'Effortless' is a myth

Delivering the Commencement Address at Dartmouth College Hanover, an Ivy League School, the tennis legend Roger Federer shared a few lessons with the Class of 2024. Having relied on these lessons through his career, Federer called them ‘tennis lessons’. He hoped they would be useful for the graduates in the world beyond Dartmouth. The first lesson is captioned: “Effortless” is a myth.

Dispelling the notion of ‘effortless’, Roger Federer speaks, “I say that as someone who has heard that word a lot. ‘Effortless’.  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 ‘Is he even trying?’ The truth is, I had to work very hard…to make it look easy. I got that reputation because my warm-ups at the tournaments were so casual that people didn’t think I had been training hard. But I had been working hard... Before the tournament, when nobody was watching.” 

Doesn’t Federer’s experience resonate in our day to day lives? The world, except for close kin and associates, doesn’t watch us toiling and sweating for our goals. Therefore, our accomplishments appear to people as a consequence of good fortune or inborn talent only. 

Waxing eloquent, Roger Federer goes on to shatter the ‘effortless’ myth, “I didn’t get where I got on pure talent alone. I got there by trying to outwork my opponents. Yes, talent matters. I’m not going to stand here and tell you it doesn’t. But talent has a broad definition. Most of the time, it’s not about having a gift. It’s about having grit. 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.”

This ‘tennis lesson’ strikes a chord in life universally. Aren’t we sometimes baffled by the success of someone seemingly not having talent? Sometimes apparently talented persons fail to go far due to lack of ‘grit’ - an invisible quality not recognised as talent. To be highly accomplished person, you need to manage your life, and manage yourself. We embark upon an arduous journey to reach the destination
of ‘success’. Attaining success is difficult without embracing and loving
‘the process’.