Venus Williams
Appearances
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Yeah, I think that's important. And I think there's a difference between having self-belief at your core and having situational moments where you don't feel good about it. Right. I there's a hundred times more that I've walked on the court and just didn't feel great. You know, I don't know if I can do this. Right. So that's different than ultimately deep down knowing I have what it takes to do it.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
So those are two different things. Right. So I would say, yeah, there have been plenty of times I was like, you know, oh, my God. But at the end, I always felt like I was worthy and that I deserved it. And that's purely my background. It was purely my parents who just gave us that from the very beginning. There was nothing else I ever heard since I could remember.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
So I was very fortunate in that sense. And I think as an adult, I've definitely faced some moments where I have felt like, I don't know if I belong here. Really? Yeah. Yeah, that felt... Like what situations do you mean? I guess they call it imposter syndrome.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Yeah, so I've had different moments. I'm working with a new AI company in interior design. I'm thinking, should I really be here? I mean, I have a background in interior design. And then I had to fundraise for the first time. This was a nightmare for me.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
And oh my God, like the anxiety and the issues going, it was horrible. And that's the moment where I understood imposter syndrome. So I went through my whole life of like, pretty much feeling like, you know, king of the court. And then I get there and have to raise money. I'm like, I don't want to be here. I'm so afraid. What's happening? So I think that was a great experience for me.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
And I think that I saw it for what it was. And I knew I had to push through, but it was extraordinarily uncomfortable. It was awful.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Exactly. My parents are, once again, back to them. My mom says, never ask for anything. So just for me to have to ask, like, you know, we're raising money. We need you to give us this. Oh, no, I have to ask for money. This is out of my DNA. I don't ask for anything. I'm used to being able to do everything for myself. Also, just a pitch, like, in AI. Like, I don't know anything about AI.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
I had to learn the entire world. What am I doing here? Just in general, I think on the second call, the person I was pitching with, they fell off. So they asked me, okay, yeah, what are next steps in the timeline? and I'm all by myself, and you have to say something. And so those kinds of things happen, and you're completely unprepared, and it's like, how do you deal with it?
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
But I absolutely think that my experience in sport helped me to deal with that, kind of dealing with ambiguity. It's just... It's not easy, but sometimes you don't know what's going to happen when you walk on the court, but you have to deal with it. So I think that helped. But it was a tough situation. Do I ever want to fundraise again? Absolutely not. I hope I don't have to.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
It's not a place I'd like to be, but it was good to be very humbled.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Well, I mean, it's hard to pick one, right? I'm a workhorse. I don't mind working day and night. I'll work all day, work all night and start over again, repeat. I think that lack of fear of laying it on the line, blood, sweat, tears, leave your heart out there, walk off on a stretch or not even walk off, be carried off on a stretcher.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
So, you know, that kind of thing, not being afraid of hard work. I think a lot of people are afraid of that level of intensity, but that's honestly what it takes to succeed. The people who are succeeding, a lot of times you see folks when they get to the finish line, the trophy's up, right? They played a beautiful match or created an unbelievable business. Now you see them and they're at billions.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
You never heard of them before. You didn't see them the 10 or 15 years that they put it. You didn't see their failures beforehand. No one sees, you know, the injuries that you have around the court when you just can't get it right and the frustration and the back and forth and the losses.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
So all of those things really teach you all the lessons you need in life and the failures to the failures that you have to get back up and you still have to believe in yourself just as much. And if you don't still pretend at least that you do, sometimes just faking it is enough. Sometimes you don't know how you're going to get there.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
And I think being okay with not knowing, but knowing that there is a point A to point B and you got to get to point B. It's okay not to exactly know, but you know, you're, you know, you're swimming through the water, you're climbing the mountain, whatever you face, you have to do it on your terms.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
For sure. For sure. Everyone is. But you can't let it stop you. My mom always said fear is a devil. And also you have to think about the decisions you would make if you weren't afraid. You know, like if I wasn't afraid, what shot would I actually go for? You know, what would I try? What would I give up also if I weren't afraid? A lot of times it's not even about going for it.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Actually, what would you leave behind? A lot of times we hang on to stuff that's just holding us back. And also, if you aren't afraid, then you can actually look at yourself. I think sports teaches you self-awareness. And I have a real thing for not being self-aware and being around people who aren't self-aware bothers the heck out of me.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
So if you're not self-aware, if you do not tell yourself the truth, you will not win. Wow. That's what about winning and being honest with yourself.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
This is going to sound weird, but I'm a person who's always involved in the arts. And when you are buying art, for me, I buy or look at art that I love because it makes me happy and I find it beautiful. There is no category. I don't buy just this or that. And so over the years... When you look back, you're like, I should have gotten that piece.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
I thought about it or I should have invested in this artist. And it's about buying work that you love and you get to live with it. Right. And so I would walk through art fairs and everywhere you looked was someone else that I just didn't get that has like blown up now. And I think finally, once I look back, I'm like, what? I let it go. I felt such peace, you know, just like it's fine.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
That was hard. And I know that's a weird answer.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
I had to let that go. And now I'm free.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
