Danielle Mills Walden, a retired professional tennis player who competed on the WTA Tour, has transitioned from the courts to inspiring others as a best-selling author, mindset strategist, and keynote speaker. Trained rigorously from a young age at elite academies like IMG (formerly Bollettieri), she faced intense discipline, injuries including double knee surgery, and the challenge of redefining identity after retirement. In her book Scratching the Surface: Lessons from Bollettieri to IMG Academy and the Ways Elite Training Built a Champion’s Mindset and Shaped My Journey, she shares raw insights on pushing beyond perceived limits, embracing failure as fuel, and cultivating a champion’s mindset that anyone can develop. As a mother and advocate for high performers, she emphasizes gratitude, coachability, and controlling what you can to unlock true potential.
What inspired the title Scratching the Surface for your book?
This title I’ve had in my mind since I was a little kid. Honestly, I was 10 years old, and I always had this thought that I’m going to write my story, and I always knew that I wanted my story to be called Scratching the Surface, because to me, that gives me the vision of somebody who has not reached their potential yet, and as I’m scratching the surface of hitting that next level, that next milestone marker. That’s how I always have felt, even back then, and even today, I feel like I’m still scratching the surface on what could be, and that’s for anybody who’s trying to push themselves past their potential.
What did training at IMG Academy and competing on the WTA Tour teach you about excellence?
There’s been so many things. Honestly, it just comes down to being surrounded by so many young, talented individuals from all different countries around the world who all have the same goal of being excellent in their craft. That was so huge for me. It just helps shape your entire mindset, because everybody around you is striving to be the best, and they’re working super hard, and there’s no distractions. And just being in an environment where your entire day is structured and scheduled and disciplined, and all of those little key things that we were learning back then has truly helped me in the future, but ultimately, I’d say the proximity to greatness, being surrounded by so many elite athletes from all different countries and all different sports was ultimately the key factor.
How did the transition away from professional tennis feel, especially with identity tied to being an athlete?
It was big to have to go from your entire life was one thing, which was being a tennis player, to be faced with, okay, what is next? And one of the things that they tell players while they’re still competing is, you can’t have a plan B, you can’t have the next thing, because that takes your focus off of what you’re currently doing. So for so many athletes, when they’re faced with that moment of, what am I gonna do next, it is absolutely terrifying. And it scares them. But for me, I think ultimately when I knew I was going to walk away from the sport, and I knew this, because in my mind, I had been planning my retirement about 2 months before it actually took place. I didn’t tell anybody about that, but I knew in my head that it was going to be ending. I started thinking about, okay, what are some things that I’m good at, and what am I passionate about? And I’ve always been very big into mindset and into communication, so I knew if I retire from the sport, I wanted to get into those things, but I will be lying to you if I said it was easy to envision myself being anything other than a tennis player, because that’s what my identity was, but now I find so much pride in the other things that I’m doing today, and how I’m helping people, and working with others, and everything that I’ve done through tennis is still rooted in everything that I do, so it’s still coming with me, but ultimately, my identity today is being a mom. Like, that’s probably the greatest thing that I have, and then everything I’m doing with mindset and with talking to people and all those things.
How did failures and setbacks, like your double knee surgery, shape who you are today?
I’ve failed so many times throughout my career, and even as I go back and look at my record and my stats, like, I’ve had so many key losses that I’ve experienced, and when I was going through them in the moment, it was very, very tough, and it made me put a lot of pressure on myself, but what I’m so thankful for in all those experiences, with every loss, with every setback, every obstacle that I had to face, it required me to work on aspects of myself that I was able to sharpen and make stronger and make better. So, I’m so glad that early in my career and throughout my career, I experienced a ton of different obstacles and setbacks, one being having to have double knee surgery and be truly injured for almost a year, and have to rehab and recover and come back, but it gave me so much of my drive and my focus, and it taught me that, you know, an obstacle is only one piece in time. You can use that to propel you forward, and ultimately, it makes you that much more appreciative of the crap that you’re doing. So, for me, that was probably the biggest thing, is it taught me just to appreciate the journey of all of it.
During your recovery from double knee surgery, how did you stay focused mentally and physically?
Ultimately, I really focused on the really small things. Like, brick by brick, I kind of made goals for myself. I would talk to my physical therapist, and they would give me kind of an outline of, okay, on day 15 of this recovery, you should be doing this. On day 30, you should be doing this. So I basically took what I should be like at the end, and I worked backwards. So, what I tried to do was focus on little, small things that I could do myself, in my control, every single day, to help build off of that to get me to when I could walk again, then to when I could start jogging again inside of a pool, then to when I could actually start running again. And literally, it was all those small steps that I was taking that made me get better, but I had to think about just what was in front of me. I could not think too far in advance of what could happen, because then it would make me lose sight on what I’m currently experiencing, and that would make me depressed if I thought about, oh my gosh, I can’t even walk right now, I’m using a walker, I’m in a wheelchair. So I had to think about, okay, I’m just gonna do this small exercise today with my physical therapist, and I’m just gonna try to do the best I can with that, and then I’m gonna build off of that. And that’s I had to stay in the present moment. That’s all I could do.
