Teachings from the greatest sportspersons of all time – Part I

For many, sport is life. And life has its own mysterious ways of teaching you lessons in order to keep growing and doing something worthwhile during your existence. Sport is associated with values, ethics, qualities, victory, defeat and what not. Hence, on this auspicious occasion of Teachers Day across the world, here are the greatest sportspersons of all time who many adore the most and what have they given us to live with –

1) Roger Federer – The Swiss tennis legend was in his teens, surprisingly an angry young man who would break racquets.

His father warned him that at one point that if he broke another racquet, he would never play tennis. Federer’s love for the game was such that he decided to use this warning in becoming the calm, serene and elegant player that he is today. He proves that you do not need to be overly aggressive and competitive to win in life, patience and introverted attitude maybe the key to fulfilling your dreams. Federer may not have the sexiest face or the sexiest body, but he has the sexiest mind of them all and thus he is a true champion.

2) Sachin Tendulkar – Tendulkar is what he is today mainly because of three qualities – Simplicity, humility and straightforwardness.

Despite being burdened with the expectations of 1 billion people and increasing commercialization of cricket, Tendulkar has smartly handled it by being a complete family man, never being on the ‘Page 3’ of a newspaper and always letting cricket take first priority and not money. He has this rare but amazing combination of hating to lose but also not letting winning get onto his head.

He also teaches that every person wants to be a leader, but not everybody can be one. Yet if they just do what they know the best, to the best of their ability, then they ‘lead’ their own lives to the fullest and lead others unofficially to perform.

3) Muhammad Ali – The boxing champion may have been extroverted in approach, but that helped him judge his competitor tremendously well through his body language. He shows that to be the best, you need to be street smart in planning and strategizing your actions ahead rather than just living in the present. While anticipating the future, you must be prepared to adapt spontaneously to any external threat which might harm you.

Ali’s strategy of letting his opponent use up all his energy while he ducked in the first round, worked many a times as he knew how to conserve his energy and when to attack and when to defend. Thus he had no natural game and by curbing his natural instincts, he succeeded.