Roger Federer's valuable life lessons from tennis at Dartmouth graduation - HIGHLIGHTS

thank you everybody it's great to see you keep in mind this is literally only the second time I've ever set foot on a college campus second time ever but for some reason you are giving me a doctorate degree I just came here to give a speech but I get to go home as Dr Roger that's a pretty nice bonus so Dr Roger this has to be my most unexpected Victory ever thank you I'm happy to be here happy to be with you here on the green as you might have heard grass is my favorite surface

big green it must be Destiny I'm even more impressed because I left school at the age of 16 to play tennis full-time so I never went to college but I did graduate recently I graduated tennis like you I finished one thing and I'm moving on to the next like you I'm figuring out what that is graduates I feel your pain I know what it's like when people keep asking what your plan is for the rest of your life they ask me now that you are not a professional tennis player what do you do I don't

know and it's okay not to know effortless is a myth I mean it I say that as someone who has heard that word a lot effort L people would say my play was effortless most of the time they meant it as a compliment but it used to frustrate me when they would say he barely broke a sweat or he's even trying the truth is I had to work very hard to make it look easy I spend years whining swearing sorry throwing my racket before I learned to keep my cool the wakeup call came early in

my career when an opponent at the Italian Open publicly questioned my mental discipline he said Roger will be the favorite for the first two hours then I'll be the favorite after that I was puzzled at first but eventually I realized what he was trying to say everybody can play well the first two hours you're fit you're fast you're clear and after two hours your legs get wobbly your mind starts wandering and your discipline starts to fade it made me understand I have so much work ahead of me and I'm ready to go on this journey

I get it my parents my coaches my fitness coach every everyone had been calling me out and now even my rivals were doing it players thank you I'm eternally grateful for what you did because you made me work harder so I started to train harder a lot harder actually but then I realized winning effortlessly is the ultimate achievement I got that reputation because my warm-ups at the tournaments were so casual that people didn't think I've been training hard but I had been working hard before the tournament when nobody was watching watching maybe you've seen a

version of this at Dartmouth how many times did you feel like your classmates were racking up a after a without even trying while you were pulling all nighters loading up in caffeine maybe or crying softly in a corner of sandborn Library hopefully like me you learn that effortless is a myth when your game is clicking like that winning is easy relatively then there are days when you just feel broken your back hurts your knee hurts had that a lot maybe you're a little sick or scared but you still find a way to win and those

are the victories we can be most proud of because they Pro that you can win not just when you're at your best but especially when you aren't in tennis a great forehand with sick racket head speed can be called a talent but in tennis like in life discipline is also a talent and so is patience trusting yourself is a talent embracing the process loving the process is a talent managing your life managing yourself these can be talents too some people are born with them everybody has to work at them from this day forward some people

are going to assume that because you graduated from Dartmouth it all is going to come easy for you and you know what let them believe that as long as you don't I tried not to lose but I did lose sometimes big for me one of the biggest was the finals at Wimbledon in 2008 me versus Nadal some call it the greatest match of all time okay all respect to Rafa but I think it would have been way way better if I had won in tennis Perfection is impossible in the 1,526 singles matches I played in

my career I won almost 80% of those matches now I have a question for you what percentage of points do you think I won in those matches only 54% in other words even top ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play when you lose every second point on average you learn not to dwell on every shot you teach yourself to think okay I double faulted it's only a point okay I came to the net and I got passed again it's only a Point even a great shot an overhead backand smash

that ends up on ESPN's top 10 playlist that too is just a point and here's why I'm telling you this when you're playing a point it has to be the most important thing in the world and it is but when it's behind you it's behind you this mindset is really crucial because it frees you to fully commit to the next point at the next point after that with intensity Clarity and focus the truth is whatever game you play in life sometimes you're going to lose a point a match a season a job it's a roller

coaster with many ups and downs and it's natural when you're down to doubt yourself and to feel sorry for yourself and by the way your opponents have self-doubt too don't ever forget that but negative energy is wasted energy even when I was just starting out I knew that tennis could show me the world but tennis could never be the world I knew that if I was lucky maybe I could play competitively until my late 30s maybe even 41 but even when I was in the top five it was important to me to have a life

a rewarding life full of travel culture friendships and especially family I never abandoned my roots I never forgot where I came from but I also NE never lost my appetite to to see the very big world I left home 14 to go to school in the French part of Switzerland for 2 years and I was horribly homesick at first but learned to love a life on the move but these are the reasons I never burned out maybe I was excited to travel the world but not just as a tourist I realized pretty early that I

wanted to serve other people in other countries philanthropy can mean a lot of things it can mean starting a nonprofit or donating money but it can also mean contributing your ideas is your time your energy to a mission that is larger than yourself all of you have so much to give and I hope you will find your own unique ways to make a difference because life really is much bigger than the court and if you are ever in Switzerland or anywhere else in the world and you see me on the street even 20 or 30

years from now whether I have gray hair or no hair I want you to stop me and say I was there that day on the green I'm a member of your class the class of 2024 I will never forget this day yeah I will never forget this day and I know you won't either you have worked so hard to get here and left nothing on the court or the pong table from one graduate to another I can't wait to see what you all do next