Steve Kerr brought Roger Federer to speak to the Warriors in Shanghai. Federer revealed his secret to two decades of elite tennis: a balanced daily routine of making breakfast for his kids, practicing two hours, and spending evenings with family. Kerr says this blend of family, work, and joy beats outworking everyone else.
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So I'll tell you a great story about Roger Federer. We were playing in China with the Warriors in 2017, I think, exhibition season. We're training over there, we played 2 games. Roger Federer was in Shanghai for the Masters Tournament there. So we invited him to come and speak to the team. And Draymond Green asked him, he said, how do you sustain success? How have you managed to win majors 20 years after you first won one? And everyone was expecting him to say, I work harder than everybody, and the will, and all the clichés, right? So Roger Federer says, I get up every morning and I make breakfast for my kids, and then I take them to school, and I drop them at school, and then I go practice tennis for about 2 hours. And I've figured out a really good routine where I don't destroy my body, but I can really get all the work in I need. And then I go have lunch with my wife. And then in the evening, we cook dinner together and the kids are all home from school. We ask them about school and there's so much joy in the house. And then we put them to bed and then I put my head on the pillow and I go, man, that was just a great day. And he goes, and I've been doing that for 20 years. And it was like, Yes, that's it, right? That's the formula. That's what leads to sustained success. He loves tennis. He loves his family. He loves life. So it's not outworking everybody and banging your head against the wall and I'm going to be better than everybody. It's allowing your natural talent to shine through with a work ethic, with a great family life, with perspective, with peace. with a mindfulness about you that, man, I'm so lucky to do what I do. And all of us here are in the top 1% of lucky people on the planet. We know that, right? All we have to do is look at the suffering that's out there. And so it's perspective, it's joy, it's passion, it's mindfulness. It's an awareness that we are truly lucky and To get the most out of ourselves, it's our daily rituals and experiences and love and joy.
