When you look back a winning career, you only need to win 80 percent of the time to be considered one of the greatest athletes of all time. Roger Federer offers thoughtful insights to the Dartmouth class of 2024 gained from his career.
“I feel your pain. I know how it’ feels’s like when people keep asking what your plan is for the rest of your life.” Federer told the graduating class of Dartmouth. He says he got asked that a lot, when he finally retired from tennis.
Federer had some choice “tennis lessons” for the assembled group of students, parents and faculty, including the idea that he worked as hard as he could every day and would still lose some times. “A point is just a point,” he told them.
The difference between a successful career and not having much of a career isn’t the ability to never lose, but the ability to pick yourself up and move forward, and keep trying to win again and again. Grit is a gift, he told them. Talent without hard work will not always win. But hard work can turn anyone into a talent.
Winning Isn’t the Name of the Game
In his career of playing 1,526 singles matches, he won 1,251 of them, or nearly 80 percent, including raising the trophy 369 times in a Grand Slam event. He is the only player to have won at least 100 matches in two different Majors (105 wins at Wimbledon and 102 wins at the Australian Open).
But even so, he told the graduating class, he only won 54 percent of his points. That means they were the points that mattered toward the ultimate win. But there were also painful losses, like his 2008 Wimbledon defeat at the hands of Nadal. Some called it the greatest match of all, he says, but it would have better, in his opinion if he had won and racked up six consecutive titles.
People said he was washed up. “But I knew what I had to do.” So he got back to work and started winning again. Point being? Don’t get stuck thinking you’re a loser when you drop a point or even lose a big match. Pick yourself up and keep working on your game and playing to win. You may surprise yourself at how hard you can work.
Federer also shared that he knew tennis would let him see the world, but tennis was not the whole world. Never lose perspective on what really matters, he told them. Now he loves to drive his kids to practice or spend time with his family.
Here is more wisdom and advice from the greatest tennis player of our generation. It takes less than 4 minutes to listen to, but will inspire you for the rest of the day and even beyond that. Share it with a friend who needs to hear this today.
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