Wow — 6 months of quarantine. To be honest, this fucking sucks. I hate wearing masks, I hate not hugging or kissing people on the cheek when I see them, I hate being annoyed when people crash at my table during dinner at the tennis club. I hate everything about this pandemic. I can go on and on and on with things that I hate in this new covid reality but focusing on the negative doesn’t really help. In my previous post I shared that being negative is something that I always struggled with and quite frankly still struggle with. It is so easy to take one negative thought or situation and spiral into a storm of negative thoughts. One bad thought leads to the next and you can always find something that you dislike. On the flip side, you can always find something good in everything. Definitely having the glass half full instead of half empty mentality helps.

Over the years I’ve learned that our attitude affects much more than just us. My tennis coach used to say “what you do doesn’t only affect you” and I never really heard what he was really trying to say until years later. If you have group of 8 people and one person is always being a Negative-Nancy, then two things will happen: 1) the energy of the group will be dampened by this person (me!!) and 2) no one is going to want to be around this person. Theres also this quote that says something like ‘your energy introduces you before you open your mouth when you enter the room’ and I cannot agree with this more. Think about every time you meet someone new. Especially when they come into your “home” territory. You are looking to see what kind of vibe they are giving and if you feel like it would fit you/your group’s vibe and energy. I’m the type of person that takes people at face value — meaning that your first impression is everything to me. If I have even the slightest bad vibe from you, it will take a lot for me to change my mind. I trust my gut and more often than not, my gut is right. Put your best foot forward when meeting people because sometimes you won’t get do overs or an infinite amount of opportunities to leave a good impression on people. Why should you even care about this? Well, in the work place, for example, your reputation is everything. If people like working with you or like your work, then positive word of mouth will travel, you’ll get opportunities to meet new people as you grow and you don’t wan’t to blow those opportunities.

Okay, okay — you get it. It’s important to be positive and give off a good vibe. So for this post, I had to interview the king of good vibes and positive energy. My sweet friend, and former teammate, Gonzalo Andres Martinez.

“My Name is Gonzalo Andres Martinez, but my friends call me Gonzo. I am from Madrid, Spain, and I am currently working for Wilson Sporting Goods as an IT Support Analyst and also as a Social Media Ambassador. I started playing tennis when I was 5, I was very fortunate of having a grandfather that devoted himself to the Spanish Army, protecting my country, because of that he had certain benefits, one of them being a member of a military sports club that had tennis courts.
When me and my sisters were born, he applied for us to have access to the club, I then started playing tennis with my cousin, loved every second I spent with him on the court, I soon started to improve and spend more and more hours, falling in love with the sport and bringing me where I am today now. So, if you ask me for the reason, I would probably say I started to play because and thanks to my grandfather.”

Of course we met through tennis, because how else do I meet people in my life? Gonzalo transferred to Chicago State when I was in my third year, I believe and we started getting close because we had the same major, computer science, and we both spoke Spanish. To be honest, I hadn’t really been exposed to that much Spanish from Spain until I went away to school and it is a completely different language. I had no idea what they were saying half the time. (Another great benefit of playing college sports is meeting people from all over the world). Gonzo always had Spanish sayings from Spain that I had never heard before and they would make me laugh. One day he said the word “chachi” which I’m still not 100% clear on what it’s supposed to mean. I think it’s slang for like good? Anyway, I became obsessed with that word and ever since then I’ve always called him Chachi, which makes absolutely zero sense, but it’s our thing, and I love it.

So I asked Gonzo to share his favorite memory of us and I was honestly scared to read his answer. We have shared so many crazy memories together and they literally all bring a smile to my face when I think about them.

“Oof, where to start hahaha, countless hours spent on class together, doing projects, at the cafeteria, on the tennis court and traveling. But probably something that always puts a smile on my face is when we talk about that philosophy class we had together, early in the morning, you were always so grumpy for having to take it (it could get veeery boring) but I would try to make you face it with positivism saying “qué bien que vamos a clase de filosofía!!” and that became our inside joke and we soon started to do it every time. Even if it was just for a few seconds we would both laugh and get in class with a smile on our faces.”