No, I mean, an emotion is just... Or beliefs. I don't know. I don't hold on to things. I think that's one of my strengths. That's great. I do let go outside of that art thing. But you... Things happen as they happen. I think I would hold on to things if I was continuing to make the same mistakes over and over. But I'm human. I make mistakes.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Sometimes I make a decision that could have been better, but I learn from it immediately. I set responsibility for it. I move on. And I think that's all you can do. Right. So you can't you can't hold on to stuff unless you have a time machine and you can go backwards. But otherwise, there's no point.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Yeah. You know what? That's hard because there's, there were so many lessons. You have to understand everything was a lesson. Even watching a cartoon was a lesson. Like there was nothing that wasn't a lesson. So I'm so grateful for that.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
And as I've, you know, had time to spend around my nieces, I just feel like I've just totally failed because I've made, I feel like I haven't made anything a lesson yet. Like I got to bring my parents energy to this, but yeah, I think one of the biggest gifts my parents gave me was spirituality. It's so important to have something to believe in. It's so important to have hope.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
The world's a beautiful place, but it's a tough place, too. And if you don't have belief in values, you will do anything and then you'll get anything if you don't have hope. it's gonna be hard to get through this world where so many things happen. And it's not even to you, but to other people that you hear about that's so disheartening. So all that is very grounding.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
And I think it helps you to let go of stuff. It helps you to play better in your game. It helps you to realize like, I'm gonna give my everything to this. And if I feel that's fine, I have something bigger and better that's backing me up. And I think it just lets you be happy. So to me, that's the biggest gift that they gave me.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
I'm just like my mom, though. My family jokes, transformation complete. We're exactly the same. And I'm proud of that. I love being just like her, but we have our weaknesses. We definitely have weaknesses.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Um, zero patience.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
I can't always read the room as well as I like it. My emotional intelligence is as high as I'd like it to be. Uh, and that's not something I can fix. You're born how you are. And I just tell people I'm empathetic, but I don't always pick out about it. Just tell me I'll be there. So you gotta, you gotta let me in on some things. And, um, I think once I became aware of it, um,
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Because during COVID, I had a friend stay with me. And, like, the friend came and, like, ate all the food, drank all the drinks, didn't get groceries. So I'm, like, buying food, buying drinks, buying groceries. Pay the rent. Yay. Everything, you know, because we just, we thought it was going to be a few weeks and it lasted months, right?
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
It was a fun experience, but I had to learn how impatient I was. And also the standard I hold for myself is so high, but because of the standard my parents held, like we weren't even allowed to walk slow. My dad would say a slow walker, slow thinker, you can't walk slow. So everything was fast, quick.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
So I learned to do things so quickly, so fast, so efficient that then, you know, someone else is in your house and you see that they're moving so slow. Like this can be done in a minute. Like, what are you doing? And, you know, my house is someone else's, so I never complained about it, but it was like, buy some groceries. Like, you can't just eat all the food, you know?
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
So I learned a lot about myself and I realized that I needed to work on my EQ. And then I realized that some people had more of it and others don't. So my family helps me understand things and situations. They're like my crutch.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
No, not even that. But once I was at a party and I was talking to some friends and then one of my friends came over. And when she left, everyone said, what's wrong with her? She seems horribly sad. And I never saw it. And so I said, wait, let me go check on her. So I those are things like I will never see. And it's not because I don't want to. It just goes over my head.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
So those those kinds of things I've seen, I can't improve on. That's why I tell people I care about. It's like I have this, you know, you know, this thing that it doesn't work as well as others. So just tell me everything, you know.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
I think the process changes depending on the moment you are in life, right? I think you have these moments as an athlete or in business or in life where you're on top of the world. You can do nothing wrong. Everything's golden. Then you like, okay, it's great, you're in a flow, right? And then you have other moments where it's not great.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
And so you have to be more cognizant of that process, be super self-aware and really extract out what you're feeling and figure out what part's real and what isn't, because we can get the feels, right? And you have to distract like, what is just a feeling and what is the issue? And I do that by journaling. I just start writing what I'm feeling.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
And then once I start writing down all the things I'm feeling, then I'm able to recognize this is actually the one thing that's real is issue. The rest is just a bunch of other stuff that's just floating in my head and I can get rid of the fluff and then focus on the real thing that's bothering me. I think also a lot of being about being your best is just preparation.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
You cannot be great without the preparation and you can't feel good about what you're doing unless you've done the work. So the greats are doing the work. They're putting in the work day in, day out. If you're in finance, you're up all night reading, whatever that is that it takes to do that, being on top of your industry, thinking, literally just thinking.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
sitting and thinking and meditating about what you like to accomplish. And it's the same in sport too. You sit and you meditate about what you'd like to accomplish. So being great is intentional. And then when you're in a bad place, also getting out of it is also intentional too. But it's just realizing where you are and applying what you need to succeed no matter where you are.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
And I think when you're in a bad place, you just have to realize that... A lot of it is also mental too. You can just, what I try to tell myself is that this moment I'm anticipating what might happen that could be bad, but anticipation is just that it's not even real. What if something great happened? What if something amazing could happen? What if I could make that happen?
