Transcript: Tennis Layer Novak Djokovic’s Interview on On Purpose Podcast

So thank you for coming on then and coming back now.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Jay, thank you. It’s a great pleasure to see you again and to be able to talk to you. Thank you for kind words in introduction and as well, reflecting on our first conversation in 2019.

I don’t think I took a chance because we talked about it just before we started officially recording. When you are connected with yourself and with your emotions and when you feel someone deeply and look in someone’s eyes and you understand instantly with your instinct, with your intuition, whether this person thinks good or thinks bad or has the right intention, has the heart at the right place.

So I could see that from the first moment with you, and that’s where I felt the connection. And even though we haven’t seen each other for a few years, I’m just so glad that we are able to connect now. And you led me through the list of all the guests that you had in the last almost 300 episodes in the last five years. And I couldn’t be happier for you and for your wife and for your entire team. Amazing.

The Wimbledon Experience

JAY SHETTY: Thank you, man. And you gave me my first Wimbledon experience. I got to see you play on Center Court. It was amazing. I mean, are you kidding me? And you crushed, you won, obviously. But it was just such a brilliant experience to see you play after getting to understand your psychology.

And I think that’s what I’ve respected about you over time, that you’ve really worked hard on your internal game as much as your external game. And I think you’re one of those few rare athletes that have raised the consciousness by working on your own consciousness.

So today I want to dive deep into that and I want to dive right in. I wanted to start by asking you, what has it taken to become Novak Djokovic? What has it actually taken to become you internally?

The Foundation: Early Holistic Training

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: You mentioned that I took a lot of the time and attention to dedicate myself to the internal work. And I’ve been blessed and really lucky in a certain way to be surrounded with certain people at the very early stages of my career and my life that have directed me into this direction of self care, of holistic approach, of multidisciplinary approach to the preparation, to the prevention, to the recovery, the both physical, mental, emotional.

At that time, because I was so young, I didn’t understand that and it didn’t need to be explained to me in depth. At that point, I trusted my tennis mother, as I like to call her. She passed away 13 years ago, but she was the one that really introduced this holistic concept to me.

I was going obviously to school and then I was only nine years old and nine, ten, and I was training with her maybe two or three times a week individually tennis and then I would have group sessions and my parents were trusting her enough to allow her to participate directly into my upbringing basically. So she also educated me off the tennis court as well.

Learning from the Greats

So she took me very often, at least two times per week to her house where we would look at the tapes of all the greats, both male and female tennis players. That’s where my impersonation started.

People still to this day ask me when are you going to do the imitations, impersonations? And I haven’t done it. I’ve done it early in my career and it was fun, it was viral and people liked it. And then I received a little bit of an evil looks in the locker room and I kind of felt like maybe I’m stepping over the line. So that’s why I stopped.

But that’s where it started. And I was really trying to adapt all of the great things that I could see. And I have a kind of a photogenic memory and I’m a very visual person. And that was something that was kind of expected, that is kind of common as well you do with kids or with young athletes. Right. You watch videotapes, you try to analyze, try to talk.

Classical Music and Visualization

But then she had me listen to classical music and she said it’s very important that you do that almost on a daily basis. Listen to classical music while you are writing your journal, while you are preparing for bed or any time of the day, but particularly those times. And I liked it. I didn’t understand the purpose of it, but I liked it.

And so we would look at the tapes and we would listen to this music and then we would read poetry and then we would do a visualization practice. At that time it was not presented to me as such, but she would just say in a very simple way that would be understood by a boy, a 10 year old boy. “Just close your eyes and think about how you want to play tennis and think about when you’re at your happiest.”

So it started at the very early age and I’m so eternally grateful to her for instilling this in me and teaching me how to see life basically and understand that tennis is not as an individual sport, of course, is also different because you don’t have anyone to replace you if something goes bad during the match. You have to figure out a way.

So I think it requires more responsibility from you on a daily basis to prepare yourself for the biggest battle internally and also externally, of course, with your opponent and with everything that is happening around.

Tennis as a Platform for Growth

But it taught me to really understand that tennis is not only about hitting a tennis ball over the net and counting score and dreaming about these achievements of winning Wimbledon as our holy grail of tennis, but it’s more than that. And I can use tennis as a platform to evolve into a better human being.

At that point, I didn’t understand that. But then as I was growing older and becoming more mature, I started to understand the importance of doing all of these practices and I started to expand on each of these topics that I was going through with her.

And then I started going into yoga. I started going into the movement, into Christianity or to a Christian. I’m very proud of my religion, but at the same time I am very to embrace anything that can teach me from other religions and from the spirituality as a whole. So I’m very curious by nature. So I was really always looking for new ways to improve myself and improve my life on this planet.

The Ongoing Journey of Self-Discovery

And I was very lucky to basically have that space also for my parents. It’s a kind of a self discovery through the self care through tennis really consumed most of my life. I mean, still does not to that extent, of course. I mean, I have two kids, family and other businesses and other things that interest me. So I’m balancing right now between tennis and the other stuff, and I’m kind of making that transition slowly.

I still play professional tennis and I still experience my worst self on the court and my best self. And so going back to your comment at the beginning where you said you’re one of the athletes that really have immersed himself into spirituality, into understanding the holistic approach and so forth and the mental health, I would say yes, but I’m still surprising and shocking myself on how much I actually need to still work on that.

And I still don’t know enough about that world. And it was really hard for me to accept that. I thought since 10, I basically started working on that and growing the foundation, but it has evolved and has transformed so much for me, in terms of how I see myself, how I see the world.

The Ego and Finding Balance

And I thought maybe when I was at the peak of my career and I felt like I’m unbeatable and I feel like I could do anything, I kind of walking on the water. We all experience that in our own lives in certain way, and it’s a great feeling. But then the ego takes you places where it’s hard to come back from, and maybe you shouldn’t come back from that. Maybe you’re trying to find a balance, find the optimal measure that really works for you.

But it took me time to really accept the fact that what I have learned, what I have mastered, and what I’m doing on a daily basis for the last 20 years or more is not necessarily a guarantee that I’ll always find a way and that will always work for me in this particular time of my life and circumstances that I’m facing.

So that’s a huge revelation for me because. And I’m still trying to get a grasp on it and understand all of these factors that are in play that are challenging me on a daily basis. And when I talk from this perspective, it’s a beautiful journey that I’m trying to embrace. But when you are immersed in the dark moment, it’s kind of hard to really get out of that.

The Battlefield of Life

JAY SHETTY: No, I love what you’re saying because in the Gita, the ancient text of India, it’s spoken on a battlefield. And the idea is that you’re always on a battlefield. And as you said, on the battlefield, you see the best of yourself and the worst of yourself.

And often people said that to me when I moved to LA. Everyone’s like, “Why do you want to be in LA? There’s so much materialism. There’s so much illusion here.” And I said, “Well, actually, I feel like I’m on the battlefield here. So I see the best of myself and I see the worst of myself and the worst of myself reminds me to keep going and to keep working on myself. And the best of myself allows me to share my message with the biggest megaphone in the world.”

And so it’s that dichotomy of actually, when you’re looking for spiritual growth, you want to be in a place that reminds you of your weaknesses as much as your strength. Because if you are only reminded of your strength, you just have your ego. And if you were only reminded of your weaknesses, well, then you would be depressed or disheartened.

Taking Responsibility and Embracing Boredom

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I can instantly see the mistake when I actually say it’s my coach’s fault or it’s my physio’s fault or my fitness coach’s fault, or it’s whoever’s fault for me losing a match or me playing this way. So I always remind myself, “Hey, take the responsibility in your hands, take the means in your hands. You are in control of your life.”

I really would love my children to be able to be okay with being bored, because that’s the time when you’re actually most creative. Or that’s the time where you can manage your thoughts and everything that you have been suppressing by distracting yourself with phone, with whatever it is.

You cannot convince me that there is a single person in this planet. Even the monk in Tibet that is meditating 24/7, or an orthodox Christian priest in the Holy Spirit island in Greece that is 24/7 praying, that is not experiencing some negative thoughts.

The Drive to Continue and Internal Motivations

JAY SHETTY: Do you feel like in your career you’ve achieved everything you set out to as a tennis player?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yes, and more than that. And at the same time, I still want to do more. And I know that that comes in a big part from a good place, meaning from a place of purpose, inspiration, motivation, love for the sport, passion for the sport, passion to make people happy when they watch me, if I’m doing that, and I have a feeling that I am, by still actively being on the tennis tour and having my tennis career, active tennis career, I’m still spreading that light by playing tennis and inspiring younger generations. That’s something that comes from a good heart, a good place.

But what comes from maybe not necessarily a bad place, but less of a good place, I have identified that as well, is my feeling of not being enough. And that goes back to my very, very beginning of my life and my relationship, particularly with my father and not doing enough, not being good enough. So now that I’m talking about it, I kind of get emotional about it because it’s still deep inside of me. And it’s kind of the battle that I also go through often because a lot of people, even closest people in my life, ask me, “What more do you want? You have achieved everything. What do you want? Why do you keep going?”

And I tell them the good part that I told you that I still really strongly feel it’s inside of me. And I feel like as long as I have the capacity or ability to compete for the biggest titles in my sport, I want to keep going.

Testing Physical and Mental Limits

And also partly the part that I didn’t mention that inspires me to keep going is to test my limits mentally and physically. Because when I was starting to break through in the professional tennis, I remember when you reach your 30, you start counting your days to your retirement. Like, after 30, that’s it pretty much. Even though there were some exceptions, like Jimmy Connors is the legend of our game. He played, I think, semifinals or finals of US Open when he was 40, and still dominating the tour. So there were very few exceptions.

Nowadays, it’s different. Why? Because I think the care for the body has improved so much. I mean, now not only top 10 or 15 guys or girls on the tour have multiple people in their squad to take care of them. You have top 50 people that are taking care of them. It’s due to the improvement, of course, of the conditions for the players. And we earn more across the board. So it gives you, it allows you to hire more people that would take care of your body.

And I think that it’s also a kind of a curiosity from my side. How far can I go? I’m 38 this year. How long can I push my own limits? And I don’t feel like I do have limits. And I feel like the limits are normally constructs in our mind.

The Importance of Environment and Community

I’ve seen the episode you did with Brian Johnson the other day, and then he talked about how he’s, by a lot of people’s opinion, very extreme. But he dedicated his own entire life to getting the data and understanding what are the best conditions for the longest living life that he can have for himself, which I think is something that is admirable, and I give him huge credit for that.