It’s so fitting that he picked this memory of us, especially for the topic of this post. That one little sentence had the power to turn my entire day around! Like, how!? I was NOT a morning person back then and we all know to avoid 8am classes like the plague in college, so you can only imagine my level of grumpiness in the morning walking into that class. It was so annoying and it was one of those bullshit classes that didn’t really have anything to do with your major but at the same time it did. The point is that I did not want to be in it and he made it so enjoyable for me. Power of positivity.

So it’s easy to be positive when things are going great but what about when you are faced with obstacles in life? It gets a bit harder to focus on the good when the good is hard to find. Another reason why Gonzo and I bonded was because we were literally always injured. Always.

“I’ve been having injuries nonstop since I was 16, and I am not talking about ‘2 weeks of rest’ kind of injuries, but more like broken bones, torn ligaments, and worn out joints. We indeed connected right away because of the pain and frustration we both had for not being able to play at our best due to the limitations we had. I thought they were a curse, now, looking back, I kinda think they were a blessing, you just have to accept what is happening to you in the moment and learn something new from each one of those injuries. Every temporary failure is a blessing in disguise.”

I can’t even begin to list all of the injuries he had lol. The main ones were his wrist and his knee and mine was my shoulder. We were injured so often what we even bonded with our athletic trainer, Pepe, who also speaks Spanish. The three amigos rehabbing all the injuries together! For me, having shoulder surgery was one of the lowest points in my life. It’s hard to be in pain when you’re doing what you love and it’s also super hard to come back from an injury because so much work goes into getting back where you were. And if you are lucky, you will make it back to where you were or close to it. Hardly ever can you surpass the baseline, at least that’s what it felt like for me. To be honest, I don’t know what was worse, traveling with the team and not playing or not traveling at all and being stuck on campus when all your friends were away competing. I felt like it was a lose-lose situation and thought I would never be able to win matches again. I wanted to quit so many times, like literally every day, but I obviously made it through that rough patch and now I play all the time. I had my injury before I met Gonzalo, but when he came to school and I witnessed how he dealt with his injuries, it completely changed my mind about injuries.

“I’ve met so many people that got tired even ended up hating tennis because they got pushed so much, and played nonstop their entire lives, I now look back and think, maybe the reason why I love tennis so much is because I never got to play as much as I wanted, even now, with being “and adult” working and doing all that boring stuff, I still don’t get to play as much as I want, therefore, every time I get to jump on the court I enjoy it like I’ve never done before.”

My shoulder injury was on my right shoulder and I’m right handed, but I played in some beginner clinics during the summer with my left hand while my right arm was in a sling in Mexico when I was visiting my grandparents. I did that because I was worried I may never play again or may never be pain free and also because I had nothing better to do. It was just to pass the time, but looking back, playing with my left hand gave my such strength in that arm and my backhand tremendously improved because of it. Gonzalo helped me see the glass half full, particularly with injuries. Because of injuries, Gonzalo and I have learned so much more about our bodies and it has made victories taste even sweeter because of all the hard work required to battle back to our baseline. He understands me on a level that a lot of people don’t. We share a special bond.

Gonzalo has this brand called ‘uno mas’ which translates to ‘one more'. That’s why the symbol is the number one (uno in Spanish) and the plus sign (mas in Spanish). For me, 1+ is an attitude. When I workout and say I’m on the Peloton, and the instructor is like one more song or one more interval or one more set, I just think of how much I have already done, and how little one more is in comparison. It’s a mentality for me. It helps me push forward until the very end and then some.

“That is interesting, I actually didn’t think it about how little is the “one more” is compared to what I’ve already done… I like that point of view too. The idea came from a practice I had with my dad one day during Christmas break. I was feeling very tired and during one drill he just kept feeding balls, saying “Una mas! Una mas!” by just focusing on one more shot, I ended up doing the entire basket, which seemed impossible, but by doing just one more shot, was doable. It wasn’t until a few months later when that really got into my head when I was back in the US by myself facing a tough situation. I’ve always been a hard worker, but felt like those two words represented my mentality to perfection: Doesn’t matter how far you are, how much you have accomplished, how tired you are, you are always capable of more than what you think, so go for it, go for one more.
That applies to tennis of course, you just have to make one more ball than the opponent, just one more point, just one game, that seems way more doable and feasible than winning an entire match don’t you think? But also applies to life in general, trying one more time, giving someone another chance, standing up again, it means basically, not giving up.
To be honest these have been tough times for me as well, and I did forget to implement that mentality on my daily life, it is good to be doing this [interview] to remind myself why I started. I do feel like the 1+ mentality helped me the most on the tennis court, I think it has the greatest impact when it comes to sports ( at least for me)
Probably the most recent moment when I applied this mentality was while preparing for the Chicago Marathon in 2019, the training was very tough for me, there were days I just wanted to run 10 mins and quit, and then I started doing this little game, “Okay Gonzo, let’s see if you can do 1 more km, if you can, then we check again how we feel” After accomplishing that km I would ask that question again and again until running the entire distance that was scheduled for that day.”

