Mercedes or “Mehr CDs” | Federer's Diverse Experiences

When I was reading the book “RANGE: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World" by David Epstein, a story I learnt about elite tennis player Federer made me notice that starting broad and embracing diverse experiences and perspectives lead to great progress. The benefits of breadth, diverse experience and interdisciplinary thinking are key to success.

I will share more about my thoughts on this topic when I finish the book via a separate content but this time I want to highlight an interesting story of Federer.

Mercedes or “Mehr CDs”

Roger Federer’s mom was a coach, but she never coached him. He would kick a ball around with her when he learned to walk. As a boy, he played squash with his father on Sundays. He dabbled in skiing, wrestling, swimming and skateboarding. He played basketball, handball, tennis, table tennis, and soccer at school. "I was always very much more interested if a ball was involved," he would say.

Many experts argue that in order to be successful in any field, one must start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. But what if the opposite is true? Some of the world’s best athletes, musicians, scientists, artists and inventors are actually generalists, not specialists, and they present a powerful argument for how to succeed in any field.

Though his mother taught tennis, she decided against working with him. "He would have just upset me anyway," she said. "He tried out every strange stroke and certainly never returned a ball normally. That is simply no fun for a mother." Rather than pushy, a Sports Illustrated writer would observe that his parents were "pully." Nearing his teens, the boy began to gravitate more toward tennis, and "if they nudged him at all, it was to stop taking tennis so seriously."

As a teenager, he became good enough to warrant an interview with the local newspaper. His mother was appalled to read that, when asked what he would buy with a hypothetical first paycheck from tennis, her son answered, "a Mercedes." She was relieved when the reporter let her listen to a recording of the interview. There'd been a mistake: The boy had said "mehr CDs," in Swiss German. He simply wanted "more CDs."

The boy was competitive, no doubt. But when his tennis instructors decided to move him up to a group with older players, he asked to move back so he could stay with his friends. After all, part of the fun was hanging around after his lessons.

By the time he finally gave up other sports to focus on tennis, other kids had long since been working with strength coaches, sports psychologists and nutritionists. But it didn't seem to hamper his development. In his mid-30s, an age by which even legendary players are typically retired, he would still be ranked No. 1 in the world.