Steve Kerr says Roger Federer taught his Warriors team the secret to sustained success wasn’t outworking everyone, it was building a life around your craft you never want to escape from “I’ll tell you a great story about Roger Federer. We were playing in China with the Warriors in 2017. Roger was in Shanghai for the Masters tournament, so we invited him to come speak to the team.” “Draymond Green asked him, ‘How do you sustain success? How have you managed to win majors 20 years after you first won one?’ Everyone was expecting him to say, ‘I work harder than everybody,’ the will, all the clichés.” “Roger Federer says, ‘I get up every morning and I make breakfast for my kids. Then I take them to school and drop them off. Then I go practice tennis for about two hours, and I’ve figured out a really good routine where I don’t destroy my body, but I can get all the work in I need.” “‘Then I go have lunch with my wife. In the evening, we cook dinner together. The kids are all home from school. We ask them about school. There’s so much joy in the house. We put them to bed, and then I put my head on the pillow and go, “Man, that was just a great day.” And I’ve been doing that for 20 years.’” “And it was like, yes. That’s it. That’s the formula. That’s what leads to sustained success. He loves tennis. He loves his family. He loves life. It’s not outworking everybody and banging your head against the wall, ‘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 mindfulness.” “It’s perspective. It’s joy. It’s passion. It’s mindfulness. It’s an awareness that we are truly lucky. To get the most out of ourselves, it’s our daily rituals and experiences and love and joy.”

Kyrie Irving says Kobe Bryant told him to read ‘The Alchemist’ in order to stop being obsessed with proving people wrong “He knew how curious I was, not just about being great at the game, but about life. That’s why he gave me the book ‘The Alchemist’ and told me to read that… Kobe’s smart… He studied all the greats in every other industry so he could figure out how to be great too…” “It was about really taking the time to get to know who the people are around you. Get to know them as much as you invest in watching the game. I’m an avid student of all the greats in basketball.” “He really put all those other authors in my life so I could help balance what I was into. Since I was 12 or 13 years old, I’ve studied basketball more than 10,000 hours, as they say before you become an expert or master your craft.” “I’ve played more than 10,000 hours. I’ve done all that. When I got to Boston, I was ready for a new challenge, but I didn’t know how it was going to come from within. That’s why he gave me The Alchemist.” “The journey is the reward. Embrace the journey. Don’t think about the end goal so much where you’re fixated on trying to prove people wrong or be at the mountaintop without going through the details that it takes to really appreciate it. That was him.” “His mentorship was like, ‘Yo, stay curious, bro. I know you’re different. You’re not like everybody else out here.’”