And I understand because as a professional athlete, the care for your body and your mind and the devotion to the daily habits is so tough because when you want to change a certain habit, science says it takes at least 21 days, right, for the brain to start growing new neurons that are reprogramming. But if you don’t have the right environment, that’s going to be very, very challenging.

So that was also one of the things that I wanted to reflect on. And your question is the environment is the one that can be very stimulative to you. It can be really supportive, or it can be pulling you down. So it’s super important. Even though we always encourage ourselves to be independent in terms of what we do, what we eat, how we sleep, how we lead our lives and what we do and how we can live the best version of our lives possible.

But at the same time, we are social beings, we are very tribal beings. And even if it’s the smallest community, we still want to belong to that community. We still want this community to support us, even if it’s one person or two. But it’s super important in the end of the day because making tough choices, these are tough choices because society, when you go out there, super majority of the places where you go to eat or people that you see, it’s a kind of a vicious cycle, and they lead their life in a certain way that maybe doesn’t coincide or correspond to your choices, that you want to make the new choices or maybe the new changes.

So it’s really hard living in the big city and deciding you want to go through transformational journey on a daily basis, where being exposed to something that is contrary to what you’re trying to achieve, I feel like it’s reinventing yourself constantly.

Achieving Dreams and Setting New Goals

For me, I’ve had this kind of upbringing, had the great foundation, and I have achieved incredible things. I was dreaming of becoming number one in the world and becoming a Wimbledon champion. And that was my dream. I achieved that dream within two days. I won Wimbledon and at the same day became number one in the world in 2011, in front of my family, in front of president of Serbia, who was there. I mean, it was with the welcoming of hundreds of thousands of people on the way back. It’s just, once in a lifetime type of experience.

And when you do something for the first time, obviously that big, it’s just like you’re flying to the moon. I mean, you’re not you. It’s a kind of an out of body experience. But then I felt like I had to set new goals and because I was, at the time, 2011, I was 23 years old, 24. So, okay, what do I do next? I feel like I’m at the peak of my powers and I want to. So then I want to win multiple Slams, then I want to win all slams at once, then I want to win gold medals for my country than I want to make history and so forth, so forth.

So I think goal oriented mind, particularly in sports, but also in business or anything really I think is super important because the clarity from my experience is something that is essential to have also peace of mind and to have a calm heart that you know what you’re doing and that you set your goals, your short term goals, your long term goals, and you know exactly the strategy that you need to implement to achieve them.

Building Resilience and Expanding Beyond Tennis

And you surround yourself with the people who are supporting you, but also people who are telling you what you don’t want to hear, giving you constructive criticism or maybe giving you non constructive criticism and then putting you very down. But that’s also part of the journey. It’s also learning how to get up like a phoenix and rise and try to develop a thick skin, so to say. So it’s a constant process really.

I don’t see myself fully satisfied, if that’s maybe a shorter answer, because I have that part of me which is like, I think I can still do more, but the other side of me is like, of course I’m fully happy and I’m proud and in a way I can’t wait one day for me to reflect on everything. But while I’m still in my active career, I don’t have time. Tennis has the longest season of all sports. January starts, January ends almost end of November.

And of course I earn my right in a way to be selective with tournaments where I play. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m not playing as much, I’m focusing on the big ones and I’m trying to incorporate all these other things inside of my career and basically expand the platform and use my voice for other things than just the tennis court. And I’m super blessed to be in a position that I am. But as I said, it’s a constant journey and process.

Recognizing Internal Inadequacy

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I really appreciate you being honest about your experience with your father because I think that pretty much anyone who goes off to do something successful externally, all of us and everyone was channeling some sort of internal inadequacy or an internal feeling of not being enough, as you said. And I wanted to ask, when did you first become aware of that, that you had that feeling of not being enough?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Right.

JAY SHETTY: And how have you helped that evolve in the healthiest way possible? What has been that journey of almost having to live with it because it’s there, but not letting it be your guiding light?

The Power of Adversity as Fuel

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Well, you’re right, it makes sense because I think if you use it as the right fuel, it can actually serve as a great motivating factor. It can push you, it can stimulate you to extract the most amount of necessary energy on a daily basis to achieve your goals and to basically live your dream.

I think for me, it started really as something that was inevitable as a part of the environment that I was in. I touched upon that a little bit in our conversation five, six years ago. My upbringing with several wars and sanctions and embargo and poverty and everything. So, you know, from a very young age, I was basically forced to mature very quickly because I’m the oldest of the three brothers, I have two younger brothers.

As an oldest son to my father, I was basically kind of in a position where I had to be informed very early on, particularly the age of 11, 12, when we had that bombing and the war and sanctions that state that we are in as a family or as people of my country, the situation, the circumstances, my father had to bring it forward to me in a very clear, mature way.

The Ten Deutschmarks Moment

So, you know, one of the most impactful moments of my upbringing and my childhood is when he brought 10 Deutschmarks. And I’ve said this story many times, which is equivalent to $10. And he said, “This is all we got for our family of five is living in a super small apartment.” That’s where it hit me. It was like, okay, now I have to take the means in my hands as a 12 year old boy in whatever way I can.

At least what I can do is support my mother maybe from some of the burden that she has during the day of taking care of my younger brothers. And that’s where it also hit me that not at all having success is not an option, like I have to succeed. It’s basically a matter of existence, a survival of my family.

So I think it started there and then over the years it has obviously transformed or evolved into different kind of form. But I think that and also my relationship with my father, oftentimes because of maybe lack of patience of my father or of people around, because everyone saw that I have a talent.

Choosing the Most Difficult Path

I was coming from Serbia that had no tennis tradition, no tennis culture. We are a nation of team sports. We are definitely a sporting nation. We love sports, but team sports. And at that point during 90s, it was about survival. People were watching sports, but there was not much support for the sports. It was particularly not tennis, a very expensive sport at the time.

I chose the most difficult sport for my parents and most difficult sport time for our nation and for my family. So oftentimes I wouldn’t travel because we didn’t have money. And then, you know, obviously, as you can imagine, tennis federation didn’t have, you know, money to support me.

So my father had to go and beg. And then he was also borrowing money from unfortunately even some criminals at the time, during 90s. And then they would, you know, they would tell him it’s funny story right now, but at the time it wasn’t funny particularly for him.

The $5,000 Loan Story

But you know, he would go and he said, first time I was going to go to United States to play, I was 15 years old, was going to play like big junior events here like Prince cup and Orange Bowl. They’re the biggest ones under 16 and under 18. And also, more importantly, I was going with my father hopefully to get the sponsorship or, you know, get recruited by one of the big agencies, IMGs or whatever.

So he went for us for money because we didn’t have. So he went to us for $5,000. And so these criminal people that you could borrow money from because banks obviously would not give it to you. And then they said, he asked him, “How much are you in rush?” And he’s like, “Listen, I’m asking this money from you because of my son. He’s playing tennis. We’re going in America. I’ll return this money within whatever they agreed on, one or two months, whatever it is, three months.”

He says interest rate was 15%, but because you are in rush, it’s 25. So my father was like, okay, you know, I’ll take it because I have no other option.

And I can only imagine the stress that he was going through and trying to turn this money where people were really car chasing him, shootings in our capital town. Stuff that my father went through, you know, to really not only survive himself, but to actually allow all of us to live and protect us and to allow me to live my dream and to play the most expensive sport at the time for my country is something that I’m eternally indebted.

I cannot. There is no money or there’s nothing that can return the favor, so to say. So of course, my father is always my hero for that and my champion.

The Pressure of Expectations

But, you know, feeling of not enough because of that stress and what things that he was going through. And then it was hard because he was giving me also hard time if I wouldn’t play well. And it’s like. And then I understood, but at the same time, I was afraid. I knew what I have to do, but, you know, it’s hard for me to deliver it when you need. It’s like, okay, you need to win no matter what type of situation.

He wasn’t telling me that, but that’s how it felt. And that felt like that for years. So that’s why I say that the success that I have achieved is not only due to my father or my parents or myself. It’s also the divine higher force.

Divine Intervention in Tennis

I strongly believe that there was an intervention, and there still is. There’s higher forces in power that were helping me in some of the most difficult moments in my family as well. I am a man of faith, and I really, truly believe in God and the higher spiritual force that intervenes in the most difficult moments if you open your heart, if you pray, and if you believe in it.

So I felt it on my own skin. Jay to be honest, I really don’t know how I won certain matches. I cannot explain it, even with my team. After I would finish a Grand Slam final against Roger Federer in 2019, Wimbledon, when he was a far better player, I saved some match points, and I came off the court, all stats were going his way.

I won the match, and I just said, you know, and I wasn’t playing well. I wasn’t feeling well on the court, and I was just, like, struggling and scrambling and trying to stay out there, stay alive. And I won in the end in one of the most epic finals in history of tennis.

And then, you know, I told to my parents and my family and my team and my wife, I said, “I don’t know how I won this match. I have no idea.” At the same time, I do know deep inside that there’s that connection happening and that there’s also that help.

So there’s a mix of things. It’s really hard to explain. Sometimes there’s this divine power that really, if you allow it, if you believe it, that really helps you come out of a trouble and achieve things.

Staying Connected to Higher Power

JAY SHETTY: What has been your point of connection or practice with that higher power that keeps you connected? What’s been that for you? There’s so many different traditions and different methods what’s been the method for you that you find, especially in those moments that you’re able to tap in?

Because I find that if you’re able to tap in in really difficult times, it means you’re doing something in good times because it doesn’t just suddenly turn on when you need it. So what has been your particular practice, method, system or theory that’s kept you connected?

The Power of Mental Practice and Letting Go

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: You hit the nail with that one. It’s a consistent practice. So it’s prayer work, mindfulness meditation, conscious breathing, visualization, presence, basically many other things as well, that just NLP or, you know, there’s a lot of different techniques that I have been practicing and trialing always with myself before I would recommend it to someone else.

And over the years I’ve developed my own formula that changes depending on the feeling, depending on whether I’m on the court, whether I’m at home, practice, whatever it is that I’m doing. But I try to do it when nobody’s watching. And sometimes I verbalize things, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I write things down, sometimes I just internalize. It just depends. But I think most importantly in the end is that you are doing something.

I’m actually reading this book. One of the books that I’m reading currently is “The Power of Surrendering and Letting Go.” It is an amazing book for me at the moment because of my upbringing, because of my character, and because of my life story. Hard for me to let go. It’s hard for me to surrender unless it’s to the higher power. But I’m still working on how to surrender and let go of certain things in relationship with close ones or my relationship with tennis or, you know, if I lose a match or a tournament, if I go through a crisis period and, you know, how to not hold something that pulls me down or regret or, you know, it’s a constant work.

