One final lesson from this week's Super Bowl. The lesson comes from a favorite quote of mine from Zig Ziglar. "Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker."
It seems unreasonable that some would consider the Patriot's season a failure simply because they lost the Super Bowl.
But let's go along with that thinking. So what? Does that mean that Tom Brady will pack it in and give up on football? Absolutely not!
The legendary coach, Vince Lombardy, after whom the Super Bowl trophy is named was an assistant coach at Fordham University at age 35. After that he went to West Point where his coaching career endured two seasons where 43 out of 45 players were discharged by adminstrative order. Finally, in his 40's he made it to the NFL. Was he a failure up to that point?
In baseball, Hank Aaron, the home run king who beat Babe Ruth's record, struck out more than 99% of all other baseball players.
Now most would consider being a line coach at a small, unknown school somewhat of a failure. Then at Army the circumstances certainly would not qualify for success in today's world. Even though the players were the ones out of line, typically the coach takes the rap at some point. Neither would the strike out king be up for an award either. Unless perhaps our definitions of success and failure begin with the wrong presuppositions.
People who succeed also fail, and fail often. So how do they become a success?
They persevere. They stay in the game. They get ready for the next season, the next game. They keep practicing and keep learning from their mistakes.
But above all...
They never let failure become their undertaker!
This was very uplifting and very much needed today. Thank you!
Posted by: Nicole | February 13, 2012 at 11:01 AM