Mastering the Controllables

Andre Agassi's autobiography, Open, is a fascinating window into human excellence. The details about his tennis bag are perhaps the most revealing.

This bag was less functional than symbolic. More than a carrying case for his gear, it was a vessel of his professional identity, simultaneously a "briefcase, suitcase, toolbox, lunchbox, and palette."

Agassi associated the bag with a brief moment before and after every match when we was free from the random adversities of the game. It was the one thing he could control. So the bag was meticulously organized. He had such a finely calibrated sense of its contents that he could tell if someone had slipped in an extra pair of socks.

The most important items in the bag were, of course, the rackets. And to ensure no details were overlooked, he had a racket specialist named Roman Prokes, who was in Agassi's entourage for every game.

Roman understood that string tension was potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Racket strings are to a tennis pro what engine coils are to a racing car driver. So Roman would string the rackets with the care and concentration of a craftsman creating a concert violin. He ensured there were eight rackets in the bag, arranged from most to least recently strung, thus allowing Agassi to start each match with the loosest tension in his strings.

Roman also understood the importance of grip. Agassi's grip was as personal as his thumbprint. It was a function of hand shape and finger length as much as the size of his calluses and the force of his squeeze. Roman had a mold of Agassi's grip that he would install on each racket. He wrapped the mold in calfskin, then pounded it over and over until he achieved a millimetrically precise fit.

This was an avowedly obsessive approach. But it was also an essential contribution to the success of an eight-time major champion and Olympic gold winner.

Extremes are not always to be emulated, but they often uncover principles that can be broadly applied. Every complex professional domain is fraught with uncontrollable elements that can rock one's confidence and poise. There is only one way to confront this reality, and that is to master the controllables, however limited they may be.?

Agassi was deeply inspired by Nelson Mandela, whose favorite poem was Invictus by William Ernest Henley, and whose favorite line from that poem was this simple affirmation: I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.