But I feel like if you devote the time on a daily basis, whatever works for you. You had some of the most amazing guests on your show that talked about, from neuroscientists to doctors, nutritionists, and talked about the healthy habits. So I don’t want to be talking as them, as I’m not an expert, but in my fields, or so to say, in my own life and experience, I feel like I’m an expert because I have tried and developed so many different things over the last 30 years. And I know what works and what doesn’t in a way.

But going back to the very beginning organization, it’s not, again, a guarantee that it will keep on working for the rest of my life. But I know what will is my dedicated time in a day to this practice. Mental practice, physical practice, of course, activity practice that I’m doing in the gym, outside and tennis court or when I’m not training. I still do stuff, still do some yoga practice, still do stretching. I still do breathing. I love the qigong and the Chinese traditional medicine or Chinese tradition practices. I think they’re super good and important that you can do even in your chair.

The Challenge of Societal Judgment

There’s always, there’s ways and it’s incredible nowadays in Internet and I mean it is access to incredible things. All it takes is a willpower to do it and a desire to say, “Okay, I’m consciously making this decision to change my life for better. And I’m going to start with small steps.” Super important. It’s hard. You have so much judgment in this society, in this world, right? It’s really hard for people. As we talked about the environment as much as effort you’re putting in. And then you come with your friends or whatever, with your family members and then they start to judge you because you’re starting to act weird because you’re not normal. You’re not conforming to the norms of the society, whatever they are, because it’s quite relative. We are all different.

But the norms of society are not really healthy ones. Otherwise we wouldn’t be where we are as a world ecosystem as a whole and as people and what we are doing to our planet, et cetera. There’s a lot of awakening happening and it’s great to see that change. But it’s not easy for people and I understand that. And it’s okay not to feel okay. We heard that many times as well. And sometimes, as I said, accepting and embracing for me and letting go of the fact that I cannot find a solution to something that happens in my brain, in my mind is also fine of being in a dark place for as long as it requires is also a humane thing. It’s also part of our life.

The Reality of Negative Thoughts

I can see there’s also a narrative that I don’t really necessarily support in our, let’s say wellness, mindfulness space, well being space where it’s presented by certain people in such way that you can only think positive thoughts and there’s no room for negative thoughts that, you know, every picture or video they post online is smiling, it’s great life and so forth. I mean, that’s not possible, right? I mean, you cannot convince me that there is a single person in this planet. Even the monk in Tibet that is meditating 24/7 or an orthodox Christian priest in a holy island in Greece that is 24/7, praying, you know, peace, isolated in the cave that is not experiencing some negative thoughts.

And I always go back to what one of my friends told me that he’s also mental coach. And I worked with him for years. And one of his teachers is Zen Buddhism teachers. And he goes to the temple in France often to his teacher. And he asked him in one of the first times that he was there doing retreats and spending time at the temple. He says, “How are you so calm? You know, how is it that nothing really rivals you or unsettles you? Like you’re always so serene, you don’t have any negative thoughts.” And he said the answer from the teacher is that he says it’s not true. He says, “I probably have more negative thoughts and more challenging thoughts and emotions than you have. The difference between you and me is my training and my ability to not stay in that state and in that emotion for a long time. So I stay in it for seconds and you stay in it for who knows, right?”

So I think there’s true wisdom in that. And it’s all about practice, everything. I mean, brain is a muscle like any other, even consciousness, that comes naturally to us. I mean, we are conscious spiritual beings. We are souls on this planet, in this body. But in order for us to connect with our true self, we need to go through these layers, the constructs of the society that has developed us in a way, has shaped us. And that requires practice on a daily basis. And that’s not easy.

The Power of Nature

Look, it’s not easy not switching on your phone or your TV the first thing in the morning, but doing something that is maybe not as healthy, but being devoted to that practice or during the day having that little 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 minute rest time and comprehension time. It’s not easy to do that, especially for people that didn’t develop that kind of habit. It doesn’t come naturally.

Even though I don’t like giving advices, we talked about it, but I share something that works as a suggestion, something that works extremely well for me. And this is crazy that even in the 21st century we are even talking about this as a hack. It should be like an everyday thing, that it’s a natural, most natural thing is to spend time in nature, listen to the birds chirping, listen to the wind, feel the wind, feel the. I mean, if you are by seaside or ocean side, walk by the water or any water or pond or lake or just be without a phone. And in nature, let the nature do its job and heal you. And there’s so much more power to that than we actually think.

And I felt like in the darkest moments, when I really don’t want to do any of these techniques or any of the time indoors, I just go out and I just go out and preferably walk uphill, because I feel like when you walk uphill, your heart rate raises, obviously, and because of that effort, you’re even more present, so even less time for your thoughts to consume you, so you’re fully present. And then when you get to a certain point high at the top, you feel good about yourself because you’ve done something, you’re in the nature, you’re dedicated time to yourself. So I feel like that’s super powerful and it’s oftentimes very underestimated.

From New Kid to Legend

JAY SHETTY: The reason why I love hearing about your practice is just because I think an athlete’s mind is one of the most unique places on earth. Because when you’re dealing with extremes every day and every week and both extremes of being number one and then losing a game and, you know, everything that goes on, the toolkit you have is one of the most versatile toolkits. And that’s why I asked that question was just to understand what you do.

I was going to ask you, I feel like one of the most challenging things. And you probably remember this when you are the new kid on the block and you play in all the legends, and today you’re the legend and you’re playing the new kids on the block, and it must be such a fascinating experience to go through. And when you talk about the power of letting go and the power of surrender, I wanted you to talk to us about that. What did it feel like when you were the new kid on the block and you were playing your legends that you looked up to, and now you’re the legend, you’re the goat, you’re the number one playing the new kids on the block? What does that mentally look like?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: It’s a completely different feeling, obviously, and different perspective. I mean, when you’re a teenager coming up and then you know you’re in a dreamland, when you are just sharing a locker room with the legends of the game or the guys that you look up to, your biggest rivals, they are becoming your biggest rivals later on, but at that point, they’re heroes. They’re like, “My gosh.” I mean, these guys, I’ve seen them on the TV. And now I’m…

JAY SHETTY: Who was that?

Learning from Tennis Legends

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I mean, look, my idol growing up was Pete Sampras. And even though Pete’s game and my game are quite different, I don’t know, I loved his demeanor, I loved his ability to cope with the pressure and how he was coming up with the best tennis when it mattered the most. And that was kind of a sign of a greatest champion.

He was holding a record for most slams and weeks, number one, for a long time until Roger came and Rafa, of course, and then paved the way and then looking up to them as well. Even Nadal is only a year older than me, but he made a breakthrough earlier than I did. So already for a couple of years he was on the tour when I started coming in and he was already number two in the world, multiple slam winner.

So of course it was kind of a surreal experience for me and I tried to enjoy it and embrace it, but at the same time I felt like, “Okay, it’s great to share the court with these guys, but I want to beat them.” I want to get the biggest titles, I want to be number one, I want to dominate.

So I think that the first kind of that wave that I was riding on helped me to win my first Slam when I was 19 in Australian Open in 2008. And then I won a couple of big tournaments and so forth. I reached number two in the world, but I still wasn’t number one.

And then I had a three year period. I didn’t win a Slam. I was winning some big tournaments, but I couldn’t win a Slam. These two guys were beating me in every big match. Federer and Nadal. I changed rackets, team members. I did everything I can to kind of find the right formula. And I was struggling physically as well.

The Transformative Journey

That’s where I actually had my transformative journey, nutrition wise, where I took out the gluten and dairy products and refined sugar. Up to that point, I was eating all of these things thinking, “Well, I’m eating relatively healthy.” I mean, relatively to be healthy. I thought, that’s what I know.

But then when I started working with this doctor and he pointed out, “If you have strong gluten intolerance, messes up with your gut. Got to take that out. You got to take out the dairy product because that creates a lot of inflammation in your body. You might be able to eat it later on, but not now. And refined sugar? Absolutely no.”

So that was a huge change, but I committed to it. And then I felt that affected me, affect my mental clarity, my recovery was much better, my decision making on the court was better. So that helped a lot.

And of course mentally as well, I was working on certain programs that I had from that were kind of not really very positive and not really serving the purpose on the court of winning a match. So that year 2010, 2011 is when I experienced a huge boost of energy and transformation and that change. An unbeaten run of 40 plus matches and had three slams and became number one and had one of the best season of my life. And that’s where everything started going in the upwards direction for me.

Learning from Losses

And learning also from these guys and the matches that we’ve played against each other was something that was extremely important for me at the time. I was of course trying to consume as much as I can this energy of the center court and everything. And it was overwhelming at times. But I was also very thorough in my analysis of the matches afterwards.

Even though I don’t necessarily like to watch matches that I lost. But Kobe Bryant used to talk about this a lot and when I was talking to him personally about that, he would. Because I tell him, “Kobe, I really don’t like watching myself perform bad or when I lost. And it just gives me this cramps in my stomach and I don’t like it.”

And he said, “Even if it’s just specific intervals of the match that you lost that you want to watch, that you definitely look at that and you need to analyze that and you need to go through that cramping feeling because that’s where you learn from those mistakes and that’s where you have an opportunity to rectify that, the next tournament or next match and so forth.”

So that helped a lot. And I do watch the matches that are lost and highlights and certain parts, but I never watch the last point. I don’t want to watch the point where my opponent fist bumps and raises his hands. I just, maybe it’s, I don’t know, it’s a superstition or not, but it’s just some kind of a feeling that I have.

But yeah, those rivalries really shape me into the person I am, into the player that I am and definitely grateful for everything that I experienced with these guys.

JAY SHETTY: And now the flip, now when you’re playing the younger players.

Mentoring the Next Generation

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Well, now the flip is obviously an interesting experience for me because when Federer and Nadal and Murray, my biggest rivals, retired, actually most recently in the last year or two, part of me left with them. And I really feel that because. And I thought, “Well, it’s not going to be difficult for me to kind of shift my attention in terms of who are my principal rivals on the tour, from them to someone else.”

But it is. It is tough because I’m used to these names, these guys, these faces for 20 years, and then new faces come in and it’s normal, how can I say, evolution of our sport. And it’s normal that you have new generations that are kind of come in and dominate the tour. I’m experiencing something I have never experienced before, but that’s also fine. I’m trying to embrace this journey.

