I’m obsessed with tennis, but especially Wimbledon. In 2015, I fulfilled a lifelong dream to attend the event, which I consider to be the greatest tennis tournament in the world. See that white-clad speck on the left? That’s Roger Federer. You can click to enlarge the image, but he’ll still be pretty tiny.

From my perfect vantage point, it was incredibly exciting to watch Federer play in person. It was also fun to watch him from afar this year, as he added another Wimbledon Cup to the pile. Nearing age 36, he’s clearly still achieving “firsts” and “bests” that most of his 20-something competitors can only dream of.

How’s he doing that? Federer seems to be a fellow advocate for our Take the Long View® approach. Consider this Wall Street Journal commentary published just prior to his Wimbledon victory:

“Federer … will play for a grand slam title after doing something none of his top competitors here did ahead of the feature event on the tennis calendar—he took a break from competitive tennis.”

In other words, he won over the long haul by knowing when it was time to compete, and when he’d be better off staying patiently put. In his own words:

“Once you hit 30 you’ve got to look back and think, ‘How much tennis have I played? How much rest did I give my body over the years or how much training have I done? Did I do enough? Did I overdo it or not enough?’ It’s always calibrating the whole thing.”

The WSJ called this a “new playbook” for tennis. New? When it comes to investing, we’ve been running with a similar playbook for years.