The 'It' Factor: Compassion
Want to make the world a better place? Take a page from Andre Agassi's book
For many athletes, the transcendence from great to all-time great isn’t awarded at retirement, and it doesn’t rest with the laurels gained during playing days. It comes after retirement. When they’re done playing and compete against larger causes.
Andre Agassi is an all-time great. Sure, the eight-time Grand Slam winner proved that during his playing days, but off the court the tennis legend has been equally great, if not more so, with the compassion he shows in his charity work.
“Compassion is a spiritual quality that transcends your thoughts and feelings,” says Maria Nemeth, PhD., author of “Mastering Your Life’s Energies: Simple Steps to a Luminous Life at Work and Play (New World Library, 2007). If you show compassion and recognize that all people want to do in life is make a contribution, and you strive to see the best in hem, you and the people around you feel great, she says.
That’s what Agassi has done in his hometown, Las Vegas. In 1994, he founded the Andre Agassi Charitable Association, which assists troubled youths of the community. Compassionate people look beyond behavior or words, says Nemeth. “They try to see that everyone is just trying to do the best they can in life.”
Agassi’s work earned him the Association of Tennis Professionals’ Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award in 1995. The Foundation opened his own Boys & Girls Club in 1997, which works with more than 2,000 children a year in athletic and academic endeavors. It’s that desire to get the most out of people that make’s Agassi’s work so compassionate. If you try to help a person that’s broken, you’re acting out of pity, says Nemeth, but if you’re interacting with them because you see them as someone who has goals and dreams, you’re acting the right way: out of compassion.
And it’s about wanting to give more than you had. Agassi’s passion for education is apparent; he opened the tuition-free Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy opened in 2001. But the tennis start himself never finished his formal education because of turning pro. Compassionate individuals take their own unfulfilled accomplishments and strive to help others realize those same dreams.
Compassion doesn’t take millions of dollars or never-ending hours of volunteer work. It simply is trying to look for the best in others ¬– making that distinction between passion and pity – and then helping them achieve that.
“The minute you see the best in other, it affects your feelings,” says Nemeth. “It affects how you feel.”
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