But also I think what is very important to me personally and what I have expressed directly to all of my basically rivals currently today, the young guys who are going to be the carriers of the tennis for the next decade, is that I’m here for them to share my experience. Even though it’s difficult because we’re facing each other, but I still feel that in a way, that’s also my role, it’s also my responsibility, and it’s also a great opportunity for me to do that, because it really fills my heart with joy that I’m able to convey my experiences, my knowledge, whatever that I can, from my journey to a new generation.

Because naturally, the tennis should get better. And we all want tennis to get better, to be better, and I want somebody to break my record in the future. All of the records, why not? I mean, this is how it should be.

If I can contribute in a way where I can say, “Hey, aside of the barriers that we created in a rivalry, if you need help with, I don’t know, public relations, if it’s marketing, if it’s dealing with the outside world as well, that is very difficult. Dealing with anxiety. We all have that, we all know how it is to feel alone. You let yourself down or you let other people down.”

Mental challenges in a high level professional sport are 100% present with everyone. It’s just a matter of how you deal with it, who you have in your support system that can help you. So I feel like it was great when I was able as a kid to ask some of the guys who were playing at the top level some of the questions that were interesting me, and that just hearing from them two or three sentences of how they think that they were dealing with it and how that affected them was huge to me. Even if you heard it from someone else. But just hearing it from them, it just has this resonant power.

And it did help me a lot. I didn’t have it from my top rivals at the time, but I had it from some guys, like Ivan Ljubicic, for example, who was fellow Croatian tennis player. And he was number three or four in the world at that point. And then I was breaking through as a teenager, and we shared the same tennis coach. He influenced me in a positive way to, like, change the racket or string pattern or strings, and all of these small details that you might not think that are maybe relevant, but you hear it from them, and then you’re like, “Okay, now I’m ready to make the decision because I trust what he tells me because he’s a testament to what he’s preaching, basically.”

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, it’s so interesting because I love that you offered that. I was talking to Carmelo Anthony recently, the basketball player from the Knicks and very successful hall of Famer, and he was telling me that in basketball, he doesn’t find the young players being that open to coaching and guidance from the senior players. How do you find it in tennis? Is it more open? Is there? Did you get people coming back and saying, “Novak, I have loads of questions for you.”

The Challenge of Individual Sports

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yeah, I would agree with that with Carmelo, because also in tennis, because it’s an individual sport as well, it makes it even more isolated, solitude sport, where you are focused on your team and you create your own environment, community, and you’re excluding everything else, which is understandable to some point.

Contrary to, let’s say, basketball, we do share the locker room. So we sitting next to each other or warming up next to each other, playing finals for the biggest tournament, which is crazy to think about it. Whereas obviously, the basketball or football, soccer, these guys, they don’t see each other until they actually own the court. We look at each other, send each other looks. Our team members send each other looks in the locker room and stuff. So the battle starts already there.

So from that point of view, it’s kind of hard to expect that they would come and say, “Hey, look, give me some advice. How can I beat you?” But that’s why I’m saying, like, there’s many more other things that can be very helpful, like outside of the court.

And yes, there are some young players that are, how can I say, open, more flexible, more curious. And I think it’s maybe not so much about that, but it’s about how shy you are or how courageous you are to really break that boundary and not be afraid of coming to me or to someone that you look up to and say, “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

More often, I would get questions through their team members, to my team members, to me, and then I would approach them and say, “Hey, you can talk to me. There’s no problem.” “Yeah, but I don’t want to bother you” and stuff like that.

So, yeah, I think it’s very nice if you have that exchange, even if it’s a short one, because the level of appreciation and respect, which I think is ultimately the most important thing in sports, yes, we all want to win. Yes, we all want to be the best. Yes, we all want to make records in history. But appreciating what your fellow athlete goes through, compassionate. Being compassionate and empathizing with him or her and respecting the process is something that is more eternal in your heart, in your soul, and in the eyes of all the other people than any achievement or any success. I mean, that’s at least how I see it.

JAY SHETTY: I love that I couldn’t agree with you more, because I always try to remind people that the only person who can truly relate to you is that person. Like, your competitors are the only people who can actually relate to what it feels like to be you. Because your team, they can’t fully relate. Of course they can relate. They play tennis and they understand the game, but they don’t know what it feels like to be in that locker room before you go on, to be at the net when the score is not in your favor.

Like, even I talk about, even in our industry. Like, I like to be friends with everyone in my industry, and I like to connect with anyone that you genuinely get along with. Because for me, I’m like, you’re the only person who understands what it feels like to interview people, to get the public criticism, to have the scrutiny, to be careful about what you’re saying to, whatever it may be. And if I’m not friends with you, I have my friends from back home in London who I love. They’re my best friends, but they don’t know what it feels like to do this right? And so in this part of my life, there’s a difference.

I wonder with you. You’ve been through. And I want to talk about some really pivotal moments. You’ve been through so many injuries, losses, all of that at this point in your career, when you’ve achieved so much, you’ve been through so much. What goes through your mind when you lose?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Now, answer that. But just want to reflect on what you said on the industry, because I think it’s super important.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

The Philosophy of Unity in Sports

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: And that’s the mentality, the right kind of mentality, and the philosophy of instead of division, it’s unity, it’s collaboration, it’s understanding, it’s support, it’s respect, it’s appreciation, it’s coming together, it’s growing industry together, understanding that you’re all, yes, you are competitors. I mean, even in your industry, you compete for the audience and so forth. And there’s a lot of podcasts out there, and it’s understandable to a certain point that there are certain formulas that you developed and tools that you want to keep to yourself, which is 100% understandable.

But at the same time, overall, in a general perspective of things, we are part of the same industry. We need to grow. We need to grow this awareness. So that’s how I also see it for tennis in sports, even more so competition and kind of a fierce mentality is so prominent to the point where, like, for example, in basketball, I love basketball. You know, Serbia is a country of basketball. Basketball is our national sport, number one.

And you have intentionally, maybe in the midst of a battle under the rim, fighting for a rebound, hurt somebody, and that somebody. You elbowed somebody, okay? And that somebody’s down, and you can see him in pain, and you don’t come and give him a hand and say, “Hey, man, sorry, let’s go.” I don’t see how that exposes your weakness, because I think that’s in the center of everything. It’s like, don’t show your weakness. Don’t show your vulnerability. Be strong, be tough, whatever.

Of course we have to be tough. Be strong, be whatever, be fierce in terms of wanting to win and finding a way to win. But that doesn’t mean that we can be also human beings that, hey, if I did something to you in a contact sport like basketball, if it’s a foul or something like that, hey, you just give him a hand one second and say, whatever, let’s go. Let’s keep it going. That doesn’t mean that you will not battle in the next minute again.

So that’s the part which I don’t really understand fully or don’t support it. But that’s why I feel like coming together and really showing that respect, even if it’s before the game and after the game, it really resonates with people. It does send, overall, a good message, and I think it improves the sport and brings people more together.

Dealing with Loss at This Stage of Career

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. At this stage of your career, I feel like you’ve obviously we’ve talked about it, you’re satisfied, you’ve succeeded, you’ve come back from being down on points, and I’m trying to get into your mindset, just where it’s at today and how it’s evolved over time. What does it feel now when you lose, have an early exit? What does that feel like now compared to before?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: As hard, as hard as it was before? Yeah, sometimes there is no rule. Sometimes it takes me an hour, sometimes half a day, sometimes a day, sometimes a week to go over the loss. I mean it just really depends. But right after the match, if I have to reflect shortly about the match with my team, but I just want to be left alone. Yeah, I just have to go through my process.

I don’t like the chit chat, the small talk of trying to lift my spirits up right after the match. I just like, just give me some time. I need to isolate myself, go in my room, go outside, walk whatever it is, just blow some steam out. And then when I do that, then I’m ready to talk, socialize and stuff like this. I don’t know whether that’s something that is good or not in general terms, but that’s just me.

I feel like it’s really hard for me to digest that I lost the match. As I said, sometimes takes longer, sometimes shorter to get out of it. But I do need definitely a few hours to not see anybody. I hug my kids, if I say my kids, my kids, sometimes within those few hours they get me and they’re like “Daddy, we have to do this. You have to take me there” and stuff. So kids have that permission to come into my space. But anybody else, I just need some time and I just feel like it’s sometimes necessary to have that.

The Importance of Solitude and Being Bored

And in solitude is not necessarily bad. And I feel like we all need to learn how to embrace being in solitude and enjoy being by ourselves. Doesn’t mean that we have to go to total extreme, but it has to be balanced and optimal. But we need to create that time for ourselves because also being bored is good. Being bored. This is something very interesting that I also see with my kids, particularly with my son keeps on telling me he’s 10 and he’s like “Daddy.”

He just recently told me a few days ago we were at my parents place, countryside by the lake. And we were alone and we were playing different. We were playing ping pong, we were doing some kayaking in the lake and we played some football, soccer. So we had a quite active few hours of first few hours of the day, and then I was doing something else. I don’t know what I was doing. And then he comes up to me and is like, “Daddy, I’m bored.”

And then I had him sit down with me and I said, “But son, it’s okay to be bored sometimes. First of all, you had a great active morning and you did a lot of things. And second of all, when you are bored, it doesn’t mean that you have to instantly take a book or a screen or anything else. You need to also learn how to be with your thoughts. And if you are not comfortable being bored indoors, go outdoors, sit on a chair and have some drink and just look at the sky.”

And I think that’s much easier said than done. And I really would love my children to be able to be okay with being bored because that’s the time when you’re actually most creative or that’s the time when you can manage your thoughts and everything that you have been suppressing by distracting yourself with phone, with whatever it is they don’t have. My kids don’t have phones. They’re 10 and 7. And that’s another conversation.

But it’s a struggle, but it’s important. I think it’s super important, particularly for them at this young age to understand and develop a connection with nature, with outdoors, with activity, with all these things. And then it’s inevitable. Soon it will come a moment where they’ll have the screens and they’ll blend into the society’s norms. But at least I’ll be comfortable as a parent that I done what I can to instill some of the foundational things in them that they will appreciate. Maybe not now, but later on in life.

Dealing with Distractions After a Loss

I think also when I lose a match, I want to be distracted. I want to have my phone, I want to watch something, read something, I want to distract myself. And that’s one of the bad habits that I have. So it’s a battle for me. And normally how I win this battle is just go outside and I either don’t take my phone, I’ll leave it, or if I take it, I’ll just. If I’m in the city, I’ll just listen to something, listen to Jay Shetty’s podcast On Purpose, or I would do something, or normally I would listen to music, relaxing just to kind of calm myself.

