YouSaid · the spoken record

Roger Federer

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17
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2026-02-19
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2026-02-19
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  1. “constant focus can grind you down. And I think key to this is fetter understood what drove him. It was an inner scorecard. At the end of the day, it was a competition with himself. This is a great quote, great paragraph from Federer. The idea is that you want to prove to yourself you can do it and not to other people. That's why for me, this rivalry with Rafa, okay, it's interesting. But in the end, I care about winning tournaments. That for me is the bottom line. And if Rafa happens to be on the other side, even better, because then I can beat the main rival or make a great story on top of that. But I think what people like I or Tiger Woods, he's spending a lot of time with Tiger Woods at this point. But I think what people like I or Tiger Woods are more interested in is not who we're playing or racing against. You want to do it the best you can. It is important you can wake up in the morning and go to bed feeling good about yourself and your effort. And of course, all these different ideas made him more successful.”

    2026-02-19 · Founders · #412 How Roger Federer Works · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “Rick Rubin's book, the book is called The Creative Act. I just did an episode on it a few weeks ago. And he talked about that it's really important to find the time that you work best and you protect that time. And for Roger Feder, this late night alone time is key to not burning out. Late night is his therapy time. That's his alone time. That's his me time. He doesn't need to be Paul's player. That's coach or Mirka's husband or Mila and Charlene's dad or even Roger Fedder the Icon. He protects that therapy time that alone time, that me time. And then one thing he also does is even though he's training all the time and he's working all the time, he likes to mix it up. He likes to keep himself from not getting bored. I hadn't been around someone that had as much flexibility in their approach that Federer does. At Wimbledon, he has all these different houses all the time. He doesn't have superstitions. He doesn't always need to practice in the same place or have one favorite meal. This was a key element in Federer's career longevity. Too much routine can kill the joy.”

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  3. “Doing it my way, whatever way helps me decompress, fetter stop speaking for a moment and showed me his clenched fist. Because if you're constantly like this looking at his fist, then that's how you burn out. And so he's asked a question. So you never had a bit of burnout, I asked. He thought for a good thirty seconds before answering. If I do feel burnout coming on, would have tried to do is break it down to the absolute minimum. And this is the absolute minimum. That's practice, matches, and family. I will do less press, less autographs, less public appearances, less stuff in the public eye. I need to gather myself, to gather my energy for the main purpose, which is the match. I had a period of three months once I asked the tour to help me out a little bit because I was tired from the constant everyday grind of being in front of the media. That's where I felt it the most, but that was a short period of time. And then this part reminds me of this idea that's in.”

    2026-02-19 · Founders · #412 How Roger Federer Works · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “And my family, I want to keep that intact as well because I can only play good tennis when I'm happy. Federer's priority was to keep himself fresh physically and mentally, to be smart about scheduling and training loads, but also to be smart about how much he put himself in the spotlight and in group settings again everything he's doing. The decisions he's making, the decisions his coaches are making, they're optimizing for the long game. He wants to avoid burning out, to being a bright star in the sky that burns out prematurely, and he goes into much detail. This might be the best that he says a lot of things in the book about this. This might be my favorite part. As much as I take things very seriously, I'm very laid back so I can really get let go very quickly, meaning let go of losses. I truly believe this is a secret for a lot of the players, and for the young guys is to be able when you leave the court to say, okay, I'm leaving it behind. I still know I'm a professional tennis player, but I'm relaxing.”

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  5. “Profit from even today. I wish all the youngsters coming up on tour would be super, super curious to find out everything about tennis. You should know what's so interesting about these people. Something that surprised me and something that was highly unusual is that Fedder would go for long stretches with no official coach. So in this case, he announces that he and his coach Lungren were splitting. Says Federer made another risky choice to change a winning team. This was a pattern throughout his career. Federer was not too sentimental to break bonds when his inner voice was shouting that he needed change. Go back to what he said in that commencement address, trusting yourself is a talent. Fedder said he felt that they had fallen into a routine. The decision comes from me alone. I am the one who has to be satisfied, nobody else. Fedder had no official coach at the stage. This was highly unusual for a great young player who could have met the salary demands of any coach of his choosing. But Fedder was in no hurry to replace Lungren.”

