Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open, is a raw and inspiring memoir that gripped me from beginning to end.

You can read the hundreds of 5  star customer and editorial reviews at Amazon for yourself.

I read ‘Open’ in 2 days, and brought back many wonderful memories of when I played competitive tennis as a junior.

It also conjured up feelings I’ve put away since I was a teen.

While Agassi’s father was a ‘dog on a bone’ about Andre being number 1 in the world, pushing him in every imaginable way to be better, hit harder, and being the best.

I remember wishing my parents attended more of my games and tournaments. Now, supporting my family and growing a business, I fully realize now how much my parents had to sacrifice in time, opportunity and finances to support our family and to provide as many opportunities for us 3 kids. I’m forever grateful to my parents and always encouraged with their courage, tirelessness and spirit to make it work for our family.

Remembering the feeling of hoping my parents were at more of my games, and having the freedom from a web-based business, I strive to be as present as I can at my kids’ events, cheering positively from the sidelines, filing precious moments in my memory bank.

Andre was my tennis hero growing up. When I played tennis as a junior, I remember sporting the infamous Agassi mullet, wearing denim tennis shorts and emulating his tennis game. If I had a sexy bald head, I would sport one now like Agassi today, but alas, some things aren’t meant to be

In this issue, I want to ‘open’ up to page 186 & 187, where Brad Gilbert, Andre’s coach, critiqued Andre’s game at dinner. Brad wasn’t just speaking to Andre, he was speaking directly to me…

Perry, Andre’s good friend, was tasked with finding him a new coach to replace Nick Bollettierri. Perry urged Andre to consider Brad Gilbert, a fellow player nearing the end of his career, as their new coach.

It’s March 1994, and they’re dining at an Italian restaurant right on the water, on Fisher Island, close to Key Biscayne, where they’re playing in a tournament.

Perry wants Brad’s take on Andre’s game. Honestly. Brutally honest, in fact. No holding back.

Brad obliges.

And I quote, from page 186 and 187, with the bolded text below by Brad as statements that slap me silly…

“It’s not rocket science, he says. If I were you, with your skills, your talent, your return and footwork, I’d dominate. But you’ve lost the fire you had when you were sixteen. That kid, taking the ball early, being aggressive, what the hell happened to that kid?”

Brad says my overall problem, the problem that threatens to end my career prematurely – the problem that feels like my father’s legacy – is perfectionism.

“You always try to be perfect”, he says, “and you always fall short, and it f**ks with your head. Your confidence is shot, and perfectionism is the reason. You try to hit a winner on every ball, when just being steady, consistent, meat and potatoes, would be enough to win ninety percent of the time.”

He talks a mile a minute, a constant drone, not unlike a mosquito. He builds his argument with sports metaphors, from all sports, indiscriminately. He’s an avid sports fan, and an equally avid metaphor fan.

“Quit going for the knockout”, he says.

“Stop swinging for the fences. All you have to be is solid. Singles, doubles, move the chains forward.

Stop thinking about yourself, and your own game, and remember that the guy on the other side of the net has weaknesses. Attack his weaknesses. You don’t have to be the best in the world every time you go out there. You just have to be better than one guy. Instead of you succeeding, make him fail. Better yet, let him fail.”

“It’s all about odds and percentages. you’re from Vegas, you should have an appreciation of odds and percentages. The house always wins, right? Why? Because the odds are stacked in the house’s favor. So? Be the house! Get the odds in your favor. Right now, by trying for a perfect shot with every ball, you’re stacking the odds against yourself.

You’re assuming too much risk. You don’t need to assume so much risk. F**k that. Just keep the ball moving. Back and forth. Nice and easy. Solid. Be like gravity, man, just like motherf**king gravity.”

“When you chase perfection, when you make perfection the ultimate goal, do you know what you’re doing? You’re chasing some thing that doesn’t exist. You’re making everyone around you miserable. You’re making yourself miserable.

Perfection? There’s about five times a year you wake up perfect, when you can’t lose to anybody, but it’s not those five times a year that make a tennis player. Or a human being, for that matter. It’s the other times.”

“It’s all about your head, man.

With your talent, if you’re fifty percent game-wise, but ninety-give percent head-wise, you’re going to win.

But if you’re ninety-five percent game-wise and fifty-percent head-wise, you’re going to lose, lose, lose.”

“Again since you’re from Vegas, put it this way. It takes twenty-one sets to win a slam. That’s all. You need to win just twenty-one sets. Seven matches, best of five. That’s twenty-one.

In tennis, like cards, twenty-one’s a winner. Blackjack! Focus on that number, and you won’t go wrong.