I would prefer not listening to anything and just being immersed in whatever is outdoors and trying to find a park, trying to find anything natural. And I think that helps a lot. But I do need my time.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, that’s reaffirming for me. Because if I’m having a tough time, I’ve always found that being alone, I have to first make sense of how I feel about something before I hear everyone else’s feelings. Because otherwise, someone’s feeling won’t satisfy me.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Right.

JAY SHETTY: So even if someone said, and I assume that’s what you’re saying, if someone came up to me goes, “Oh, but, Jay, but everything’s going to be all right.” It’s like if I don’t feel that and if I don’t believe that, it doesn’t matter how many times someone says that.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: And of course, the intention is good.

JAY SHETTY: Of course.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: But it’s hard for you to see that at a given moment.

JAY SHETTY: Correct.

The Role of Healthy Distractions

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: So I agree with that. And I think to the point of distractions. I don’t think that necessarily distractions are 100% super negative. And I’ll explain. I think that for a lot of people, they need a moment. However that moment lasts to. It looks like they’re distracting themselves, like when I do it. But what I do is just bringing myself back to that center, whatever that is. Okay. And then I’m ready to do some other practice of breathing or whatever it is, or I can socialize. I can start speaking with people and do other things.

So I don’t feel it’s necessarily bad. Unless you don’t have any control of it. Unless it just carries you into hours and hours of playing games or being on social media, of being. If it’s that, then it’s not good.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Then it’s not good, because then you’re disrupting your own rhythm.

JAY SHETTY: Well, what you’re doing is you’re disrupting the pattern.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Right.

JAY SHETTY: So instead of being there and then you’re just playing the game again in your head and being down on yourself and being negative.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Right.

JAY SHETTY: And so you’re disrupting that pattern with the distraction. And then that’s a good thing, because then you don’t get into that spiral. And it’s not like you’re checking what people said on the comments about the game. Right? You’re just disconnecting from the game.

Social Media and Emotional Regulation

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I’m disconnecting? Well, the thing is that if you’re on social media, which I do have a tendency to go to social media as well, right after, even though I don’t want to, but part of me wants to. It’s also where I find some short clips of what happened in a match and then kind of analyze what happened and how I. Why I did what I did or whatever. What could I could have done better?

And then I see, obviously there’s these shocking headlines like “Djokovic is out. He lost. What a shock early,” blah, blah, blah. And then I get pissed off and then I just switch that off. Right. So I don’t even get to the comments or section or anything like that. Then I just leave it for whatever time.

And then what you’re doing is you are changing that state you’re in, because if you are really wired in that moment, you are almost going to burst. It’s not good. I mean, how can you have a rational conversation with anybody if you’re in that state? And then normally in that state if you start making decisions when you’re hot headed, not good as well.

I think that these are the ways of, if you can cool yourself down. And then, I mean, a cold shower is something that I also do sometimes when I’m hot headed that I think also helps with kind of biology. And I feel like physiology just helps my mind, my brain calm down and then I’m able to address topics that I want to address.

JAY SHETTY: It’s almost like what it takes to be. To emotionally regulate.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: And if you go straight into analyzing the game or talking about it, you’re actually heartbeat’s going up, you’re breathing shallow again, you’re replaying the missed shot and all of a sudden you’re just bombarded by all the same emotions again. And you’ve got to sometimes just calm that down and before you can do that effectively. It makes a lot of sense.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Exactly.

The Beauty of Caring and Vulnerability in Sports

JAY SHETTY: But what I love hearing, which is what I love about all my favorite athletes, and you’re definitely, when I think about my favorite athletes, you’re in tennis, Cristiano in soccer, Lewis Hamilton in F1. People sometimes will make fun of Cristiano online for still crying when he loses. I love that. As a fan, I love that. I love to see that he’s crying after all this time. He’s the number one goal scorer in the world.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Right.

JAY SHETTY: He’s, in my opinion, he’s achieved everything he possibly could. He’s played amazing for his country, same way as you. But it’s like he’s still crying and the game’s not even. It’s not the Champions League anymore.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: He cares.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, he cares. Exactly.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: He cares. And I agree with you. I think, well, this is the point that we discussed on particularly men, professional sports. There’s no room for vulnerability and because that shows weakness. Weakness exploits you. And when something exploits you, then you are vulnerable to lose the match or game or whatever it is. I mean, that’s the narrative. When you are crying.

JAY SHETTY: You are.

Emotional Expression and Vulnerability in Sports

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yeah, you’re often regarded as a very weak man. And I have had the same view for quite a long time, I must say. And I changed that about 10 years ago. My upbringing, there was no room for emotions. There was just like serious, I have to do my job and I have to be successful. No room for error, etc.

But it also comes from, I think, my home where I didn’t have that relationship where when I would cry, I would be with my father especially, that I would feel safe, I would not feel that. And so I had to not cry and be tough. And then I have to. I kind of close myself and to the point where I wasn’t able to express myself emotionally at the time.

When I started dating my girlfriend, at the time my wife, you know, it was hard for me to kind of express what I feel. Even though I’m a very talkative person, I’m very, you know, I like to communicate and I feel like I’m very approachable in that sense. But for a long time that was a kind of a narrative, particularly in, you know, men’s sports as we talked about it.

So I do like that about Cristiano as well, because in the end of the day, you know, he’s giving his heart out on the pitch for his team, for the fans. And that ultimately needs to be respected because the guy, at his age, 40, after everything he has achieved, still going, still wants to win in a league that is far weaker than the best leagues in Europe, you know, but he still has this champions mentality and he’ll always have it as long as he’s playing. So yeah, absolutely a credit to him for that. And I do resonate with that.

And I cried many times after my losses in the locker room. But also on the court, particularly after Olympics, like losses at Olympic games for my country or Davis Cup, when I play for my country, that’s like even stronger intensity of emotions that you go through because you’re not playing for yourself only in that way. I mean, when I play all the tournaments, I always represent my country. But here in this official team competitions or Olympics, it’s even more emphasized the importance of your country, of wearing those colors on your sleeve or in your heart.

So when you lose, you’re like, you’re so down and the whole world collapsed. I’m very happy that I was able to win the golden medal for my country last year in Paris Olympics, because that was a long time dream of mine. And the Olympic Games are just so special, you know, every four years, I know LA is the next one. Obviously my wish is to be able to play LA. I mean, hopefully I’ll be still, still playing, to be able to participate.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I hope so too. It’ll be fun. Watch you locally for one, for sure. And we got the soccer World Cup coming to America too, so.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yeah, it’s an exciting time.

JAY SHETTY: But no, it’s. I love hearing that as well. Just like when you’re playing for yourself, you let yourself down, you let the fans down. But when you’re playing for your country, you let the country down. And you know, no one wants to let their country down. No one wants to, you know, everyone wants to represent well. And I think sometimes at a national level, athletes get it really tough when you lose for your country.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yes, it’s.

JAY SHETTY: It’s one of the hardest feelings because, yeah, it’s a different emotion. And I think we forget as fans and followers. You forget the human experience.

The Connection Between Sports and Life

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: No, for sure. I mean, look, we are very blessed as athletes on the highest level to be able to play the sport that we fell in love with. Because if not all, but super majority of professional athletes play those sports on the highest level because when they were kids they wanted to play tennis, basketball, football, whatever. They fell in love. And it’s a love and passion for the game that got you going.

So it’s important to state that because, you know, we are for sure fortunate ones, but at the same time we feel that through sport we are able to connect with people and people are able to connect with the virtues that sport and the values that sport represents that help them in their everyday life. I think that’s not something that has been talked about a lot. Yeah, I agree on how. Why is it that our sports are so popular? Why is it that people relate to athletes?

It’s because of this grit, because of this battle. We all go through internal battle on a daily basis. And in sports we can of course admire the features of an athlete and the skills and the talent and the abilities. But at the same time we also identify ourselves with those athletes we feel like, “wow, you know, this game or a match, it’s in a way a condensed daily life or a condensed life into an hour two or three where you start at the beginning, you’re even, then you end up winning or losing.”

But in the process or journey of the match and the game, you’re going through ups and downs, you’re going. And particularly in individual sports, you mentioned Lewis Hamilton, another great legend. You’re going through that battle of trying to win that inner battle where you go through your doubts, your worries, your fears. So all of this elements are part of everyday life of everyday person.

And that’s why I feel like people relate to sports and also when they go to see sport live particularly, but also when they watch it on TV, I feel they’re able because they are so connected to the community of that club or that athlete or whatever it is, they feel like all of their problems stop at least for those hour, two, three hours that they are watching.

And they feel like they can also when they’re watching. I mean that’s my observation and experience with tennis fans for example, or I mean of course I watch basketball, football live as well, or the other fans of the other sports is that that’s where they feel like they can free themselves of the emotions and the burdens that are kind of wearing them down.

And sometimes it really goes to an extreme level where people start or swearing and fighting and throwing stuff at the athletes and behaving really bad like hooligans. And that’s obviously a part that I don’t support, but I can see that there’s a lot of people that are like, that’s why like after a game they either feel drained or they feel energized. They either feel like they have kind of like collected that energy from the stadium or they feel like they’re completely like a deflated balloon because they’ve been through crazy intensity of the emotions and they relate, they follow every point and every second of the game.

And then in the end, of course if the team loses, it’s a big difference than when they win. But it’s just that identification that happens that I feel like it’s super strong and why sports are so important for the society and why people regarded as very something very popular and important for them.

The Values Sports Teach

JAY SHETTY: And I’m really glad you’re having that conversation because I think it can have even as a kid, like I grew up playing sport never, you know, good enough to play any semi professional, even professional level. But sport created discipline in my life, even as someone who wasn’t, you know, that prolific sport created discipline, created teamwork. If you were playing a team sport, created timeliness, created commitment, created showing up.

There were so many healthy, valuable masculine traits as well that were so important and of course for women as well. And it’s interesting what you say about it going the toxic side, because I think it was the last Euros of the World Cup and there was this statistic about how domestic violence in England goes up if England lose, but it goes up even more if England win.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Oh, wow.

JAY SHETTY: Because people drink more when they win.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Right.

