Failures (Published Article)

A number of years ago there was a Nike commercial on television with Michael Jordan. As he walked through a dimly-lit corridor, Jordan’s voice comes on:

I've missed over nine thousand shots in my career.
I've lost almost three hundred games.
Twenty-six times I've been trusted with the game-winning shot... and missed.
I've failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed.

There are few people in this world who can say they have been more successful at anything than Michael Jordan was at basketball.

Life can be a struggle sometimes, and there are many times where things don't seem to go our way. Those are precisely the times when we need to take a step back and look at what is happening and find the lesson.

Our society mentality has become one of “keeping up with the Joneses”, and hand-in-hand with this is the strive for perfection or at least to appear perfect.

But perfection is an unattainable illusion. Nothing on Earth is perfect, and nobody is perfect, because perfection is a perception, which is subjective. What’s perfect for me, may be a disaster for someone else. In any case, everything is imperfect, and that’s why there’s evolution and change. Everything is always getting better or worse, so by definition it couldn’t have been perfect.

The people who spend the most time trying for perfection are the ones who spend the most time covering the realities in their life. They do this because it’s far easier to cover up than it is to actually face the fault and deal with it.

Imagine a house with rotten wood framing. Quickly covering over it with drywall is a far easier prospect than actually remediating the issue, although on the surface it might look the same.
Nevertheless, we’re told that perfection is the way to go, and as humans we look for the quickest and easiest way to the goal.

Society tells us that perfection is having children who are involved in five after-school activities; living in the perfect neighbourhood with the perfect picket fence and driving the perfect European vehicle into our pristine garage. You get the idea.

But what’s the point?

Being perfect doesn’t allow for mistakes, because perfect people don’t make mistakes. Not giving ourselves the freedom to make mistakes means that we aren’t giving ourselves room to learn.

When we fool ourselves into believing that we are always right, that we have “arrived” and that we know everything, it spells disaster, because it means we will stop learning and growing.
So what does this mean for the average person?

Do you know someone who “knows it all”. Where do these people end up? Usually making the same mistakes over and over and progressing very little if at all in their lives. Financial success does not mean success in every facet of life. You don’t need to look far to see wealthy people with dysfunctional home lives. But you can also just as easily find poor people who are tremendously happy with what they have.

No matter what age you’re at, it’s important to take a chance, take the road less travelled and put yourself on the line. Recognize that a “failure” is nothing more than an undesirable outcome from which you can learn.

Succeeding in life is not about being perfect. Successful people aren’t perfect. Successful people are prepared to fail and keep trying. We’re lucky Michael Jordan didn’t stop playing after losing his first game.

Tiger Woods

This weekend Tiger Woods completed his fourth victory at the PGA Championship, his 13th Major, and his 59th victory on the PGA Tour. The big thing is that it's his 13th Major title in his chase of Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 Major titles.

An article in the local newspaper here commented that he is only five majors short of Nicklaus' record. What's interesting about that "only", is that only 13 golfers have won more than five majors in their entire career. Some notables who won five or less include: Seve Ballesteros (5), James Braid (5), Byron Nelson (5) Peter Thomson (5) Raymond Floyd (4), Ernie Els (3) Hale Irwin (3), Phil Mickelson (3), Nick Price (3), Vijay Singh (3), Payne Stewart (3) and Greg Norman (2).

Each one of these players was or is an amazingly talented golfer in his time. All reached the pinnacle of golfing excellence more than once. Even racking up five majors as Seve Ballesteros or the legendary Byron Nelson did in an entire career is mentioned as an "only" in the Tiger Woods realm of golf.

Tiger Woods is only in his early thirties and already has a career that would be impressive for a dozen golfers to share equally - five PGA wins, including a major each!

Look at his current world golf ranking below:

1. Woods 22.10
2. Furyk 8.69
3. Mickelson 8.44
4. Els 7.67
5. Scott 6.48
6. Harrington 6.23
7. Singh 5.88
8. Garcia 5.53
9. Ogilvy 5.49
10. Stenson 5.30

Tiger Woods is so far ahead of the #2 ranked player it's almost embarrassing. In fact the players ranked fourth, fifth and sixth have a combined total number of ranking points less than Tiger alone. Tiger almost outpoints the seventh to tenth ranked quartet.

It's truly amazing.

But what we can all learn from this is that hard work pays off. You only need to look at Tiger's physique compared to the other golfers to see that he spends more time strengthening his muscles than the rest. There's no overhang on his belt, no double chin or loose flesh on his body. For all the people who joke that golf is a a sport just as much as chess and darts should be considered a sport, Tiger gives it credibility.

No one works harder on every aspect of golf than Tiger Woods, and his professionalism is second to none. Tiger has a vision and he expects only the best of himself. And as his record shows, he invariably gets the results.

The Ostrich (Published Article)

The Ostrich, officially named "Struthio camelus" is the largest of the 8,600 bird species, which exist today. Reaching a height of up to 2.6m these birds can weigh up to 135kg, cannot fly, but are very fast runners.

The long-held myth is that ostriches bury their head in the sand when they are frightened. The Canadian Museum of Nature's website states that- "If threatened while sitting on the nest, which is simply a cavity scooped in the earth, the hen presses her long neck flat along the ground, blending with the background. Ostriches, contrary to popular belief, do not bury their heads in the sand."

The term "sticking your head in the sand" has come to mean that you choose to ignore a bad situation, and hope that it will go away on its own. The unfortunate reality is that most of us take that action (really, a lack of action) when faced with a challenge. Sticking your head in the proverbial sand also prevents you from finding out more information that might help resolve the issue.

Every day I open the local newspaper to read about how people are affected by situations, how their life has become a living horror because of something that happened to them. Unfortunately most of these situations were preventable, but a lack of action allowed it to occur.

As children we are brought up with "A stitch in time saves nine" and "prevention is the best medicine", and these hold true for all of life's situations. The hard part is doing something about a potential future disaster rather than waiting for it to happen and then becoming involved in a stressful situation.

When you see something on your horizon take action now. Face your fears, get information, and move yourself to do something.

All too often we look at successful people and wonder how they get all the luck. I recently came across this a few weeks ago with a gentleman I worked with. He is in his fifties and recently moved away from Calgary into semi-retirement on Vancouver Island. He had just bought a boat and a large property overlooking the water.

Someone commented to me "Well it's alright for him. He has money!"

"Ahh yes!" I said, "but when he started dreaming about this ten years ago, he didn't. You're looking at his life nine and a half years into a ten year plan. No wonder it looks easy now, he's basically at the finish line."

No one became an "overnight success" without years of hard work before hand.

What was also interesting was how clear he could see his dreams even before they had materialised. Before he bought his boat he could visualise it, and he could even see where his dog would sleep. Having such a clear vision for what he wanted allowed him to know how to get there. He was able to take the right action because he knew where he wanted to end up. For many of us, it's having that clear vision of where we want to go that's the stumbling block.

When I asked the person who made the comment that this gentleman has "all the luck", I asked her what she wanted for her future. "To be happy," was the answer. But she couldn't tell me what "happy" looked like.

To make your future dreams become a reality it's important to imagine them, and see them clearly. You can't shoot for a goal that you can't see.

It's time to take our collective heads out of the sand, get informed, dream about our future and face our fears.