I feel like we can do anything just one more time and it’s all about our frame of mind. Do we really want to do one more rep of anything? Usually not, but how good will we feel if we do just shut up and do it? More often than not, complaining about doing something takes more time than actually doing it. You can honestly apply this mentality to literally everything. It works especially well for like the last rep or iteration of something because compared to the entire body of work, just one more rep is virtually nothing. You can do it. If you are looking for a sign or motivation to do something, this is it!

It’s hard to imagine a life without tennis for me and it’s crazy how intertwined it is in my life. But it’s not the same as before. In college, we had to play every single weekend, a lot of times 2 or 3 matches per weekend and I think I took competing for granted. Now that I rarely get to compete, I miss it so much. So I asked Gonzalo if he felt the same way. Do you miss competitive tennis? Did you ever think that tennis would help give you your education and then become such a huge part of your life even after college? What does tennis mean to you?

Wow, what a question. I always dreamt about becoming professional player, but I knew deep down it would never happen, despite of that I wanted to see how far I could go, and over time I became so happy with my progress as a player. I never imagined that I would love the sport so much, and that I would have the best years of my life after making the decision to leave Spain just so I could keep playing tennis. There are 3 things I can’t live without: Family, friends, and tennis.
Even if I don’t play is as much as I would like to, tennis has taught me important values, it has allowed me to meet some of my best friends, it made possible to live amazing adventures, it allowed me to work in so many different places and has also been the reason for the darkest moments of my life. Tennis is me, even if I don’t play it the same way I used to, as much as I want to, it is and always be my life, I owe everything to this sport.

Growing up, I don’t think we realize the importance of our choices and how our decisions will have lasting effects on our lives. I can guarantee that neither Gonzalo or myself expected tennis to be anything more than just a sport. It’s so satisfying to know that tennis will always be a major part of our lives.

Another thing Gonzalo and I have in common is that we are both away from our families. Even though he has graduated from CSU, he still lives and works in Chicago and his parents live in Spain. It’s tough to be away from family but I think in a way it makes you appreciate the time you do get to spend with family more.

“I guess, the more time I spend here, the more I realize that I miss things from home. For example, the amount of work my parents put to give me everything, to work day and night so me and my sisters could have a good life, the good food, my childhood friends, my tennis club that feels like a second home etc. That being said I always try to look at the good side of things, I don’t like to spend much time thinking about what I miss, because I know one day, when I come back to Spain, I am going to miss the USA too.
Coming here was the first decision I made on my own, sometimes I forget how I got here because I ended up normalizing this dream. It’s only when I sit down and reflect on what is going on with my life that I get to fully appreciate it. The best thing I can do and this is a piece of advice for everyone, appreciate the present, even the smallest things, one day you will look back and miss them, so make sure you enjoy it while you can so you don’t have any regrets when that feeling shows up.”

He’s so inspirational, I swear after reading his responses or even just texting him I feel like I’m ready to do anything I want. One of my favorite quotes is “surround yourself with people that feel like sunshine” and Gonzo is someone that feels like sunshine.

Ok, so my all time favorite question to ask people that I interview: Is there anything else you want to share?

“I just wanted to say thank you, thank you to you Marnie for making me think — life passes by so fast it looks like you never have time to stop and think, these questions really forced me to stop and spend an entire afternoon thinking about how lucky I am.
So thank you for always being there, and thank you to every single person that has been with me through this journey, specially to my family for all the sacrifices they had to make to make this possible.
With love
Chachi

I can’t stop smiling after reading/writing this post. He literally feels like sunshine even through his responses, it’s unreal. Moral of the story, your attitude is everything. Be as positive as you can as often as you can. Push yourself to do one more rep of whatever it is that you’re doing because you are capable of more than you think.

Until next time—

xx hangry marn