitasker, I wanted to play tennis and study, and I also wanted to launch my first businesses while I was still playing rather than wait until after my career was over. There are a few benefits to starting a business early. The obvious one is I get to use my name to help market my endeavors; but, just as important, I gain experience and credibility now so that when I do retire, Ill already have industry knowledge as well as a client base. As Earvin Magic Johnson points out in the pages that follow, its harder than it looks for athletes to start businesses because many people will take meetings with us just to get a ball or jersey signed with no intention of taking our proposals seriously. Like Roger Staubach, whose story also follows, I want to log in the hours that lead to credibility in the businesses while I continue to play professionally rather than get in after the fact, when it will be more difficult to be taken seriously.

With the launch of V Starr, I immediately realized that although tennis and design couldnt be further apart, I was bringing lessons learned on the court into the meetings, whether they were with potential clients, my team, or suppliers. My curiosity piqued, I began to compile a list of former athletes (not all of whom played professionally) who are now at the top of their professions. If I could talk to each one Id ask them if their sports background was of any use in their professional life. And that curiosity led to this book. Along with my co-author, Kelly E. Carter, I did get to talk with this impressive and varied group of former athletes, and their responses comprise this book. I was encouraged and pleasantly surprised by their contributions. Though they come from a variety of fieldsthere are actors, designers, CEOs, chefs, doctors, editors, financiers, reporters, and politicians, as well as former professional athletesthe drive and discipline they bring into their work mirrors what they gave on the field, rink, and court or in the pool.

I loved working on this book, and I hope you too take something awaywhether youre an aspiring visionary, an established or ascending executive, a burgeoning designer or actor. I hope youll see how sports gives you a foundation that is transferrable, and how if youve played sports (at any level, professional or amateur), you are carrying around knowledge that you can use effectively in other fields. Reading the experiences of others made me cognizant of the benefits from sports I didnt even realize I had receivedcharacter, strength of body and mind, confidence, a sense of value and validation. Sarina Bratton, an entrepreneur who started a cruise line, perhaps sums it up best: All of the training, the discipline, the determination, the good attitude and hard work that youre putting into your sport now are inherent values that you will carry with you through life, and you can apply those same values and disciplines to anything that you choose in your life. Recognize that and never be afraid to use them in your career or whatever you choose to do.

Not only did this book validate my sense that sports will benefit my post-sports career, but the stories also moved me. I get teary-eyed every time I read about former secretary of defense William Cohens dad standing in the snow, peeking in through the window to watch his son play basketball, or how Vera Wangs figure skating not only bonded her to her family but may have extended her mothers life when illness struck.

More than move me, these essays motivated me. They have given me words of wisdom Ill take with me on the court and in the proverbial boardroom. In fact, Ive already started putting some of these inspirational thoughts into my notebookanother idea I picked up from my father. He would prepare notebooks for us and fill up the pages with thoughtssometimes even storiesabout improving our tennis and attitudes. Everything was typed out, and the pages were laminated. Sometimes hed hand us just a couple of pages, and sometimes a laminated binder folder. Some of them were even made into signs with sayings like Believe It. Achieve It or If you fail to plan, you plan to fail or Perfect practice makes perfect, which hed hang around the tennis court and in the house. Theres still one hanging in the bathroom that reads: Always try to be the most polite person in the world.

Ill use ideas from the contributors in Come to Win to inspire my next generation of signs. I can see the first one already; it simply says, Extreme Effort. It will remind me that just as I have to work my tail off as an athlete, Ill have to put in the hours at EleVen and V Starr to make them work. As a little girl I practiced no fewer than five hours a day, every single day of the year. The only time we got a break was when it rained, which is why, to this day, I still find the rain comforting. Every athlete in this book somehow acquired a similar work ethic. Dr. Keith L. Black got up at five to swim laps before school, and Wang trained twelve hours each day. Richie Rich puts it in context: Practice was an hour and twenty minutes away. I would go to the rink and skate for about four hours and then drive an hour to school, then after school, go to the local mall, Vallco, and skate, and then do my homework. And I loved it. Looking back at how hard I worked, it was so crazy. Crazy, yes. But just as the focus helped him launch his business, having a similar work ethic has already served me in my schoolwork and in playing professionally, in preparing designs for my clients, and in training for a major tournament. It goes back to what Bratton calls Extreme Efforthence the sign. As she explains, One of the greatest lessons I learned from sports that has helped me in business is to never be afraid to put extreme effort in. If you dont do your absolute best, then you cant expect to achieve anything different from what anybody else has done.