JAY SHETTY: So. And that’s just so shocking that you see that connection too. And that’s why I think it’s even more important to get these positive messages through sport out so that we don’t have that kind of a statistic because. And that’s specifically to do with football. Soccer.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yes, of course. But it is super important. And I think. But in, in football it’s far more extreme than in tennis in terms of the tennis fans are ultra fans and you know, the kind of like following and being such an ultra devoted fan. I mean, they literally live for that the entire year. Which I think is beautiful.

When you see choreographies of some fans in the basketball games or football games. And it’s just, it’s art. It’s beautiful, you know, and then this energy when thousands and tens of thousands of people start singing together for their club, I mean, it’s incredible feeling. That’s why we all love being present, to experience that. Because ultimately human beings love to experience things that fills our life.

And then sports allow us to do that. They allow us to experience some incredible, enthusiastic, exhilarating type of uplifting energy, joy. But it also the sadness or anxiousness and stuff. And so all of these emotions that you go through, it’s just an incredible school of life in some way.

But you’re right, you know, it also teaches professional sports teach a great deal of discipline and also the never giving up spirit that I think it’s important for people because today in the society, because a lot of people look to conform, to be comfortable, to, you know, there’s always, you know, something that I can do differently. They don’t finish things. So it’s important to kind of remind yourself to be devoted and not give up and believe that you can, you know, achieve something that you set yourself up to. And so yeah, sports, sports definitely send those values. And you’re right, it’s important to always emphasize that.

Playing Through Pain and Dedication

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. One of my favorite stories actually of that never give up mindset was Vanessa Bryant tells this story after Kobe Bryant tragically passed away. And she said that Kobe played through a lot of games, especially finals, when he was injured.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: And she would ask him and say, “why are you playing when you’re injured? You should just not play like it’s okay.” And he would say that “if I don’t play, there’s going to be a fan out there who saved up to watch this game and they can only come to one game in their life because it’s expensive to get seats and they saved up to watch me play. And if I, if I don’t play, they won’t see me play. And so I’m going to play through an injury.”

And I’m like, when you hear stories like that of athletes doing incredible things, you think, “wow, like that’s the power. That’s the motivation.” I was going to ask you, I mean, you’ve played through and overcome some bad injuries. What’s the worst injury that you ever had to overcome to be able to come back at the top?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I had a surgery of my elbow back in 2017 and I’ve kind of had that injury for a year and half. And I tried with. I don’t normally drink anti inflammatories. I don’t like those tablets and cortisone shots or anything like that. I feel like that’s only masking the problem. But sometimes, if you really in tennis, we sometimes play five, six days in a row and you have no other option. And if you want to stay alive in the tournament, you have to do it.

So I’ve done it for like a year or something with playing with under these pills, like every single match to the point where I didn’t feel pain anymore. Sorry. Actually, I felt the pain even if I was taking the full dose of anti inflammatories. And that was the sign for me, like, I have to operate this. I have to do something different.

I made a kind of a little bit of a vow to myself and promise that I will not operate myself throughout my career, will not make any surgery. And that was. I felt I let myself down. I cried for days that I accepted to do a surgery, but surgery was done very well.

JAY SHETTY: You cried for days?

The Mental Game: Transforming Adversity into Fuel

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yeah, because I felt like I let myself down. I said, you know, I wanted to go throughout my entire career without having one surgery, but it happened. And I had an arthroscopic intervention on my knee last year during a match in Roland Garros, actually, fourth round. I won in five sets after four and something hours. But I was winning set and a half comfortably in the last 16 round. And then I felt a click. It was something. It was very weird. And I never had an injury of the knee, luckily, at least that severe.

And then, you know, I started to play, but I could not stand on my leg and I was playing through the pain. Then I invited physio and the doctor, and then, you know, he was touching me in this spot where my meniscus is, and I felt, wow, that’s very painful. He’s like, “What do you want to do?” And I said, “Listen, you know, I want to. I want to give it a shot. I want to try. Just give me strongest painkillers you have right now, because I’m on the court, full stadium. I can’t just. I want to try.”

So that’s what they’ve done. And after 30 minutes, they start kicking in. And I was kind of surviving in this 30 minutes. And then the pain went down. The pain was still there, but I went through it and I won the match. And I actually finished the match with pretty good feeling. I still had pain, but it was pretty good feeling. And I was confident for my quarterfinals. It was coming up in two days.

But the next day I went for an MRI and I saw I have a ruptured meniscus and basically had to be operated. So I pulled out on the tournament and I did that operation. And the Wimbledon was coming up in three weeks, and then my team was. I still remember that conversation with my team on the rooftop and on the back of that story that you told me about Vanessa and Kobe, you know, Vanessa was telling Kobe, “Why do you play? Don’t play” like it’s a normal, protective advice from a dear person in your life. Same I got from all of my people, from my family members to my team members.

And I remember my physio that I’m with for about 20 years told me, “Yeah, you know, it’s normally like four to six weeks and stuff like this, but, you know, we had some miraculous recoveries from some athletes.” And my physio was sitting on the rooftop of our hotel and old team was there. And he said, “I know you do not even think for a second you’ll play Wimbledon. Like, that’s out of the question.”

JAY SHETTY: Wow.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: And I didn’t say anything. All the team members agreed. I didn’t say anything. Actually, one thing I said, I said, “I understand what you’re saying, but please, for my own mental sanity, because it’s Wimbledon, because it’s my always been a dream tournament, the most important tournament. Let’s just see how it goes in the next two weeks. Because I have three weeks of the tournament. I can pull out three, four, five days before the tournament. So I have two, two and a half weeks to play around.” At that point, I was with crutches.

So, long story short, I’ve dedicated so much time in a day to recover, and it was like a task for me to prove even the closest people in my team and family wrong that I can recover. And it was really a mission. And I recovered and I played finals and I lost last year finals in Wimbledon. And then I, a week after that came to the Paris back again and played Olympics and won a gold medal.

So it was the best period of my 2024 season is when I actually had surgery, a post surgery, because something clicked in my head where he triggered me, my physio, and said, “Do not even think.” And for me, what I heard is, “Okay, thank you for giving me the task. Because now I have a challenge on my hands.” All I needed is that. And actually that’s what I need now. I feel like in this phase of my career, when I’m trying to motivate myself and keep going, I need a challenge.

Finding Motivation Through Opposition

I think athletes on the highest level after so long, they need to feel their challenge. They need to feel that they are playing a game. Even though it’s our job, but we need to feel like somebody is going to say something. You want to prove them wrong. Michael Jordan in his last dance was talking about it. He’s like, “Even if I didn’t have anybody in the crowds talking crap to me, but I still picked someone and selected him as an enemy. And just because I needed to create that enemy inside of my head to get me going.”

So I actually relate to that, even though I don’t necessarily always look for enemies in my every match in the crowd. But I had quite an experience with tennis crowds over the years in my career. Oftentimes when I would play with Nadal and Federer, most of the times I would have most of the stadium against me. So it would be challenging. But that’s also part of why my mental toughness is as it is in a kind of a hostile environment. Played most of my matches and big matches, and I kind of had to find a way to win a match and to use that energy as my fuel and not have it wear me down.

JAY SHETTY: What does that take to do that? Because it sounds like that scrutiny is worse than an injury. What’s worse? That kind of hostile environment. Hostility or injury?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Look, injury is the biggest enemy or an opponent of an athlete. You can’t do your job, you can’t play your sport if you’re injured. Which proves the point of self care even more of how important it is and how significantly you have to address that and approach that in your daily life as an individual athlete, particularly. But at the same time, hostile environment is not ideal. I mean, you always want to be playing where you are celebrated, cheered for, of course, you know, lifts you up in a tough moment when you’re down. But I learned somehow in the hostile environment to thrive. And I’ve seen that, you know, with Kobe did it as well, right. LeBron, you know, other athletes as well in their respective sports talked about it. And football, they experience it a lot.

JAY SHETTY: People can relate to that. I think people always feel. Yeah, even the average person constantly feels like their work’s a hostile environment or wherever. What allowed you to use it as fuel consistently over that time to the point where people were cheering when you finally win?

Creating Your Own Reality

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Well, there are a few things. First I mentioned that already is using that as a fuel to prove somebody wrong. And that requires work mentally to be able to transform or transmute that energy or that cheering that is against you to convince yourself it’s for you. So I was saying this years ago, after I was playing Federer in one of the Wimbledon finals, they would cheer “Roger! Roger!” all the time, basically. So I was convincing myself and I managed to convince myself, especially in the second part of the match, that they were cheering “Novak! Novak!” That’s what I was hearing.

JAY SHETTY: Wow, that’s cool.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: And then my mind was playing games, but I wasn’t allowing it to play games with me. That basically was like. What are you talking about? I mean, they’re saying “Roger.” They’re saying “Novak.” But I was like, “No, no, no, they’re saying Novak. Novak. Novak. Novak.” So I was using that as my own force and my own fuel. I just got chill and then. But that’s. It is possible. It is possible, but you need to work on that and convincing yourself in something that is different from the reality that is actually happening. Or basically in another words, creating your own reality.

Because in the end, that’s more philosophical question and spiritual. Whether this is all one reality or it’s a different. We all experience different forms of reality of what’s happening. So creating your own reality and convincing yourself and basically training your subconscious mind that this is exactly what you want to hear it is possible, but it takes an effort.

The Power of the Subconscious Mind

But it goes a long way because for everyday person, you know, you can tap into that subconscious mind that basically controls 95% of your hundred percent daily life while you are awake. You know, 5% is only. I mean, I was shocked. And that’s science. That’s not me saying it’s science. That is saying that 5% is only conscious mind. 95 is. I mean, I was shocked when I heard that. It’s like, how in the world are we then able to live how we want to live, where we are actually on autopilot most of the time.

And that explains the multitasking. That explains why we can text and drive and drink and speak and do five things at the same time is because of the subconscious. But subconscious is basically reacting to what you are instilling or uploading in that program. So I feel like when I was introduced to that subconscious mind science, I felt like I’ve changed myself and my own perspective on things and how I approach life and performance and relationship.

And I could see that. And I still make mistakes and I still do plenty of mistakes, not on the tennis court or outside in relationship and everything. I’m more conscious and more aware where it’s coming from and why I did it. And then I’m going to keep on doing mistakes, but I’ll try to reduce those. And I feel like being in control is something that we all want to be in. We want to control our thoughts, we want to control our lives, our partners, but it’s not possible and it shouldn’t be the case.

You can only control what you can, which is your own process internally. And then how that comes across, what I speak to you right now and what you think in your mind and how you hear my words is, I can’t control that. I can only hope that I am emitting the right kind of energy and vibe to you and that we are creating something nice.

