One of my favorite commercials features this little boy trying to hit a baseball. He declares himself the greatest hitter in the world, throws the ball up, swings, and misses. He calls that strike one, but again, declares himself the greatest hitter in the world. Once more, picks up the ball, throws it up in the air, swings, and for the second time, misses. The boy calls that strike two, but doesn't stop. For the third time, he declares himself the greatest hitter in the world, and repeats the whole process, and, for the final time, misses again. With that being strike three, he stands silently for a moment, before finally screaming, "I'm the greatest pitcher in the world!"
After something devastating happens, or things don't go the way we want them too, we're now faced with the challenge of how to overcome feeling bad. We mope, complain, look for excuses, but in the end, we just feel awful. Confidence is loss, we say we suck, and we struggle with how we're supposed to move on. It's important to note that, as my Business Law teacher once said, "Failure is an event, not a person." If we let ourselves feel bad for one thing that happens, then we let it affect everything that follows.
In statistics, there Law of Averages is non-existent, but numbers aren't always a good tool in life. I remember watching a Seattle Sonic basketball game, and the commentator was telling a story about Ray Allen. Allen had shot five three-pointers, and had only made one of them. Rather than feel put down about making only one, Allen said to himself that since he's a 40% 3-point shooter, then he's going to make three out of his next five, because then he'll average out to 40%. The way I like to think about it, a below average performance just means that an above average performance is soon to come.
I'm a big fan of Rocky Balboa, so here's some words of wisdom from Rocky himself to complete this lesson!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1tXhJniSEc
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