Notable Life has gained some new family members including Canadian tennis superstar, Vasek Pospisil. He’s one of our new YouTube contributors with a channel called Bounce. Notable readers can now go behind-the-scenes with Vasek at tournaments like the Rogers Cup and Wimbledon, and also get to know him off the court.
Some of us in the Notable office (ahem, me) are sidetracked by the fact that Vasek is so Bachelor worthy. He’s super tall, blonde and blue-eyed, tanned, extremely athletic and MOST IMPORTANTLY a nice and salt-of-the-earth guy who grew up in Vernon, British Columbia. He’s maximum handsome.
And did you know that Vasek Pospisil loves to sing? Did you know that he meditates? Well, he used to — more on that in a minute.
We can talk more about Vasek’s good looks another time but for now, this is Vasek Pospisil’s funny story about meditating too much — so much that he actually got too zen and it started to affect his game.
Vasek was in Toronto earlier this week and so we went for sushi at Ja Bistro (Vasek is a bona fide sushi lover). I generally expect pro athletes to be super intense and controlled, mostly because they have to be so focused on their sport to win, but Vasek was all smiles and stories.
I loved hearing how close Vasek is with his brothers (especially his brother Tom who shows up in Vasek’s video from Wimbledon) and how his health is so good and metabolism so fast that, even when he has a rare night off to party with friends, he never suffers physically during or after the party, no matter what. #WellnessGoals.
The best story of the night for sure was about how Vasek used to meditate all day every day, until it made him way too zen.
If you need any further proof that meditation works to calm the mind, take it from Vasek who had to ease up on meditating constantly (all day, every day), just so he could feel fiery and competitive enough to win his matches. Vasek is the #2 male ranked player in Canada so winning isn’t a casual dream, it’s critical.
Vasek still meditates every day, and more seriously in the lead up to a major tournament, but he had to recalibrate his meditation practice when he found himself feeling too zen on the court.
If you don’t meditate yet, this story explains why it’s beneficial for ambitious young professionals to practice. Like Vasek said, meditation is all about balance. The expectation isn’t that you become a silent monk, it’s that you find time to focus on nothing but your thoughts and well-being for some time every day.
The benefits of meditation vary, depending on what you need in your life. The benefits for Vasek are that he competes at tournaments like Wimbledon and is one of the world’s best tennis players, among guys like Roger Federer and Andy Murray.
Watch Vasek arrive at Wimbledon and take you behind-the-scenes of the world’s most illustrious tennis tournament and subscribe to Bounce here.