{"id":8377,"date":"2022-08-12T14:49:11","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T13:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cowrywise.com\/blog\/?p=8377"},"modified":"2023-07-26T10:34:03","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T09:34:03","slug":"serena-williams-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cowrywise.com\/blog\/serena-williams-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from Serena Williams’ Retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Serena Williams is one of the greatest athletes of all time. You can\u2019t talk about the game of tennis without referring to Serena in one way or the other, so it\u2019s not surprising that her Vogue interview announcing her retirement is trending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The soon to be 41 year old announced that she will be making the hard decision to focus on her family and other parts of her life, while tennis takes the back seat. A lot of people have differing opinions about her retirement, some are excited for her while some claim she should simply be grateful and not compare herself to her male colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all of these, what many people don’t know is that beyond the court, she’s also a business powerhouse. Williams has been busy investing in herself and building her empire and here are some key lessons you can learn from her retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have a backup plan<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Serena Williams is retiring from tennis but has a venture capital firm, Serena Ventures<\/a> and a clothing line, S by Serena<\/a> to fall back on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While many people believe that your salary is what you\u2019re paid to give up on your dreams, Serena teaches us that that\u2019s not always true. Your dream can be to have a very successful career, while also contributing to something outside of work \u2013 both can coexist if planned well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While building her tennis career, she used her influence and personal brand to start a VC company. This company has invested in brands like Masterclass (a unicorn) and Tonal, which build smart home gym machines. This means that she\u2019s able to use the money she\u2019s accumulated from her successful tennis career to invest in businesses. With equity from these businesses, she\u2019s simply making her money work for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before making decisions that can potentially take away or reduce your income, always ensure you\u2019ve spent some time creating a backup plan. This backup plan should be able to cater to your expenses for a period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn from those ahead of you <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExperience is the best teacher\u201d \u2013 not true when you can simply learn from other people\u2019s experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Vogue interview announcing her retirement<\/a>, Serena talks about her early years as a tennis player and how she considered herself an amateur compared to her sister, Venus Williams<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I was little, I was not very good at tennis\u201d, she said. It\u2019s hard to think of Serena as someone who was not good at tennis, but she\u2019s been able to grow to become who she is by watching her sister and other people she admired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She talked about missing opportunities her sister got in the early days and how that helped her to work on her skills till she became a GOAT<\/em> at the game. \u201cI\u2019d travel to tournaments with Venus as her hitting partner, and if there was an open slot, I\u2019d play. I followed her around the world and watched her. When she lost, I understood why, and I made sure I wouldn\u2019t lose the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question is, who are you studying? Whose life is inspiring you to build long-term wealth? Thankfully, there\u2019s so much financial education information on the Cowrywise blog<\/a> that can help. You really can avoid ending up poor if you consistently implement the tips shared on the blog. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI learned the lessons from Venus\u2019s losses instead of the hard way, from my own.\u201d Some people are hell-bent on learning lessons the hard way instead of learning from the many people that have gone ahead of them.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Be your own competition <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In this Tiktok video<\/a>, Simon Sinek talks about the importance of being less obsessed with your competition and more obsessed with why you do what you do and where you\u2019re going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not that your competition is useless or that you should never study them, it\u2019s that you should simply not let the thoughts of your competition take over your entire life. Simon says \u201cif you wake up every single morning and compete against yourself, you\u2019ll probably be ahead more often.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is definitely true about Serena and it can be true about you too. Having clear goals can help you compete against yourself more effectively. Instead of worrying about what others are doing or not doing when it comes to building wealth, you can set goals for yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n