Every so often, a post will come across social media highlighting “Famous Failures.” Perhaps you’ve seen it before?
The post typically has several photos of famous people, accompanied by a few bullet points outlining the “failures” of their lives. They usually include Michael Jordan being cut from his high school basketball team, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling being rejected by 12 publishers, and Bill Gates being a Harvard University dropout.
The idea is to inspire readers through the resiliency of individuals who went on to achieve success, despite experiencing failure in life.
These are interesting stories, and there is certainly something inspiring about people who were persistent and didn’t give up on their dreams. But sometimes I find the “Famous Failures” post to be misleading, because they present the individual’s failures out of context and don’t tell the whole story.
Take the example of Michael Jordan being cut from his high school basketball team.
Jordan was only a sophomore when he tried out for Laney High School’s varsity basketball team. It is rare for any sophomore at any school to be placed on the varsity squad.
Furthermore, North Carolina High School rules limited the number of players who could dress for a varsity game. At the time, Laney High School had 11 returning seniors from a good team. The circumstances made it a long shot for Jordan to be put on the varsity roster, regardless of his abilities.
His coaches didn’t “cut” him, per se. They just put him on the junior varsity team with the other sophomores, because they believed he would get more playing time there and have a better opportunity to develop as a player. They thought it would help him more in the long run.
Obviously, it did.
Michael Jordan being “cut” from his high school team is more a story of ambition than it is of resiliency. It’s a case of someone dreaming big and not being afraid to pursue that dream.
It takes some real moxie to be a lowly sophomore and have the desire to tryout for a varsity team that already had 11 seniors. That’s dreaming big. That’s ambition.
The situation with J.K. Rowling is very similar. She may have been rejected by 12 publishers, but that is hardly uncommon for someone with her background. She was a first-time author with no following and no history of writing. Major publishing houses don’t normally take chances on unknown authors.
But she pursued the big publishing houses anyway.
Again, her story isn’t as much about resiliency as it is about ambition. Like Michael Jordan, she wasn’t really failing, she was thinking big.
The capacity to think big while others see limits is something good teammates have. Rejection is not a deterrent to them, and it shouldn’t be for you either.
Good teammates are resilient because they don’t fear the possibility of failing. Their willingness to see beyond the safety of their comfort zone inspires those around them. It’s their way of sharing their ambition and their vision with the other members of their team.
And by the way, Bill Gates didn’t fail when he dropped out of Harvard. He was actually a very good student. He willingly withdrew from Harvard because he wanted to devote more time to a business venture he and his friend Paul Allen had been dreaming about, something called Microsoft.
Fortunately, they shared their big dream with the rest of us—their teammates.
As always, remember: Good teammates care. Good teammates share. Good teammates listen. Go be a good teammate.
