Here’s what surprised me: Tennis is teaching me more than soccer ever did. Not because it’s better. Soccer gave me discipline, friendship, and of memories I’ll always treasure. But tennis is teaching me patience. Consistency. The reality that progress isn’t linear. Some days you leave the court feeling like you’ve finally figured something out. The next day you wonder if you’ve ever held a racquet before.

Leadership feels remarkably similar.

The difference is, as a tennis beginner, I’ve accepted that struggle is part of the process. I expect to be frustrated. I expect to lose to players I should beat. I expect tomorrow to feel different than today.

Yet in leadership, we often expect continuous upward progress. We expect ourselves to have all the answers. We treat mistakes like failures instead of data.

What if we brought the beginner’s mindset to our work the way I’m bringing it to tennis?

One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is permission to become a beginner again.

To learn. To struggle. To improve. To discover a new passion we never expected.

For me, that happened on a tennis court. For someone else, it might happen in a classroom, a new career, a business, or simply saying yes to an opportunity they didn’t see coming.

The people who continue growing throughout their lives aren’t necessarily the smartest or most talented. They’re the ones willing to stay curious. To keep learning. And to accept that every new chapter begins with being uncomfortable.

Maybe that’s your permission to start one too.

I’m still learning tennis. Hopefully, I’ll always be learning.

Because I’ve discovered something at this stage of my life: growth still feels exactly the way it did twenty years ago. Uncomfortable. Exciting. Humbling. Worth it.

The best thing I did wasn’t become better at what I’ve always done. It was having the courage to become a beginner again.

Reach out at brianbk1974@gmail.com if you’d like to talk about growth, leadership, or why tennis is surprisingly harder than starting a company.