You can learn anything that your heroes learnt

What have Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams and Emma Radacanu all got in common?

When they were younger, they all had a first step on to a tennis court and their first terrible hit of a tennis ball...

Maybe even into the net.

They went through thousands of hours of being frustratingly not-very-good.

It’s strange to ponder that like all the other greats of the game, Roger Federer also had a first lesson of tennis.

Actually, he started out as only playing football and dreaming of becoming a pro footballer.

But then he gradually transferred to learning tennis.

Surprisingly though, Roger, famous now for his coolness on court, used to have a terrible temper.

His coaches believed that because of his uncontrollable anger when losing points, that he just didn’t have the natural temperament to become a professional tennis player.

But, he learnt to control his rage.

And the rest is history.

A great example of the amazing benefits that learning, of both the physical and mental kind, can bring.

Here’s another baffling thought about learning.

William Shakespeare went to school.

William Shakespeare had an English teacher.

That's plain funny, weird or just crazy to think about, don’t you think?

And these aren’t special people with special learning ability.

You are exactly the same.

When you were born, all you could do was cry.

But you learnt to speak your mother tongue.

Perfectly fluent in a language - it’s amazing.

A great reminder that everything and anything can be learned.

Just take one minute to indulge yourself in the motivating words from Mark Bowden below.

Mark is an enormous advocate of the power of learning, and touched on this in our full length podcast.

What’s the next thing that you will learn?

What are your learning dreams?

If you’d like to chat about your learning goals, email us here at info@42courses.com and we’ll set up a video chat.