The Constellation Learning Newsletter
October 2006

Fall is here and with it the desire to hibernate. Most of us are used to bundling up and making our way through windswept streets, with head down to ward off the weather.

Reminds me of a little ditty I like: Two men looked out from behind prison bars; one saw mud, the other saw stars. Perspective determines focus.

The truly great focus on the stars. Which is why I’ll be welcoming author and Karmic Astrologer Linda Brady as my premier guest on October 16th at noon eastern time on Voice America's Seventh Wave Network www.7thWaveNetwork.com.
See the announcement below for more details.

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~ Monthly Message ~

“The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him.
This is success, and there is no other.”

-- Orison Swett Marden,
Founder of Success Magazine

I watched one of my heroes take his final bow at the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament last month.

Andre Agassi, after a lifetime of world-class tennis and twenty-one consecutive appearances on what he considered his “home court” in New York, left it—and the game he loved—with class and dignity.

At thirty-six years of age he had become, as John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors before him, an elder statesman in a sport that caters to the young. He had announced his retirement months ago. Everyone watching knew this was the end—no matter how it ended—of a brilliant career.

After two rounds of superior tennis (his first two matches both went to five sets) and with numerous cortisone shots to his spine after each—an excruciating short-term remedy to an inoperable disc problem in his lower back—Andre defied the odds by not only completing the two matches, but by winning them against much younger players who grew up idolizing him.

During his third and final match and wracked by pain, Andre would still not quit. Grimacing, he played out the match. His character demanded it and his practiced principles propelled him forward—to finish what he started, to give his very best shot, and to leave a legacy of authentic commitment in action. But on that day his efforts weren’t enough and he lost in four sets.

For eight minutes the crowd stood and cheered. For eight minutes Agassi sat in his court-side chair and took it in, tears falling freely down his face; he neither swept the moment aside to be felt in private nor succumbed to the seduction of making the display too maudlin. The commentators stayed quiet and let the moment speak for itself. His final encore bow moved me deeply and I cried along with him.

Having played some competitive tennis in my day I have a deep appreciation for Andre’s gritty play and mental toughness. He had an ability to rise above his circumstances, the score, or his physical pain. As any athlete knows, the brain will over-ride the body every time, either helping or hampering one’s efforts.

Agassi wasn’t the best player ever, though his return of serve was acknowledged as the best in the game. He won only eight glam Slam events to Sampras’ fourteen. But Agassi gave something a lot of other really good players didn’t—or wouldn’t. Maybe they couldn’t. Andre gave himself. Agassi was all about the process, as he called it, and he gave his heart, mind and soul to the pursuit of perfecting his own evolution—within the game of tennis. He let spectators in; in a word, he was real. When we rooted for Andre we were really rooting for ourselves—the bigger, brighter side of our individual possibility coins, the side courageous enough to “be in process.”

Author L. E. Blaze said, “A man's greatness is not estimated by the size of his body or of his purse; a man's greatness is estimated by his influence, not over the votes and empty cheers of a changing and passing crowd, but by his abiding, inspiring influence.”

Andre Agassi demonstrated what purpose, passion and persistence look like; quite an abiding, inspiring influence, indeed.

Application Tips:

• Think Long Term
  Expediency may be demanded in our work-worlds, but that doesn’t mean we can’t exercise integrity. If we always respond with what we think will “get us the order” then we’ll leave a limited legacy. What will matter to you ten years from now is more important than what will matter to you ten minutes from now. Higher purpose responses are more likely to build long-term legacies that you’ll be proud of.

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