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
And it's like changing your thought around things is so powerful and And it's not easy and you have to constantly work on it. But if you put in the work, your mind will change. It's like anything else. If you go to the gym and do those biceps for six weeks, you're going to see some improvement. So if you flex your mind in a different way instead of saying I can't. for six weeks.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
If you say I can for six weeks, your mind goes on a completely different pathway and it's so powerful and so true and it's not easy and you have to continually do it. Once you do it just once, it doesn't just stick. You just have to keep training your mind and I think sometimes people forget that part, that training your mind is so important.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
If you want to be strong mentally, train to be strong mentally.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Yeah, for sure. First is preparation, right? Doing the preparation. That's ground zero.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Putting in the work. Whatever that may be, you have to put in the work. So if you don't do that, you're never going to be great. You're never going to be mentally strong. Whatever it is you'd like to achieve. Once you've put in the work... then you realize what you're good at, what you're not.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
I mean, me personally, I think there's probably a lot of people who are smarter, who are gonna get that 1600 on the SAT. I'm probably not gonna get the 1600. But my strength is that I'm extremely logical and I notice patterns. I'm very quick in those sorts of things. So then I have to set myself up in a way that plays in my strengths. Not everyone's going to have the same strength.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Everyone's going to be good at everything. But once you've done your work and you see your strengths, then you've got to figure out a way to play to that. And then always, of course, work on your weaknesses over time. And those at some point can come up, too, until you're like this complete player, you know, ready player one. So it's just, yeah, it's like, let's play this game to win.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
If we're going to play, let's win or else there's no need to play.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
I think I was aware. of the pressure. I started really young. My first pro matches were teens. So a lot of it though, the youth and the inexperience is in some way a protection. You just don't really, really get it. You don't know. Yeah. But also it can go the other way, too. And I think there were some matches where I felt pressure to perform up to maybe what I was supposed to be like this hype.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
But at the end of the day, I failed sometimes. And then the failure was a lesson. And I learned from it. And so that was like, you know. Even though I failed, it was still a step up. It wasn't a step down because I learned something and I got more determined. So I think that a lot of what people want today is based on what they think other people have in social media.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
I think that's a lot of pressure for young people to be successful immediately. No one's successful that young. I was successful young, but I started playing tennis at four and I put in a decade before I even went pro. So yes, it was young, but there was millions of hours of work that happened before that happened. Nothing happens that fast. And really, the process is the most joy I find, right?
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
When you can't figure something out or you do figure it, once you figure it out and you've put in the work and you find the right process and you're able to repeat that process over and over and over again, the sense of pride and accomplishment that you get, not from the success, but the work you put in, to get there, that's where the happiness comes from.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
And I think there might be a generation now that doesn't understand that, that there's so much pride in your work. Like what you do, work is a part of your happiness. You don't want to circumvent that. That's a part of who you are, that accomplishment, accomplishing things gives you confidence and happiness.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
And so if you are empty or because you haven't you skipped that process, then it's something to look at.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
No, nothing was worse than the punishment that I felt like internally, you know, that my expectation of myself and. I think that's a good thing and a bad thing. You got to temper it, right? Sometimes your expectations can be, you can be so hard on yourself that you never pat yourself on the back enough. But some people aren't hard enough on themselves. And so then they never make it.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
You got to find the middle, the middle ground of like being hard, but also like recognizing the things you accomplish too.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Yeah, that's easier said than done. Like we hold on to our losses, whether we realize it or not. And you just have to think about this a new day like.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
It's a new possibility and that's not easy.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
It's so important that it doesn't matter what you look like. It matters what's inside of you that you can get out to live the life that you want to live and figuring out what that life is and that having other people's approval or none of those things.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
really matter for you know it doesn't help you get out of bed you know the research has shown that about 45 percent of girls globally quit sports by the age of 14 and that's due to low body confidence and when i think about what if that happened to me I turned pro at 14. What if I had stopped sports at age 14 because I didn't feel good about myself? I mean, this is literally my life.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
I got to play sports and change my life. And through that, that was never my plan. I just wanted to win Wimbledon.
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
change other people's lives just by doing something positive for yourself you never know what impact you're going to have on not only yourself but the world i had no idea that was going to happen and just wanted to lift the trophy not everyone goes pro not everyone becomes an athlete but what you learn from sports is unparalleled you cannot teach in a classroom or in a book what you learn from sports
The School of Greatness
How To Turn Self-Doubt Into Your Superpower - The Mindset of Champions
Really?