Simplify, simplify. Every time you win a set, say to yourself, That’s one down. That’s one in my pocket. At the start of a tournament, count backward from twenty-one. That’s positive thinking, see?

Of course, speaking for myself, when I’m playing blackjack, I’d rather win with sixteen, because that’s winning ugly. No need to win with twenty-one. No need to be perfect.”

Brad Gilbert’s critique of Andre’s game that night in March 1994 felt like he was speaking just to me in my living room, 2 days ago, this December 2009.

All the statements I’ve bolded above matter to me. They express what’s been going on in my head, behind closed doors, in my work, in my life.

I know it’ll be a process to unwind this modus operandi. I know I’m a work in progress. It often feels like 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

But f**k perfection. I’ll keep it simple and keep the ball moving.

Andre Agassi, if by some miracle you’re reading this, your journey, courage, fight, game, Prep Academy’s mission and your life in ‘Open’ has inspired and re-energized me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Brad Gilbert, if by some miracle you’re reading this, thanks for having the CHUTZPAH that night in March 1994 to tell Andre like it is, so the world can benefit from your insights on winning via Andre’s ‘Open’. Thank you, thank you, thank you! [UPDATED: Dec 18, 2009 Brad Gilbert sent thanks on Twitter for the shout out. The web is such a small place, isn't it?]

What about you? What’s your story? What’s been your experience with perfection? Appreciate your thoughts and opinions…

(1) A cool advantage to CrashPlan is the software helps you backup to your own drives or to another computer (could be a friend’s computer too – think collaboration!) for FREE. Or you can backup to their cloud (3) with *unlimited storage* for a low cost.

(2) I do like their cross-platform flexibility.

And if you’re considering using it for personal use (and not commercial), it’s free!

On their Features page, they dive into more detail about their offer, including this Feature Comparison chart.

On their "Compare Online Pricing" page, they showcase your savings with CrashPlan, compared with the alternatives. What caught my attention is the Amazon S3 comparison, as I do backup to my S3 account using JungleDisk.

CrashPlan shows the Family Plan calculation by default. Let’s see what my savings are for an Individual computer using 1TB of data…

Yowza!! How do U like dem apples now?!

These numbers make me seriously reconsider my plan to backup all my data to my S3 account. Wouldn’t you?

Though CrashPlan would like your subscription to CrashPlan Central, they’ve offered you options to backup to your other offsite computer or another computer – and this service is free. Simply brilliant!

Check this video where he shares how simple it is to perform backups and restore to/from a Mac-to-PC. In addition, you can seed your backup to their offsite service via a 1TB external drive they provide, along with free shipping. Check out details in their store.

This shows the Overview view of the CrashPlan software on my Mac. Very simple, clean UI and easy to use.

What are you using for backup or your "crash plan"? Online service? Offsite service?

Appreciate your thoughts and feedback

01. Mainstream Popularity: For starters, podcasting has evolved into a broad mainstream medium. Today, a vast majority of media entities are using podcasts to expand their existing radio, TV, cable or satellite audiences.

A survey by eMarketer projects growth of the US podcast audience to balloon through 2013. The projections show 37.6 million people downloading podcasts monthly, more than double the 2008 figure of 17.4 million. This also represents 17% of Internet users, growing from 9% in 2008.

If podcast downloaders and the number of downloads are poised for double digits growth, it would be wise to integrate it into your marketing mix.

02. Additional Learning Modality: Offering your audience another learning modality with audio / podcast media embraces auditory learners. A percentage of your audience dislike watching video and would rather listen to an MP3 file on their iPod any day of the week. Catering to this crowd increases your percentages of more of your audience engaging with your content.

03. iPod Generation: As shared above, there’s a percentage of your audience that listen to audio files or podcasts enroute to work, while exercising in the gym or while walking their dogs. Unlike videos which require their active attention, your audience can drive, walk or be active while listening to your content. Catering to this “multi-tasking”, active audience with audio podcasts is a wise move to engage this crowd.

04. Podcast Marketing: Distributing (aka syndicating) your podcast channel/feed to podcast directories is a sound strategy to increase your exposure on the web, listenership and credibility in your niche. Using software like “RSS Submit” (DummySoftware.com) to syndicate your podcast feed to the top 50 podcast directories will make easy work of expanding your reach with your podcasts.

05. Inexpensive Technique: With the lesson I’ll share below, the price tag (free) to accomplishing this task will be very attractive to small & medium sized businesses (SMBs) on a budget.

Disclaimer: The process below will not teach you how to create a video OR detail podcast marketing with your audio. This step by step process will simply show you how to repurpose a video into audio simply.

