I love Michael Jordan. He is one of my heroes. I love him for all that he achieved and how good he was over a long period. But I love him for two other reasons.

1) He practised hard. Sure he was amazingly gifted but he added to talent a huge amount of practice, sweat, a great work ethic, professionalism and a desire to always improve. This made him even better. I remember seeing a photo of him after a game and he would always put his feet in buckets of ice to take best care of himself, reduce swelling and inflammation on his ankles and feet and prepare as best as he could for the next game. I also remember seeing videos of him just practising alone in the gym, reading stories in his book abut him playing practise games back at his old university etc

2) His attitude was inspiring and his perspective challenging. He didn’t let his fears hold him back. To use his words. “I failed over and over again. And that is why I succeed”. He used his failures to spur him on to be better rather than cause him to shrink back and stop. He didn’t measure his success by the failures along the way. He saw the inevitable failures along the way as just part of the process and journey. It reminds me of other famous examples of perseverance.  There is the saying that “amateurs practice until they get it right – champions train until they can’t get it wrong”. I think this is true but if we think about what Michael Jordan says here, perhaps it is more about the perspective. The aim of practice is as the quote says to be perfect and that is at attitudinal thing. But is all reality there will still be failures along the way. But our attitudes then should be that these will spur us forward, that these are not terminal, that these will be the foundation and the footholds on the way to success.

Failing towards success. Does that help change your perspective on failure. Heck, it did Michael Jordan and he is the best ever !