A Word About Failure

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Michael Jordan, undoubtedly one of the best basketball players ever and one of the best athletes the world has ever known said this about failure:  

 "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

 The story is well known that Michael Jordan didn't make his high school basketball team. 

 I grew up playing baseball.  I love the sport.  I could walk to Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California as a kid (it was a long walk admittedly) and grew up loving the Angels, played Little League and dreamed of a playing professional baseball.  At the time I didn't realize how much failure was involved in being a baseball player.  And I got cut from my high school team in my senior year.  I still love baseball though.  Instead, I took up golf which has become a much better adult sport.

 The BEST PROFESSIONAL baseball players get out 65% of the time.  Andrew McCutcheon, the guy with the best on-base percentage in the majors only gets on 41% of the time.  

 Life is a lot about failure.  But it is also about NOT GIVING UP.  The very BEST stories and the very BEST people don't let failure cripple them.  They learn, move on, accept reality, choose joy, knuckle down and keep going.
Thomas Edison was both hearing impaired and fidgety. He only lasted three months in school where his teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He eventually was home schooled by his mom. In talking about his invention of the light bulb, he said:

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that do not work.” 

Today, in spite of your failures, which may be many, choose to forge ahead, keep your head up, learn, work hard or harder.  Great success may just be around the corner.

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