Billie Jean King has had a prolific career as a No. 1 tennis player in the world and fierce advocate for women’s representation and equality in sports and beyond.
So it makes sense that people often ask her for her best advice for doing meaningful work that makes a positive impact.
King says the best career advice she has to offer is something she and her mentor, the late businessman Edgar Woolard, came up with together — she had once asked him for guidance on what to say during a college commencement speech she was giving.
They wanted to balance advice that helps people achieve outward success, like money and recognition, with inner success and what keeps people happy, King told CNBC Make It at an event in partnership with e.l.f. to recognize King becoming the first female athlete to receive a Hollywood Walk of Fame star for sports entertainment.
King and Woolard came up with three key elements to success:
- Relationships are everything. That applies to the relationship you have with yourself, your loved ones, your colleagues or business associate, and your community, King says.
- Keep learning, and keep learning how to learn. This concept is similar to what some people refer to as having a growth mindset. Consider: “How do I get better at learning?” King says. “That’s a lifelong curriculum.”
- Be a problem solver. Better yet, King adds, learn how to be an innovator and find improvements for things beyond the task at hand.
“Those are the three things that I hope will help anybody at any age, but particularly young people,” King says.
To King’s point of continual learning, the 81-year-old recently re-enrolled in college to earn the history degree she started more than 60 years ago; King left college in 1964 to pursue her tennis career, but now she’s back to hitting the books as part of California State University L.A.’s Class of 2026.
King says she’d been thinking about finishing her degree for many years and figured now was the time to finally do it.
“I love history,” she says. “The more you know about history, and the more you know about yourself. It’s amazing.”
History-making game-changers, after all, inspire her to greatness. King considers Althea Gibson, who in 1950 became the first Black tennis player to compete in the U.S. National Championships and had a storied career, an early inspiration.
King continues to be inspired by women athletes paving the future of women’s sports today, she says: “I look at all of them and realize how hard they must have worked just to get where they are.”
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