Rafeal Nadal and lessons from the life of a professional tennis player?

Last night I saw Rafael Nadal win his 13^th Grand Slam title when he beat Novak Djokovic in the final of the US Open 2013.  It was a great game and Nadal truly is a Champion.

But there is so much you can learn from the life of a professional tennis player. Some of them are:

1)   Turn Up – Year after year thousand of players turn up for various tournaments that happen around the world. Not only the top ten, but many more turn up prepared for these tournaments. As Woody Allen once said, "Eighty Percent of success is turning up."

2)   Practice (Train Hard) – They practice their job. Even though Nadal is such a good player, he spends a considerable time practicing and improving his game.

3)   Balance Other Factors – They are very focused on what they want to do. Their major focus is tennis. They ensure they spend the best hours of the day playing tennis. They manage their health, family relationships, and leisure time around this primary focus of their life.

4)   Committed – You cannot play Tennis if you are not fully committed to it. Besides the top 100 tennis players in the world, there are thousands of other professional tennis players. Now that is a full commitment. Even if you are not the best in the world at something, you say that you are going to take this up professionally and put your heart and soul into becoming better at it.  Many of them do not juggle careers and tennis is all they have.

I wish Nadal the very best and I hope he has a great year ahead now. He truly has worked hard after injury. He ensured he turned up, practiced hard, balanced other factors and decided to stay committed to his dream to be World No. 1. Keep Going Nadal. Vamos!