Knocked down, but not out !!!

I’ve failed over and over and over again, that’s why I succeed”

- Michael Jordan, Basketball legend

Success and failure are part of life. In the competitive professional lives we see today, there are challenges that we face regularly. It is not possible to win every battle every day, even for the very best. Let us take the case some sporting GOATs.

Michael Jordan, the NBA all-time great with Chicago Bulls, says that he had missed more than 9000 shots in his career, he had lost around 300 games, 26 of which were ones in which he was entrusted to take the game winning shot and missed. Closer home, Sachin Tendulkar, cricket’s ultimate hero, has played 762 innings in international cricket, of which he has crossed a score of 50 only 264 times. The greatest tennis player in history to many of us, Roger Federer, has lost 54 of the 157 tournament finals he has played in, including 11 of the 31 Grand Slam finals, which means that he loses one out of three finals he plays in. Also, Roger doesn't have a positive win-loss record against his biggest adversaries. These legends have all see failures; still they are seen as the best at what they do.

These stalwarts are what they are, not because they don't lose, but because they play the big games better than others; they handle defeats well, and they have a plan to constantly improve themselves. Now that we are talking about sports heroes, let us look at another legend who calls himself ‘The Greatest’- Muhammad Ali. We have seen many heavyweight champions, what is it that separates Ali from all of them? It is not that he was undefeated and stayed head and shoulders above his competition always; in fact he has seen some really bad defeats in his career. Ali captured the imagination of fans because he came back from defeat, more than once. He was the first heavyweight champion in history to win the title three times.

Highs and lows are part of business life. We come across disappointments in our daily jobs. Take the job of a salesman, or a tele-calling executive. Every call that does not go your way is a disappointment, or a failure. What matters is how many calls turn out good, whether they are meeting their targets or whether they are learning from each cold call. 

Persistence is the hallmark of a real winner. Reaching the top is one thing, but staying at the top and getting back there, after you have been dislodged from your position, calls for a different level of skills altogether. Everyone has highs and lows; but how long you can sustain your purple patch will determine where you will eventually stand in relation to your competitors. Continuous improvement is the key here, if we chase excellence then success invariably comes as by-product. As long as our endeavor is to keep getting better at what we are doing, the occasional defeat will just be a minor blemish in our onward journey.

In our professional careers there are few vital moments, like when there is a job promotion in sight and you are one candidate. You could have a great chance, but then someone else might also have a claim to it. A good job opportunity comes up and you feel that it will give a fillip to your career. What happens in those vital moments is really a function of your level of preparedness for it. It involves how well you are performing in your daily job, whether you are adding value to yourself on a regular basis and whether you are making a difference to your team in the process.

Failure is disappointing, we need to take it in stride and deal with it while we persevere to make sure that the next time we face a similar situation, we will come up trumps. This is the hallmark of a true sportsperson. In our professional roles, it is this quality of a successful sportsman that we need to unleash.

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