Did your definition of winning change after the injury?
I would say yes. My definition of winning did change, because initially, I only looked at wins as the scoreboard. Did I win the match? Did I win the tournament? Did I beat the opponent? I looked at a win, like, did I get up? Did I run? Do I have pain? Do I have pain in my knees? And for so many years, I had excruciating pain in my knees, and I didn’t know why, and everybody around me told me it’s in my head. It’s not real, and it was such a blessing when I finally could convince somebody to get me an MRI to see that both of my meniscuses were torn, so that I knew that it wasn’t me that was just making up some excuse, it was legitimate. So to finally recover from a surgery of something that I experienced, and to be back on the court and not feel pain for the short period of time that I didn’t experience pain until the next injury came, that was a blessing, and just those are the small wins that I carried through.
What do you wish people understood about the human side of elite athletes?
That the human being is putting a ton of pressure on themselves, and from an extremely young age, the amount of additional pressure that athletes put on themselves just to be the best they can be is extremely intense, and then the amount of sacrifices that they’re making every single day, whereas maybe somebody normal is just like, okay, I’m just gonna go out to this party, or I’m gonna go visit a friend, or I’m gonna take this drink. Or do something like that, where that athlete for years, it took so much rewiring of my brain to even do some of the things that most people would consider to be normal, because for so many years, it was like, you’re not allowed to do this. There’s all these rules and regiment in our structure, in our upbringing, that it took a long time to kind of strip some of that away, just to kind of feel normal. But that we are human, and while we are so hyper-focused on one thing, and so specialized on one thing. In order to do that, it causes you to have areas of opportunity in other realms, because if you’re so hyper-focused on being an elite athlete in tennis, maybe you won’t have the best communication skills, or you won’t be the best friend, or you won’t be so there’s some things that you may be lacking in because you’re trying to be the best at this, so give some athletes a little bit of grace as they are navigating, because their whole life was dedicated to one thing. When that thing goes away, then that gives them an opportunity to kind of open their eyes and remove the blinders and be like, oh, there’s a whole world out here. Whereas for so many years, this is the only thing that I would focus on and know, and you couldn’t tell me anything else, because I didn’t care. And there’s an aspect of selfishness there, which is actually okay, because you need that to be successful, but it does require a person to have to grow to get out of that.
What’s the biggest misconception about having a champion’s mindset?
The biggest misconception is that you’re born with it. I would argue that a champion’s mindset can be taught. It can be learned, and it can be trained. Your mind is a muscle. It is something that you can work on every single day to make it stronger. A good exercise I like to help people with is, like, let’s say you are terrible at waking up early in the morning, and you just don’t want to do it, and you kept saying, I’ll do it tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow, and you keep putting it off. If you can force yourself to just do it one time, and you can teach your brain that you’re able to do it one time, it builds off of that, and it gets a little bit easier each time you do it. But most people, they make a goal so big, and it’s so far away from them, that they don’t even have the ability to start, and your mind is what allows you to start. So if you think about your mind as a muscle that is like in the gym that you can train every single day, it’s gonna get stronger, and it’s gonna be better. So ultimately, I would say that that’s a big misconception, that it is you’re just born with this great mindset. No, I wasn’t born with it, I was trained from an extremely young age to have a champion’s mindset, which the biggest thing is that I would say with mindset is you gotta control what you can control. And if you allow yourself to not focus on the things that are out of your control, it will open up your life.
What are three practical steps to build a champion’s mindset?
Number one, I think that you have to be very intentional about your goals. So number one, like, what are you trying to achieve? And write it down. Put it down on paper so that you can place it somewhere and you can see it, and write it down, and you can make it small. So that’s number one, is get really intentional about what your goals are. Number two would be get rooted in gratitude, and start writing down things that you’re grateful for every morning. 5 to 6 things that you are absolutely grateful for, because if you start each of your days with gratitude, it will allow the rest of your day to come together. And then, third, be extremely coachable. If somebody is willing to see an aspect of your game, or to critique an aspect of you, take what you want from that coaching, and you can leave what you don’t like from it, but always be receptive of feedback and coaching, because if somebody’s gonna take the time out of their day to give you feedback, just know that value that. You don’t have to value everybody’s feedback, because then that could make you go crazy, but be open to the coaching that you’re being received.
Where can people find your book and follow you?
The book is available everywhere on Amazon, which is like the mecca of where to get everything, but it’s also available on like Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, any bookstore you can think of is available online at those sites. It will be available on my website as well, but I think Amazon is the easiest place to get it, and as far as where you can follow me, I am Danielle Mills Walden on all social media. And I encourage you to connect with me on LinkedIn, follow me on Instagram, and on X, and I look forward to connecting with all of you.
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