“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.”
Michael Jordan, widely considered the greatest basketball player of all time, offers some valuable advice with this quote.
The problem with failure is that not enough people fail enough. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? But the truth is that if you don’t fail, it means you haven’t tried hard enough, often enough, or outside your comfort zone enough. Within my consulting practice, I am more than often asking people to try something new, something different and with rare exception, something they’re uncomfortable with. I too subject myself – as often as possible – to this same challenge. In my early years, I found it uncomfortable and in many cases, it made me anxious and fearful, often to the point of resisting the challenge out of the fear of failing. Interestingly enough though, now many years later, I actually find moving out of my comfort zone to be exhilarating.
Mr. Jordan accomplished what most any other person would give their right arm to achieve, and he couldn’t have done it without innovating, and with innovation comes the inevitable reality of some failure. There are so many accomplished people that have done the very same thing, moved out of their comfort zones and experienced failure, and achieved things that they weren’t at all sure they could accomplish from their vantage point.
Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first television job as an anchor in Baltimore, where she said she faced sexism and harassment. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because he, “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” You want one more example? As a sophomore, Michael Jordan was rejected from his high school’s varsity basketball team.
Moving out of ones comfort zone takes guts, and it takes determination in order to grow and improve. But it also requires being open to the notion that things may not always be as you perceive them to be from your perspective.
Recently, I had the good fortune of coaching a somewhat novice sales professional. This person – lets call her Jill – had primarily been a “farmer”, that is most of what she worked on involved business that was brought to her rather than business she had found. A very capable and likeable person, she wanted to take her career to the next level, and that required her to learn how to be a “hunter” versus a farmer only .
She was attentive and highly coachable, and was exposed to methods and strategies for hunting she probably felt were beyond her, but more importantly, made no sense whatsoever to her. When it came time to execute, I know she was overcome with anxiety and fear. She had zero confidence that people blow her off, triggering her worst fears of rejection, let alone any likelihood people would actually be receptive and kind to her.
But, she pushed through it, and put herself into an incredible position of vulnerability based on her fears and trepidations. She picked up the phone and made the call. The first call? Well, as you might have imagined, it didn’t go so well. But she kept at it, and eventually became good at it. Frankly, very good at it. Now, Jill has not only another very valuable skill for her chosen vocation, but a much brighter future as well.
Being good at failing takes guts, but it also takes perseverance because most of us will likely fail a few times before we succeed.
In working with B2B sales people, I have encountered every type of personality imaginable. There have been the upbeat extroverts, the shy and passive, and the everything in-between. What is interesting to me is how often I am wrong about which kind of people actually have what it takes to fail. Never, in my wildest imagination did I think Jill would rise to the challenge. But she did, she found the inner strength, which was likely driven by ambition and the will to succeed.
So, if you compare Jill, Michael, Walt and Oprah, the denominator you will find in common between all four is that they have a passion to become good at what they do, the will to stick their toes into uncomfortable waters, and the perseverance to fail.
And finally, just in case you need further inspiration.
The Beatles were rejected by many record labels. In a famous rejection, the label said, “guitar groups are on the way out” and “the Beatles have no future in show business”.
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