Michael Jordan did a 30-second commercial for Nike several years ago. (Clicking on the orange title above will take you to the YouTube version of this commercial). He was on his way to the locker room. His voice narrated the commercial. As he walked from his car to the locker room, he spoke the following:
I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.
I've lost almost 300 games.
26 6imes 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.
Success from failure is not a new idea. But for me I know it's true. Most of the successes that I have had have come from times in which I have muffed something, been ill prepared, or have otherwise been out of focus. But, memory is good. It allows me to tweak, adjust, refine, prepare, reemphasize, and refocus. It's the "two steps backwards, three steps forward" philosophy (a favorite book of mine from when I was 24).
There is at least one person in the world that thinks my writing is incomprehensible. But to the extent that I can write, I attribute that ability to a time period when I wrote for an underground campus newspaper on my college campus. During that time period, I had to practice succinctness and application of others' thoughts to a theme. Years later, I had a chance to review those articles and got a good laugh from them. They were so sketchy. I had to miss 9000 shots, lose 300 games, and lose games because I failed to make game winning last shots to get where I am today.
There's so much truth in failing over and over and over again to succeed.
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