Video Tip: To export your videos to a Quicktime .MOV file, follow these instructions from Blip.tv: http://blip.tv/learning/export

The assumption is that you have a video you’ve created and I’ll walk you through how to repurpose your video into an audio file easily. This process is free, convenient, does not require the use of other software, and once complete, you’ll have access to the linked audio file on the web – ready for your podcast marketing.

This process takes advantage of the transcoding process Blip.tv offers to all its customers. Blip.tv will automatically transcode your videos into audio MP3s, iPod-friendly MPEG-4 (.M4V) videos, and Flash video (.FLV) from your one .MOV uploaded video file. Let’s dive into the process…

01. In your browser, visit Blip.tv account, click the "Login" link to access your account

03. To register for a free Blip.tv account, click the "Sign Up" link to begin your registration.

Once logged in, roll your mouse over the "Upload" tab, revealing the drop-down table. Click the "Web upload" link.

01. Title: describe the title of your field here. Write your title to read naturally to visitors, while including your important keywords.

02. Description: describe your video in this field. I recommend including your URL to your destination page or site before your text description.

03. Your File: Click the "Choose File" button to upload your video.

04. If you have more than one format of the same video to upload, click the "Add additional format/captioning" link to do so. This is optional.

05. Thumbnail: If you desire a start image for your video, click the "Choose File" button to upload your thumbnail image.

01. License: Click the drop-down table to reveal a selection of available licenses you can add to your video. (Note: The selection highlighted in blue above is not an indication of what you should select. Choose a license that best suits your needs.)

02. If you have a web address to a custom license for this video, add your URL in this field.

01. Tags (keywords): Add all appropriate keywords pertaining to your video

02. Genre: Associate your video to a select genre in this drop-down selection of genres

03. Content Rating: Click the drop-down table to select the appropriate content rating for your video

04. Language: If your video is in English, leave this field as is. If not, change the language setting.

05. Event: If you want to associate your video to a current event, you can add the name of the event in this field or click "Find Event" to locate one that has already been added.

This is the section where the magic happens!

01. Cross Posting: To cross post to these services, checkbox the desired target destinations. (Note: In order for Blip.tv to cross-post to these sites, you’ll need to enter your access codes of your accounts into your account settings first.)

02. Internet Archive Cross-Uploading: The Internet Archive is another destination that is popular and receives Google love. Select the checkbox if so desired.

03. Conversion Targets: We’re finally here! Select the 2 checkboxes as Blip.tv will convert your Quicktime .MOV file to .M4V (for iPods and iPhones) and .MP3 audio files.

I wouldn’t bother about the Privacy Settings as you want your video as public as possible, right? So leave this alone.

The final step is to click the orange "Upload" button to begin the upload process including cross-posting and converting to additional formats.

In your Dashboard, you’ll see the video you’ve uploaded, along with status updates of your conversion and cross-posting activities.

In this sample video in my account, you can see conversions to .FLV, .M4V and .MP3 completed, and completed cross-posts to Twitter, del.cio.us and Flickr too.

Now, let’s seek the link to the completed .MP3 converted file by clicking either the video title link or the "Share" link.

Locate your video’s "Files and Links" module in the bottom of the right-sidebar.

Click the [+] sign to expand the module.

You’ll see the "MP3 Audio (.mp3)" field and URL to the audio file. See the "Right Click > Save" link? That’s how you can save the link for embedding into your blog or downloading to your computer.

With the mainstream popularity of podcasting and iPods, offering podcasts to your listening audience is not only an inexpensive venture but wise and effective to expand your reach and credibility.

The steps above details the easy and convenient process of converting your videos to audio. Armed with this knowledge, now its your turn to convert your videos to audio to maximize your marketing leverage.

If you decide to try repurposing your videos into audio using this process, I’d appreciate your feedback on how this process worked for you.

Go to the Firefox Add-Ons website at http://addons.mozilla.org .

Locate "DownThemAll!" and add this add-on to your Firefox browser by clicking the "Add To Firefox" green button.

Click "Tools" in your toolbar. Click "DownThemAll! Tools" and select "Manager".

You can check out "Preferences" and the other DTA options later. For the time being, we’ll download a video file using DTA’s Manager.

Clicking the blue "Add URL(s)" button will allow you to enter the URL of files you want to download.

Once you enter your URL, click "Start" and you’ll begin downloading your file(s) in a hurry!

Would you like to weigh in on downloading applications? Was this helpful? Do you use other Firefox add-ons or apps – for both PC or Mac – that help you download files conveniently? Appreciate your comments and feedback.