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A few years ago, I hired Bill Guilfoil (who is also a Tennis coach) to help me with my serve. I told him that my toss was erratic and inconsistent. It was either too far left, too far right, too far behind me, or too far in front of me. Consequently, my first serve usually hit the net or was out of bounds. That forced me into my second serve, which looked more like slow pitch softball. My opponents taunted me with "serve me that lollipop again". Needless to say, I seldom won any games on my serve. I fully expected Bill to observe and coach me on my toss and serve. Instead, he said he didn't want to see my toss or my serve just yet. He asked me to walk with him around the perimeter of the area where the ball had to land in the opponent's court to put the ball in play. I thought this was a strange request. As I walked around, he said "John, this space is 21 by 13.5 feet. That totals 283.5 square feet. It's huge, isn't it? I know I can teach you to get this little ball into that huge area. Don't make it so difficult."
Did this make an impact on me? Well, it happened over 25 years ago and I still remember each word and how it built my confidence and taught me a life lesson on seeing the Big Picture.
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