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  6. “of his chosen sport a curiosity that only deepened as he proceeded to make so much tennis history himself. I asked a lot of questions and I had a great bunch of guys around me when I came up on tour that educated me as well Federer said. They were like, look, this is somebody who played at semis in Wimbledon back in nineteen sixty eight, and this is somebody who won the doubles back in nineteen fifty four. Kobe Bryant said the exact same thing in that book that he wrote called Mamba Mentality. So he talked about the importance of studying the greats. He says, just as important as reading about them was cultivating relationships with the greats who had come before me. Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Magic Johnson, Jerry West, James Worthy, those guys taught me the lessons that gave me an edge over my competition. It is so important to have those mentors, those North Stars who you learn from and look up to. Back to Feder saying the exact same thing on the importance of studying the grades of your profession. They did something very special that I could.”

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  7. “You're on a big stage and you can't behave like this anymore. You're behaving like this when you're playing somebody like Pete Sampras or somebody else that you actually admire. It just can't be like this. And it was interesting that talks about the inner rage is still there. It's just developing the skill to not let it bubble to the surface. It was enough to finally calm Fetter, at least on the outside. Inside, the blood still boils. Fetter confirmed as much. It was about learning to control the flames this is such a great line. It was about learning to control the flames instead of extinguishing them, about converting them into slow burning fuel rather than they bonfire of distraction. And it says a weight had been lifted, a number of weaknesses addressed, and he was ready to hit some serious.”

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  8. “Here's a great example. He's about to go to the Olympics and he says, I would very much like to come back with a gold medal. That's strong words from a 19-year-old who was ranked forty third and had yet to win an ATP Tor title. So learning to have this mental discipline, learning how to control his emotions, it was better for his game, but it also wants to being better for his business. And part of this is because he understood that as he became more prominent, as he starts to win more matches, his encourt antics and throwing this fit, breaking rackets, cursing, it actually risked defining his image. And when he'd watch his matches back and he'd see himself act like this, he was actually embarrassed. He says, that was a career-defining moment for me. I started to feel uncomfortable after a while when you're on TV like this. It's just a bad look when you see yourself throw the racket in the corner and you're like, oh my God, and you're looking around and you're frustrated and disappointed. And I just said, this just looks so stupid and silly. Let's get your act together.”

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  9. “To come out and play it with humility and that same amount of connection it takes to be able to keep winning matches. The way he approached his work, the dignity, the level of concentration, to me, he's a role model. And I think a large component of the work they did that was successful is the fact that you can be, federal can now be in the moment. This point in front of me is the most important point in the world. But then when it's behind, it is behind. So it says what fascinated me about Roger then and still is that he managed to live in the present. He has a great ability to take things as they come. He lives a moment, experiences it fully, takes pleasure in it, and finishes it, and then moves on to the next. It is the reason you have the feeling that things happen very naturally with him. It is a talent, and it is a talent that even today fascinates me more than his tennis. This is exactly what people would say about Michael Jordan. I've done a bunch of episodes on Michael Jordan, but this quote from episode 340, which is on.”

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  10. “It was important for them to actually aim a little higher, as we just saw, you know, like, oh, maybe I can break into the top 100. And Federa's like, no, I'm going to be number one. I did feel it was possible for me to aim for the stars. I think we could do a little bit better job to believe, like in America, that anything is possible, that we should dream big. I feel sometimes we don't believe because we're kept in education, a job, and safety and security. I feel that can sometimes block us from going all out and saying, let's take a chance, let's go for it, let's follow our dreams. Let's see what happens. But half and half doesn't cut it. If a guy in China or Russia or America or Argentina, or wherever trains five hours and you only train two, how is that going to work? It's not realistic then to become the greatest ever. It's not by dreaming that you're going to be top two hundred fifty that you're ever going to win Wimbleton. So this is when he begins working with a mental coach. His mental coach is this guy named Christian Marcoli. I think this is one of the most important ideas.”