Taking Responsibility

That’s where I feel like we all get trapped a lot. It’s like, “No, I’m going to prove you the point of what I was saying and I’m going to tell you why you are causing this in me” and so forth. So putting always a blame to someone else, and I mean, I can feel that with tennis, is that I can instantly see the mistake when I actually say it’s my coach’s fault or it’s my physio’s fault or my fitness coach’s fault or it’s whoever’s fault for me losing a match or me playing this way.

So I always remind myself, “Hey, take the responsibility in your hands. Take the means in your hands. You are in control of your life.” Maybe not fully, because there’s always this destiny or divine purpose of us being here and the karma from past lives and et cetera, that’s another conversation. But what you can control, focus on that. The other things is just, you know, it’s in God’s hands and it’s in the hands of other people and how that all interacts.

But I believe that when you’re training yourself to think good thoughts and it comes back to you, it’s the law of attraction and the law of giving and taking, and it comes back, you become what you think, right? And so there’s true power in that.

Beyond Tennis: The Athlete’s Mindset

JAY SHETTY: Novak, you’ve been so kind and generous with your time. I’ve got a few more questions for you. You know, I think you’ve talked so much about health, self care, discipline. I know that you have your new supplement out that I can’t wait to try as well. Your hydration. It’s called Sila, which I love the meaning of, if you can share what that means.

But I love that you’re finding a way to productize your mindset. I actually am, because I think people like myself who want to know, what is that 0.0001% mindset? And what are you discovering and taking? And you were just sharing it with me earlier. I was just thinking, I’m so excited about that, to try it out for myself, because I try and treat myself like an athlete, even if I’m not playing in the games, you are. Because to me, I’m trying to operate at that mindset, that level, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. And I love that.

So I guess where did that come from? Was that this idea of, you know, as you’re thinking about tennis and thinking about beyond tennis, where did that come from?

Preparing for Life Beyond Tennis

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I was always trying to think beyond tennis, particularly in the last 12 to 15 years of my career. I was hearing early on from other established tennis players who were retired and shared their experience of post-career with me, but also other athletes and how they struggled mentally, particularly if they had not prepared themselves for that transition.

I believe that in some way, you cannot fully prepare yourself for that transition mentally. It’s going to be a sad day for me when I leave tennis, and it’s going to be very emotional and I know that. But what I’m talking about is basically the adrenaline that also needs to be filtered or re-channeled somewhere.

I know that I will play sports for the rest of my life because I love sports and being active is essential. But also I feel like you need a challenge. Tennis has consumed most of my life and that’s what I know how to do best. But I have very broad interest in a lot of different things.

Passion for Health and Wellness

The industry or the sphere of life which is called health, wellness and well-being is my biggest passion. It’s a very broad ecosystem or field, as you know, because you’re part of it. But it has been my passion for 15 plus years and I always imagined a world where most people will take care of themselves – how they hydrate, how they eat, exercise, how they manage their sleep. Just a healthier world.

Of course it’s hard to change everything at the same time, and it takes a lot of time because the planet is big and there’s a lot of people. But I think taking small steps is very valuable and it has its effect.

The Importance of Proper Hydration

Hydration is something that was always super important for me as a professional athlete. I noticed that people who live everyday life, but not only them, but also athletes, don’t really understand the importance of hydration and don’t really understand maybe how to fully hydrate themselves on a cellular level.

When we talk about hydration, obviously the first thing that comes to your mind is “drink water.” We drink water, we have to. We wouldn’t survive a day without water, so that’s normal. But then we also have all these other ingredients and vitamins and minerals and things that we’re trying to take, whether it’s through supplementation or through food.

Obviously if you can get everything through food, it’s the best. I saw Brian Johnson the other day – a hundred and whatever tablets that he’s taking. I mean, I don’t know how he does it. Amazing, but I don’t think I would be able to drink that many tablets and I don’t want to. I do have supplementation myself, but I prefer trying to take everything through food.

But it’s difficult because our soil is depleted. The food that we are getting most of the time comes from the other remote side of the world, travels, and has lost its nutrients. We have polluted air, polluted water, polluted soil. All of these things play an important role in the inflammatory processes in our body or how we ingest certain ingredients and substances that are necessary for optimal health.

Going back to hydration, I think hydration is probably the easiest step towards that healthier diet or healthier life. It’s something that we cannot go without on a daily basis, and something that is as easy as breathing – something that everybody can do. Diet changes are something that is more challenging for people, and there are hundreds of different diets. I don’t want to get into it because everyone has their preference. But I think hydration is probably something that we will all agree with.

Launching Sila Wellness Brand

Since 2017 or 2018, I’ve been working on this project. I didn’t want to come out immediately – I could have, but I worked with a few different people and finally agreed to come out on the market with it. It’s basically a wellness brand called Sila.

One of the first products that we came out with is hydration, but we have magnesium. We are working on our sleep formula, nootropic formula, gut formula. So we’re going to have a line of different products.

My partner in that is actually my best friend, Mark Stilitano, who used to play tennis and we’ve known each other since we were teenagers. He’s very passionate about wellness and hydration and healthy lifestyle. I found that we are very synergetic in our mission and vision. He had something similar in his life that he wanted to do and he said, “Let’s join forces and do it together.”

We just recently started – very quietly as a soft launch because I don’t want this product or this brand to be just one of the many out there. Every ingredient that is in every product needs to be 100% best quality that is out there.

I’m very passionate about this because it’s a continuation of my passion, of my story, of my journey. It’s what I love, it’s what I drink on a daily basis. My kids drink it, my wife, everybody. I’m always looking for new ways or best supplements or things that can improve my performance, not just on the tennis court, but also in life – to have more clarity, more energy, better sleep.

I decided to do something on my own because the supplements out there that I was trying – there are some good ones, but I was not fully satisfied. So I tried to take the means in my hands and control the process from A to Z. It’s the way I am, it’s how I do things. Hopefully people will like it. It’s going to be an interesting journey that we’re embarking on.

The ReGenesis Pod Project

Other than that, I have another very interesting project called ReGenesis Pod that I want to get you in. It’s been six years that we’re working on that and we’re launching later this year. That pod is like a capsule – one of those sleeping capsules that you have in an airport.

About 12 or 13 years ago I was in Dubai airport and I was in business class lounge. I was like, “Look at me, I’m so lucky to be here and to be able to have a bed or have this sleeping pod.” But 99% of the people – they’re on layovers, they’re in transit, they’re sleeping on the floor in uncomfortable chairs.

I felt like how cool would it be if at the airport we would have these pods where people will go in and out not only to nap and sleep, but to go in and out in the shortest amount of time – whether it’s 8, 10, 15, 20 minutes – and feel refreshed and re-energized. They can reset their system and recharge the batteries and go on with their day.

By that time I was already traveling with an additional suitcase of gadgets – near infrared, far infrared, pulse electromagnetic frequency, different plates, boards, you name it. Essential oils, light therapies, vibrational frequencies, sounds, everything. Everything that is out there in the market that I find amusing and interesting, I take it, I try it, I try to implement it. I’m still traveling with these gadgets.

So I partnered up with Tav Keen, who is Australian and lives in Bali. We connected and he had similar thoughts. We were like, “Can we do this pod where I would have all these gadgets incorporated in one multi-sensory device where they don’t interfere with each other, but they complement each other?”

When you go in, you are like in a Faraday cage. You’re protected from harmful radiation of the towers, the Wi-Fi, the 5Gs, et cetera. You are just giving yourself a rest and recharging and then being stimulated with all these things. Four or five years of R&D and we finally created it.

It’s quite an exclusive product because it’s very expensive, it’s big – it’s not like a hydration drink. But my dream is to have that in every airport. It started like that, but then of course, corporate wellness is a big world as well.

Addressing Modern Lifestyle Challenges

The corporations – people work 9 to 5, 8 to 9, they’re staying all day seated. Their posture, all these things are affected. They don’t have the ability to ground their feet and be in nature. It’s always this fast-paced, modern lifestyle – on the go, on the go. “Give me a quick fix. I’m eating my lunch in the car on the go.”

I understand, I’m not judging. I understand we’re all part of that world. That’s why I wanted to create, in a way – even though I don’t like that term – a healthy quick fix to a modern, fast-paced lifestyle.

Men or women that live and don’t have time, they come back home, they’re super tired, exhausted, and they have kids, they have the spouse, they have everything happening and they’re like, “Oh my God, I’m sore, I’m depleted, I’m not sleeping well.” It’s quite complex.

But this could be, and I hope it will – I mean, again, I’m biased and we’ve been doing hundreds or maybe even thousands of people trials and the results are incredible. We’re doing a scientific study now, a human study in two universities in the United States. I can’t wait to see the results of that and see how it rolls out.

Finding Purpose Through Helping Others

I’m very passionate about it. These are some projects that I’m very involved in, but I like it because it’s in my alley. It’s in the area of life that I’m not only passionate about, but that I feel like I have experience and knowledge to some extent. Of course I surround myself with people who are more qualified and knowledgeable than me in that space, and then we develop it together.

I feel like trying to make other people feel better, whether it’s mentally or physically, through supplements, through this pod, through this podcast, through talking, through sharing the journey, sharing maybe some hacks and techniques – in the end of the day, that’s actually what drives me. I feel like it drives you a lot because it gives you purpose. It gives you purpose in your life.

It’s not only about yourself and what you do and the achievements and the fame and money and everything. It’s really about how you make your mark in the world. What’s the legacy? What do you leave behind? How do people benefit from you and what you say, what you do, what you create? That’s a driving force.

Lessons from Dr. Jim Lehrer

One of the best psychologists that I work with and one of the most impressive and intelligent people that I ever met in my life is Dr. Jim Lehrer. He was one of the founders of Human Performance Institute, HPI in Florida. We worked for a few years.

He has this obviously important question: “What would you like to have written on your tombstone? Would you like people to list your achievements or is it something else? How would you like people to remember you?” But deeply think about that.

Then we would go through a process of writing things down and really deconstructing my personality, my life, what I’m living in a given moment and how I see the future self and how I see the future of the world and whether I feel like I strongly believe that I can make that impact.

I feel everything that I do is related to that source of the purpose and of the light that is in the center of everything. I’ve also turned down many different companies in my life that wanted me to be an ambassador, because I just feel it’s very hard for me to represent and advocate something to millions of people that I really don’t believe in.

