The Dartmouth College Class of 2024, for their graduation, got a very special commencement address from tennis legend Roger Federer.
There is a wealth of good advice in it, but the most interesting point that jumped out to me is that while Federer won a whopping 80% of the matches he played in his career, he only won 54% of the points. It underscores the importance of letting go of small failures (“When you lose every second point, on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot”) but also of keeping your eye on the right metric (games, not points).
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 all of you… what percentage of the 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.