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  11. “Emotion and energy. He had to play, he had to move. Above all, he's a player. And we see the exact same thing from Feder as a teenager that we saw when he was eight years old, that he wants to be the best, that he wants to be number one. He's with all these other young junior players. They're all in the same program. And they're filling in a form in which they're supposed to state their tennis goals. Most of them wrote down that they hoped to break into the top one hundred in the world. Roger was the only one of us to write that he wanted to become number one. And this no nonsense coach notices the exact same deficiency in Federer that he notices early in his career, that he winds up fixing. He said I could see no barriers when he played. The only thing that could stop him was his head. And I said to him, try not to be your own enemy because it'll be a lot more complicated again than the inner game of tennis. I read this section, think about one of my favorite quotes comes from Brad Jacobs.”

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  12. “Between mediocre and good and between good and great. And so as a teenager, he realizes, well, if I'm going around saying we're the best player in the world, I'm going to be number one, it's going to require exceptional talent drive, a solid support structure, plenty of luck and sound decisions. And you can't make sound decisions if you can't control your emotions. There is a line in the commencement address that he says that I think is really important. And he says, trusting yourself is a talent. And so when Feder was 14, he goes away to boarding school and he considers this critical to his later success. It says, when he gives advice to younger players, he often recommends that they take the opportunity to leave home for a stretch to build their sense of self-reliance. This is a key trait in a brutally competitive individual sport where trusting yourself can be every bit as important as trusting your forehand. None of this works if you can't trust your own judgment. And so it's going to come down to the talent and the skill and the play of federal.”

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  13. “By his own admission that he had a weak mentality, that he had a lack of self control. There was another undeniable weakness in those earth years, Federer's mentality. I was a terrible loser, I really was, Federer said. Federer's self control was lacking. This is what he says. I knew what I could do and failure made me mad. I had two voices inside me, the devil and the angel, and one self couldn't believe how stupid the other one could be. He fixes this inner monologue, by the way. How could you miss that one voice would say? Then I would just explode. My dad used to be so embarrassed at tournaments that he would shout at me from the side of the court, telling me to be quiet, and then on the way home in the car he might drive for an hour and a half and not say a word. Federa's lack of mental discipline was the biggest reason he was not a cant miss prospect. He clearly had the talent and seemed to have the ambition, but the mental game is often what makes the difference.”

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  14. “Full ownership, a strain of perfectionism that made him realize he would have struggled to accept other shortcomings when he already had so much difficulty accepting his own, and then just like Novak Djokovic, just like Andre Agassi, Novak Djokovic would go around at six years old when he was six years old. He said that he was going to be the number one tennis player in the world. For Roger Feder, at age eight, Roger was going around and telling his friends that he was going to be number one. And then I want to give you another example, something we've already talked about a few times. Roger has this ability to apply what he's learning rapidly. And he had this from a young age. So one of his youth coaches, when he was still a junior player, said he had never seen another player who could apply his advice so”

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  15. “have self doubt too. Don't ever forget that. But negative energy is wasted energy. You want to become a master at overcoming hard moments. That is, to me, the sign of a champion. The best in the world are not the best in the world because they win every point. It's because they know they'll lose again and again and again and have learned how to deal with it. You accept it, cry it out if you need to, and then force a smile. You move on. Be relentless, adapt, and grow. And then these are the few sentences that really jumped out at me from his third point, which is life is bigger than the court. 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 thirties, maybe even till I was forty one. But even when I was in the”

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  16. “You teach yourself to say, 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 backhand smash that ends up on a top ten playlist. That too is just a point. Here is why I am telling you this. When you are 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 and 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 is 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 opponent.”

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  17. “I spend years whining, swearing, and throwing my racket before I learned how to keep my cool. My wake up call came early in my career when an opponent publicly questioned my mental discipline. He said Roger will be the favorite for the first two hours, and that I'll be the favorite after that. I realized what he was saying. Everybody can play well in the first two hours. You're fit, you're fast, you're clear. After two hours, your legs get wobbly, your mind starts wandering, and your discipline starts to fade. It made me realize I had so much more work ahead of me. My parents, my coaches, everyone had been calling me out, and now my rivals were doing it. I am eternally grateful for what he did because it made me work harder and train harder. A lot harder. That was an excerpt not from the book I'm going to talk to you about today, but actually from Roger Federer's commencement address that he gave.”

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