.333

Do you know what these numbers represent?  They represent a hall of fame baseball player.  Surprised? Confused?  What this means is a hall of fame baseball player, someone who is considered one of the best in the world at their trade, fails 667 times out of a 1000 at bats.  So here is the question, are you failing enough?  Are you failing hard enough?  You see we are taught by failures that we should avoid failing. However when you look at really successful people they will most often tell you they failed far more than they ever succeeded. In fact that embracing failure is the only reason they are where they are today.  The point is no one remembers your failures except you.  The world loves a winner and has no time for a loser.  I read this quote from Michael Jordan and thought this is a perfect example of the message I am attempting to convey.

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career, I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over in my life. And that's why I succeed!" - Michael Jordan

Now depending on who you talk to most people agree that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player who ever lived.  Obviously if you want to become the best in the world at something then you have to learn to fail and fail hard.  You see real failure never occurs until you decide to quit. When you intensely focus on something and persist until you know what works and what doesn’t magical things happen. As Henry Ford says “Failure is simply another opportunity to start again more intelligently.”

Have you ever heard the saying “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.”  That is true but I believe a better way to put it is “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” Dare to suck at something. Think about a baby.  Do babies begin walking perfectly? Most don’t. Instead they fall down, get back up, and continue that pattern until they have it down.  Would you ever tell a baby they only have a finite number of attempts to learn to walk? Treat your life as if you are a baby attempting to walk.  Cut yourself some slack and allow yourself to learn something new that is in line with your purpose and strengths.  Do it over and over until you become a master at it.  In his book The Ultimate Sales Machine Chet Holmes says mastery isn’t about doing 12,000 things 4 times.  Instead it is about doing 4 things 12,000 times.  I urge you do adopt the same philosophy.

Lastly understand the 4 levels of learning.  They are:

Unconscious Incompetence---We don’t know what we don’t know
Conscious Incompetence----We now know what we don’t know
Conscious Competence---Now we know
Unconscious Competence---Now we just do it without even thinking about it

The goal is to get you to unconscious competence.  To do that you are going to fail so fail hard. Really go out there and screw things up.  Fail with a smile on your face and understand that God is less concerned with your comfort as he is with your character. Now along the road of success you will come across a lot of naysayers including people who are close to you.  If your friends and family member aren’t laughing at your goal it isn’t big enough. Ignore them and allow their criticisms to fuel your fire. Also remember, no one ever built a statue in honor of a critic.  It is easy to criticize the people who are following their dreams.  Purposeful driven people make people who are stuck in neutral uncomfortable.  That’s ok. It’s your life. Success is the ultimate revenge and the people who believe it is impossible should not stand in the way those who are already doing it.   So fail, fail really really hard!

Jordan Freed-Author and Creator of You Need Freed Technologies

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Next Time: Are you Febreezing your Life?