These life lessons come from Roger Federer’s commencement talk at Dartmouth.
3 life lessons:
#1. Effortlessness is a myth.
“… I had to work very hard to make it look easy … Everybody can play well for two hours …after two hours your discipline starts to fade …I didn’t get where I got on pure talent alone. I got there by trying to outwork my opponents.
…belief in yourself has to be earned. …I beat some of the top players I was playing by aiming right at their strength…. Most of the time it’s not about having a gift it’s about having grit.”
#2. It’s only a point.
“In tennis perfection is impossible. In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches. …what percentage of points do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%. …even top ranked tennis players win barely half of the points they play.
When you lose every second point on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot… negative energy is wasted energy.
This is to me the sign of a champion, the best in the world are not the best because they win every point. It’s because they know they will lose again and again and have learned how to deal with it.”
#3. Life is bigger than the court.
Tennis could show me the world, but tennis could never be the world. …I realized pretty early that I wanted to serve other people in other countries. Motivated by my South African mother, I started a foundation to empower children through education.
Philanthropy can mean a lot of things. …It can mean starting a nonprofit or donating money, but it can also mean contributing your ideas, your time, your energy to a mission that is larger than yourself.
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