I would never drink that drink or eat that or whatever it is if it’s not aligned with my philosophy, my mindset – it’s not going to work. I’ve selected that journey, which is for my managers and my agents, not the ideal one. But at the same time, I’m calm in my heart, in my mind, because I know that I’m doing something that is right.

JAY SHETTY: I love that. I’m so excited to try it. I’m grateful that you’ve said that and that authenticity is there because I personally am someone who wants to try new things and wants to know what the best are using, especially when you’re creating it yourself. You’re not putting your name to it – you’re actually saying, “No, this is what I use, this is what I’m doing.” I think that’s important.

So, Novak, we end every interview with the final five. These have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Okay.

The Final Five

JAY SHETTY: Novak Djokovic, these are your final five. The first is, what is the best advice you’ve ever heard or received?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Live the life in the present moment, learn from the past, live in the present, and work for the future.

The Worst Advice Ever Received

JAY SHETTY: What is the worst advice you’ve ever heard or received?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: The worst advice. “If someone does good to you, do 10 times better to them. But if someone does bad to you, do 10 times worse to them.”

JAY SHETTY: Oh, that second part is not good advice.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Exactly.

JAY SHETTY: That first part’s beautiful.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yeah. But the second. The first part is connected to the second one. That’s why I said it. But the second one I don’t like.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I think it’s almost like if someone does good to you, do 10 times better to them. And if someone does bad to you, do 10 times less to them. Like, just, that would be good advice. That’s a good answer. I’ve never had that. That’s really, really good.

What’s the power of having had such a beautiful relationship with your partner, your wife, Jelena? I can’t do an interview without giving her credit and talking about her. I feel like a good man needs a good woman, and it’s such a big, important part of all of our lives.

The Power of Partnership

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yes. Yes. Thank you for asking me about my wife. We’ve been together since my age, 18. She was 19, so very long time. We dated. We went through different stages in different phases, and basically, she’s the only very serious relationship that I’ve ever had.

Yeah, she’s my rock. She’s someone that has seen the worst and the best sides of me. She has seen my evolution. She has challenged me on every level. We have grown together, and we have two beautiful children, and we still keep on growing and evolving.

We have challenges, as I guess every couple has, but I think we have an amazing base and foundation, and we always. When we have challenging times in relationship, we revert to that and we address why we are together, who we are as people and how we’ve grown and the future that we see is the future that we see together.

So whatever we try to do, we try to do together. So all of the projects that I told you about and everything, she’s been involved, and it’s very important for me to always hear her thoughts, her feedback, because she’s probably the only one in my life other than my brothers or my one or two friends that is able to tell me things that I maybe don’t want to hear and really challenge my ideas, challenge my thoughts, challenge my decisions.

And oftentimes her instinct or intuition was correct and mine wasn’t. I have to say that. But no, jokes aside, she has been an incredible partner in this whole journey, professionally, privately, emotionally, romantically, as a parent as well.

So I still play at this level because also of the support that she’s giving to our family back home. And I remind myself of that a lot. I’ve grown up with two younger brothers in a very small apartment, and I’ve seen what my mother did and what she does for a family and what women do to keep families together and intact and bring this incredibly powerful energy to our life that gives us wings and that gives us a springboard for everything that we’re doing outside of home is just something that one will never comprehend unless one experiences that family life.

So we’ve been through all these different journeys together as kids, teenagers, and getting more serious in relationship and her being my fiancé and then getting married and then having two kids. So, yeah, it’s hard to express everything that I feel is kind of love and gratitude towards her and what she means to me in my life.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I feel like when I’ve met her or interacted with her, she’s always just operating such a high frequency and a high vibration. Like, she has that natural energy, and it’s good for. I feel like that about my wife. And I feel like it’s good to have someone in your life who’s that close to you that can call you out and check on you and realign you. I value that deeply. My wife does the same for me.

Question four is, too, as well. What was your worst day on court and what was your best day on court?

Best and Worst Days on Court

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I would say winning a gold medal for my country in Olympics in Paris 2024, would be the best moment. Even better. And it surpasses me winning Wimbledon for the first time or winning Davis Cup with my country and stuff. And I’ve been incredibly fortunate to experience some of the greatest achievements in our sport.

But that one, just because I was 37 at the time, I mean, 37 years old, and maybe my last shot at the real shot at the gold medal and everything, how it happened and how it unfolded, it’s just that’s the moment.

And the worst would be, I would say actually also Olympics. When I lost the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, I was struggling a little bit with this injury of the wrist and didn’t know if I’m going to play or not. I played. I lost to Del Potro’s dear friend and went on to win a silver medal for his country. I lost in first round in a tight two setter and two tiebreaks.

And it was super emotional because Olympics playing for my country, being supported by a whole stadium, being probably at the peak of my career overall. Being on a run and on the role, winning four Slams. I held all four Slams. At that point I was just the most dominant I’ve ever was in my career.

Practicing several days, I was like, I cannot miss a ball. Like this is my time. There’s no chance anybody beats me here. And then one day or two days before the match, I start to feel something in the wrist, start to doubt myself. I started questioning whether I should go out or not. I have a very tough draw. I draw. Del Potro is very tough draw. First round and I lose. Close match.

As I said, he goes on to win silver medal, but that was the moment where I just felt like my whole world collapsed. Yeah, very, very tough. So it’s interesting now that you asked me because I never thought about it, but best moment and worst moment happened in Olympic Games. Because Olympic Games happen every four years. They’re so rare. And all the other tournaments you have a chance every year to win, but here, every four years. So you got to be at your top to be able to get a medal.

JAY SHETTY: That’s cool, that’s good. Good memories. And I’m glad you got the gold last year.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Appreciate it.

JAY SHETTY: Toughest opponent mentally and toughest opponent physically.

Toughest Opponents

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Toughest opponent mentally, by far myself.

JAY SHETTY: That’s a good answer.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: By far. And the toughest opponent physically. Nadal. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the battles with him were just grueling. The longest Grand Slam finals in history in the finals of 2012 Australian Open. 5 hours and 53 minutes, I think it was so almost six hours of grueling battle. I won that match in the fifth set. 7-5 or 7-6.

It was just, I remember the closing ceremony. After that we were standing and listening to the sponsors speeches and stuff. And we at one point we both simultaneously bent down and held our knees. And I could see his legs are shaking, my legs are shaking. And then someone saw that and brought us two chairs and brought us water and we had to sit down and sit for the rest of the ceremony because we were just.

I went into the locker room and took out my shoes and I had blood all over the socks and both socks and I didn’t feel it. Obviously, in this adrenaline rush in the court, you just go through the pain. You go through everything and then once you cool off and your muscles are cold and everything, it’s just like devastating feeling. You can’t walk, but obviously more satisfying when you win such battle.

But I had incredible matches against Nadal, clay court matches. I mean, clay is the slowest surface, the most physical in our sport. And playing him on clay in Roland Garros is probably the top challenge you can have in the history of our sport. Because he was getting to every ball and I was also very good defender and always very physically fit.

So we would push each other to the very limit physically and mentally. It was at times almost like an out of body experience for both of us where we would just, everything would flow. We would play incredible points that would last so long, exchanges and when you finish a match, then you realize, oh my God, it’s almost like you were not playing it. It was like something took over and just all your talent, the skill, everything was on a scale or on the platform that we created.

It’s like almost like an artist when he goes into his on a canvas, into his zone and just starts drawing some beautiful. That’s how it felt many times when I played him. And now when I talk about it and reflect, it gives me a great sense of pride and satisfaction that I’ve had the rivalry that I had with him and that I feel like not only we both made history of the sport, but we both made each other better.

And I feel like we brought so many incredible emotions to people who were watching us play.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, you can still watch those. I love TikTok now because you’ve got the highlights. Yeah, yeah, you can just watch those highlights for ages. Like all the best points and people compile it and you just think, wow, it is poetry in motion to just watch two artists played together.

Fifth and final question. We asked this to every guest who’s ever been on the show. Not in the beginning though. So these, all these rituals came afterwards. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

One Law for the World

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Hard to pick one thing. But I would probably create a law without punish greatly. Someone who just destroys our planet, throws trash in the nature or in the water or disrespects our Mother Nature and the planet we live on.

Maybe it would be a law where you would have to say hello to every person that walks by. Just trying to be more kind, more gracious, a little bit more compassionate. We need a little bit more empathy and compassion in this planet. Because when we are, as people, closer to each other and we are less divided, I feel like then, as a positive consequence of that, we will take care of the planet we’re living on.

Closing Thoughts

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. Well, Novak, as always, I’m inspired to see what you do continue to do in tennis, what you’ll do beyond tennis. And last time we covered your story of how you became and who you were and where you started. And I feel like today we’ve added another beautiful story chapter onto that growth.

And I’m so grateful to you for showing up as you do always, for living as intentionally as you always do. I still remember we finished the last interview, and even today, my team was saying it after the interview. Last time, you spent an hour talking to my team at that time, and even today, when you were coming in and was, oh, my God, he’s so nice. He’s so kind. It’s just. It’s amazing to see someone who’s truly, truly, truly the goat of their sport to be that humble, grounded, kind at all times with everyone. It’s truly admirable.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: And I appreciate the nice ones and.

JAY SHETTY: All the truly best people have it. So, you know. Yeah.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Thank you, Jay, for having me, and thank you for spending two hours with me. And I, time flew by. I mean, it’s incredible. And I feel like the connection and the energy was amazing, as it always is with you. And I hope that for the next chapter, we won’t need to wait another five years.

JAY SHETTY: Agree.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Let’s promise each other. We promise each other. We got to meet more frequent because I think we are both expanding and evolving and doing incredible things in our own fields and so many interesting things to talk about and to share. So, for sure, I’d love to be your guest a little bit more frequently and not wait for a long time. But thank you for having me and allowing me to share my story.

JAY SHETTY: Thank you, man. Anyone who’s been listening and watching, let me and Novak know. Tag us on Instagram, on TikTok. Let us know what’s resonating with you, what’s connecting with you, if there was a message, a game, a point, something that Novak shared with you that is going to stay with you for some time, let us know.

I love seeing what has an impact on you. That’s the goal of these conversations. I want to see what shifts you make, the habits you change, and the new goals that you achieve because of this conversation. A big thank you to Novak again, and we’ll see you on the next one. If you love this episode, you’ll love my interview with Kobe Bryant on how to be strategic and obsessive to find your purpose.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Our children have become less imaginative about.

Teaching Problem-Solving Skills

JAY SHETTY: How to problem solve, and parents and…

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Coaches have become more directive in trying to tell them how to behave versus teaching them how to behave.

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