What Serena Williams and I Have in Common
I have the athletic ability of cauliflower.
This has been well documented over the course of my life.
In gym class I was the kid strategically standing near the wall hoping the volleyball would choose someone else. If the dodgeball gods demanded a sacrifice, it was probably going to be me.
So when a coaching book started talking about tennis, you might reasonably assume my brain would glaze over like a dozen Long’s Donuts.
But then I saw this equation.
Performance = Potential – Interference
P = p – i
And I had the exact opposite reaction.
I sat up like my dogs hearing a cheese slice wrapper.
Because that tiny equation explains almost everything.
Not just in tennis.
In life.
The Lie We Were Taught About Performance
Most of us grew up believing performance works like this:
Performance = effort.
Work harder.
Push more.
Try again.
Add another certification.
Another strategy.
Another productivity system.
Stack enough effort and eventually success appears.
Except that’s not how humans actually work.
In the 1970s, Timothy Gallwey wrote The Inner Game of Tennis and proposed something quietly radical:
People already have enormous potential.
The real problem isn’t lack of ability.
It’s interference.
And if your brain ever sounds anything like:
You know how to do this
So why aren’t you doing it?
Get it together.
While you’re rewashing the same load of clothes.
Lying in bed even though you know you’re already going to be late.
Spending hours avoiding a ten-minute task.
Congratulations.
You have met interference.
Interference Is Sneaky AF
Interference doesn’t show up wearing a villain cape.
It shows up looking responsible.
Responsible looks like:
Perfectionism
Overthinking
People pleasing
Second guessing
Over-researching
Waiting until you’re “ready”
All of which feel like you are being careful.
But biologically speaking, your nervous system is slamming the brakes.
When the brain senses threat, the prefrontal cortex loses access to the wheel. Creativity drops. Learning slows. Decision making gets foggy.
Which is why someone can be brilliant and still feel stuck.
Not because they lack potential.
Because interference is loud.
And the wild part?
The more capable you are, the easier it is for interference to hide.
Because high-functioning women don’t fall apart.
We compensate.
We read more books.
We take another training.
We build a better spreadsheet.
We stay late.
We help everyone else succeed.
From the outside it looks like competence.
From the inside it often feels like pushing a shopping cart with one infuriating stuck wheel.
You’re moving.
But something is dragging.
The Most Dangerous Form of Interference
The internal narrator.
The one narrating your life like a dramatic audiobook.
Not good enough.
Too late.
Too much.
Too risky.
Too embarrassing.
What Gallwey noticed watching tennis players is that instruction alone didn’t improve performance.
Awareness did.
When players simply noticed what their bodies were doing, the nervous system relaxed. The brain got curious instead of critical.
And performance improved.
Not because the coach poured knowledge into them.
Because the interference got quieter.
Midlife Is When the Interference Gets Questioned
For a lot of women, this starts happening in our forties.
The rules we were handed start to feel… suspicious.
Work harder.
Be grateful.
Don’t rock the boat.
Be the reliable one.
Take care of everyone.
Smile while doing it.
Those rules probably helped us build very competent lives.
But competence and aliveness are not the same thing.
And at some point, your nervous system starts asking a question your twenty-year-old self didn’t have the bandwidth for:
Is this actually mine?
Or did I just get really good at following instructions?
Coaching, At Its Best, Does One Thing
It reduces interference.
Not by yelling motivation.
Not by adding more pressure.
But by helping people notice what is already happening inside their own system.
Because human beings are not empty vessels waiting to be filled with expertise.
We are much closer to acorns.
We’re built to grow.
But when the environment interferes, we don't stop.
We grow around it.
Screw the New
Performance is not about becoming someone new.
It’s about removing what is blocking who we already are.
Most people don’t need more information.
We need less interference.
And interference usually sounds like a very convincing version of our own voice.
Why This Equation Deserves its Own T-Shirt
Because it’s so simple.
And so wildly freeing.
We do not need to manufacture potential.
We already have it.
Most people think we need to become better.
Most of the time we just need less noise in our head.
You're not broken.
You're interrupted. And interruptions can be removed.
