Elite performance
takes vision

Novak Djokovic:

I’m sure your team will love to hear your response to this.

Bill Ford:

Oh, I know. I know.

Novak Djokovic:

Just a heads up, there’s one question about the hair gel that you’re using. I’m kidding

All right, Bill, so we do rapid-fire questions right now. The first one is for you, who is a better teacher? Winning or losing?

Bill Ford:

Losing.

Novak Djokovic:

Can you elaborate on that?

Bill Ford:

Don’t like losing.

Novak Djokovic:

You don’t like losing?

Bill Ford:

And I think the lessons in investing, from your mistakes that you don’t want to remake, are really powerful.

Novak Djokovic:

I agree with you. Losing is putting you back in check.

Bill Ford

Yeah, it’s hard.

Novak Djokovic:

You go back and you’re like, okay, now I got to go back to basics and understand how to not experience this anymore.

Bill Ford:

Exactly. It motivates me more than anything because I’m like you, I want to win and want to compete. Absolutely. Talent or discipline? Which is more important to this?

Novak Djokovic:

Oh, discipline all day.

Bill Ford:

All day. Wow.

Novak Djokovic:

All day. Discipline beats talent every day. I consider myself also talented, not maybe the most talented. There are more talented players, absolutely more talented players, but I don’t think there are too many more disciplined players than I am in the history of sports.

Bill Ford:

None.

Novak Djokovic:

So discipline only.

Bill Ford:

Discipline wins. I love that answer. And I agree with you.

Novak Djokovic:

One quality every entrepreneur needs.

Bill Ford:

Perseverance. They’re going to be told no so many times, but that’s what it takes. Absolutely. Because they will be told it will not work a number of times.

Novak Djokovic:

Jordan said, “I failed, I failed, I failed, and that’s why I succeeded.”

Bill Ford:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Novak Djokovic:

I think it’s a great quote.

Bill Ford:

All right. Here’s another one for you. Preparation or instinct. I think they mean on the court when you’re out there.

Novak Djokovic:

Well, I think that preparation trains instinct as well. I think that two don’t exclude one another.

Bill Ford:

They go together. Yeah.

Novak Djokovic:

Yes, some are born with better instinct than intuition. They’re more tuned, so to say, more talented in that sense. But I think that instinct is also trained with good preparation because the more repetition –

Bill Ford:

Then you have it when you have it.

Novak Djokovic:

Then you develop better instinctual reactions in circumstances if you need it.

Bill Ford:

I totally agree. I think if you prepare, the instinct comes out, right?

Novak Djokovic:

Yes.

Bill Ford:

You know how to hit the shot because you prepared for it.

Novak Djokovic:

So the next one for you will be the big picture thinking or sweating the details.

Bill Ford:

It’s a little bit of both. You got to see the big picture. You have to see the big themes, the big inflection points in investing, but there’s no substitute for execution, discipline and preparation. All the things you talked about, you have to do all that.

Novak Djokovic:

The devil is in the details.

Bill Ford:

Yeah. You just got to do it. There’s no substitute. I always say to my kids even, there’s just no substitute for hard work. There’s just no way around it if you want to succeed. And so you have to have the big picture in mind, but you have to have the execution. Okay. This is I think an easy one for you, but what’s harder? Reaching number one or staying number one during your career? Because you’re number one longer than anybody.

Novak Djokovic:

I think each one is hard in its own way, but probably staying number one.

Bill Ford:

Yeah, that long.

Novak Djokovic:

Because when you’re never been number one and you’re a youngster, you’re coming up, building your own way, you don’t have an understanding of what it feels to be number one and lose the number one. So you’re just going the upward trajectory. So when you get to the top, when you lose that position at the top, you unlock a new kind of feeling and experience that is not pleasant, but it is an opportunity for you to use that as a motivational factor to inspire you to come back to the top.

Bill Ford:

Yeah, absolutely.

Novak Djokovic:

So I would say it’s the second one, but each one has its own

Bill Ford:

Its own feeling.

Novak Djokovic:

Its own feeling. So the last one for you is cold plunge or sauna?

Bill Ford:

I do sauna a lot because you can get it in most places. Not many places have great cold plunge, but then I was in this great hotel in Korea, sorry to riff off on this, that had a great cold plunge and a great sauna, really hot sauna. When you do both, it’s –

Novak Djokovic:

Do you do alternating?

Bill Ford:

Yes. And that was the best feeling doing both. When we do our wellness center, we’ll have both.

Novak Djokovic:

Yes, absolutely. Best of the best.

Bill Ford:

All right. Two final ones for you. We talked about these before. Favorite surface, grass, clay or hardcourt?

Novak Djokovic:

When I touched the grass court and played on it for the first time when I was 17, 18 years of age, I never looked back.

Bill Ford:

Really?

Novak Djokovic:

Best surface.

Bill Ford:

Last one, I promise. Favorite Grand Slam.

Novak Djokovic:

It must be Wimbledon.

Bill Ford:

But you won a number of times.

Novak Djokovic:

It’s an easy choice.

Bill Ford:

Yeah, an easy choice.

Novak Djokovic:

But I mean, I love every slam, especially in its own way, but Wimbledon, because of my childhood and everything, it was just always number one.

Bill Ford:

One of the great things about your quarterfinal win too was that it ended up going into the night.

Novak Djokovic:

Yes.

Bill Ford:

And the energy actually turned up actually at Wimbledon in a way. And as you said, roof was covered, energy picked up. It was an incredible match. All right.

Novak Djokovic:

Thanks a lot.

Bill Ford:

That was great.

Novak Djokovic:

Thank you very much. That was awesome.